Sunday Night Owls: A year after Iranian general was assassinated, U.S. policy needs a big rethink

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17 DAYS UNTIL JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS TAKE THE OATH OF OFFICE

Paul R. Pillar at Responsible Statecraft writes—A year ago the U.S. assassinated a national leader:

Sunday marks the first anniversary of the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani by the United States, using an armed drone at the Baghdad International Airport. Soleimani was a major political and military figure whose role went well beyond his formal position as commander of the Quds force within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. His influence over much of Iran’s security policy was probably second only to that of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. [...]

Maybe the books will stay open indefinitely and no more Iranian retaliation will ensue if U.S.-Iranian relations get on a more stable track under the Biden administration. But the unbalanced nature of the books will always be in the background of the relationship. Iranians’ long memories of how they believe they have been wronged are reflected in, for example, how they never stop referencing the U.S.- and British-instigated coup that overthrew a popular Iranian prime minister in 1953. [...]

Meanwhile, the Soleimani assassination and its anniversary ought to provide occasion for Americans to think carefully about the nature of what each side in this badly plagued relationship has done to the other. The most often recited U.S. accusation against Soleimani is that he had American blood on his hands by virtue of his relationship with Iraqi elements that fought against U.S. forces during the occupation of Iraq after the U.S. invasion of that country in 2003. Of course Americans should mourn and honor their fallen countrymen, and recognize as wartime enemies those who have inflicted casualties among them, even in a military expedition as misguided as the 2003 Iraq War. That does not preclude an effort to understand what such enemies did and why they did it.

The United States started that war in Iraq with an act of aggression in March 2003. It did so shortly after declaring Iran — despite its post-9/11 cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan — to be part of an “axis of evil.” It did so in a country that shares a 900-mile border with Iran and from which Iraq started its own war of aggression against Iran that inflicted enormous costs and casualties in the 1980s. For Soleimani and his colleagues to assist Iraqi elements resisting the U.S. military occupation of Iraq was, probably in the eyes of most Iranians, an honorable and even necessary duty for an officer to perform in the interest of Iranian national security amid an ongoing, U.S.-initiated war. [...]

THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING

• Progressives Hope Paygo Exemptions in House Rules Will Pave Way for Big Reforms, by Julia Conley. "Paygo's the biggest scam of the decade, designed to legitimize the fear-mongering over artificial deficits. This is a big win by progressives."  
• Expand the Postal Service in 2021, by John Nichols. Postal workers got us through 2020 by delivering life-saving medicine and democracy-saving ballots. It’s vital that Biden build up the USPS.  
• Trump and Iran in Last 17 Days: Will they or Won’t They? by Juan Cole. “Trump's economic and financial blockade on Iran is such that things could always spiral out of control."

TOP COMMENTS • RESCUED DIARIES

QUOTATION

"A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang." ~~Benjamin Franklin, Words of the Founding Fathers, Selected Quotations of Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton, with Sources. (2012)

TWEET OF THE DAY  

The Medal was degraded when he gave it to Rush Limbaugh. already been degraded. Now it will literally be worth nothing. Who, besides Trump sycophants and henchmen, would ever want one? https://t.co/5w53EfX69B

— digby (@digby56) January 4, 2021

BLAST FROM THE PAST

At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—This is not your father's labor market:

A study by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University has been getting some attention well after its mid-December release. The New York Times explored one aspect of it last Friday. I discussed another piece of it last Wednesday Called The Shattered American Dream: Unemployed Workers Lose Ground, Hope, and Faith in their Futures, it does not paint a pretty picture for Americans who lost their jobs in the Great Recession. Millions of them are still unemployed. And, as Catherine Rampell at the Times points out, many of those who have gotten re-employed aren't doing so well:

Nearly 7 in 10 of the survey’s respondents who took jobs in new fields say they had to take a cut in pay, compared with just 45 percent of workers who successfully found work in their original field.

Of all the newly re-employed tracked by the Heldrich Center, 29 percent took a reduction in fringe benefits in their new job. Again, those switching careers had to sacrifice more: Nearly half of these workers (46 percent) suffered a benefits cut, compared with just 29 percent who stayed in the same career.

Many of those who found work in a different field say they have come to terms with the limited opportunities, but they are reluctant to see their new job as a calling.

Monday through Friday you can catch the Kagro in the Morning Show 9 AM ET by dropping in here, or you can download the Stitcher app (found in the app stores or at Stitcher.com), and find a live stream there, by searching for "Netroots Radio.”

Source: Daily Kos