[CIA Director Mike] Pompeo, who has voiced staunch opposition to Iran, said he sent the letter to Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a leader of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and elite Quds Force, but the general didn't read it.
"I sent a note. I sent it because he had indicated that forces under his control might in fact threaten U.S. interests in Iraq," Pompeo said at a defense forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute in Simi Valley, California. "He refused to open the letter — didn't break my heart to be honest with you."
"What we were communicating to him in that letter was that we will hold he and Iran accountable ... and we wanted to make sure that he and the leadership of Iran understood that in a way that was crystal clear."
Perhaps Soleimani should have read that letter.
Oh, and in one way Democrats slamming the killing of Soleimani are being consistent in expressing opposition to using a drone to kill our jihadi enemies. Even when Obama had his drone kill list, he was against using them to kill actual jihadis inside Iraq.
When ISIL took over huge swathes of Iraqi territory by mid-2014, the Obama administration--with its drone "kill list"--denied that Iraq had asked for drone support until May. But that was not true as newspaper reporting from 2013 indicated. As I responded:
Seriously? The Obama administration is willing to kill terrorists via drone everywhere except Iraq?*
The Democratic opposition to killing Soleimani is basically that he is just too good at killing people to provoke. Doesn't that just reward really good terrorists? Curling up in a fetal position in the face of terrorist threats is no way to stop terrorism.
I think it is pointless to discuss whether there will be more or less violence by Iran as the result of our killing of Al Quds leader Soleimani. Iran has been waging war against America at various levels of intensity and scope for over forty years.
That fluctuating war will rage until the mullah regime is destroyed (hopefully from internal revolt). Any fluctuation from Soleimani's deserved death will be mere noise in the larger picture.
But I do find it unintentionally funny that the author points out that Trump did not know who Soleimani or Quds were when he ran for office. Perhaps for thug terrorists, the lesson is that it is best not to catch the attention of Trump and let him know your name.
UPDATE: Killing Soleimani was a really big deal according to Petraeus. Sure, unlike non-state actors he had the resources and diplomatic cover of a state to make his terrorism more effective.
*I corrected a typo in this quote and changed it in the original where I typed "everwhere".
