At the end of December, 2019, Iranian backed
militias in Baghdad attacked the US embassy
in an attempt to storm it.
The embassy assault came after over a dozen
separate attacks on other American and coalition
bases throughout the country, which had resulted
in the death of one American contractor and
four service members.
In all likelihood, the attack on the American
embassy in Baghdad was purely symbolic, and
meant to ignite a frenzy of fresh attacks
against American targets in the nation.
Shortly after the attack on the US embassy,
American intelligence tracked Iranian General
Qasem Soleimani as he landed in Baghdad international
airport in a private plane.
There he met with a high ranking Iraqi official,
Abu Madhi al-Muhandis, and the two quickly
climbed into a two car convoy.
Minutes later, a firestorm of tensions would
erupt between Iran and the USA when missiles
fired from US drones destroyed the convoy
- but who exactly was General Qasem Soleimani?
Why are these two nations at each other’s
throat once more?
And is this situation similar to past events
that have lead to massive global conflicts
including world wars?
General Qasem Soleimani is a figure well known
by NATO and Israeli commanders, and much-hated
by both groups.
Soleimani got his start during the Iran-Iraq
War of 1980, where he rose through the ranks
from delivering water to troops at the front
to becoming a senior commander.
With a keen strategic mind, by his late twenties
Soleimani was already a veteran senior military
official.
He would make a name for himself inside the
Iranian revolution's new leadership not just
for his ability to command troops at the front,
but for coordinating raiding parties who traveled
deep into Iraq.
Soleimani was already displaying a talent
for asymmetrical warfare- the unconventional
style of warfare that makes use of terrorist,
insurgent and even criminal elements to wage
a non-traditional war against a traditional
military power.
His abilities as a brilliant asymmetrical
tactician would soon see him in command of
the legendary Iran Quds Force- a military
force that fights Iranian conflicts outside
of the nation, with the express goal of toppling
Israel and removing the US and other Western
powers from the Middle East while expanding
Iranian influence in the region.
Labeled a terrorist organization by the US
and many other nations, Quds Force operatives
employ terrorists and criminal networks to
conduct their operations, and for over two
decades Soleimani was the brains behind the
Quds Force.
Under Soleimani's leadership, the Quds Force
trained and equipped Hezbollah into a force
to be let loose against Israel, and launched
attacks against Israel in Lebanon and from
inside Israeli territory itself.
Soleimani was also responsible for creating
a vast network of militia forces across the
Middle East and unifying them in purpose,
then turning them against the US and its allies-
no easy feat for a region that is plagued
by conflicts that span back generations.
It was also Soleimani who bailed out the Syrian
government, shipping millions of dollars of
weapons, equipment, and cash to Damascus directly.
For American military commanders though, his
most heinously evil act was the thousands
of high-explosive penetrator munitions that
he shipped to Iraqi militias that were then
used against American and NATO troops- these
high-tech explosive booby traps were capable
of defeating heavy vehicle armor and responsible
for killing hundreds, and wounding thousands
more coalition troops.
But while Soleimani has traditionally been
a major American enemy, there was a time when
things weren't quite that way, and perhaps
history as we know it could have been averted.
When the US began combat operations in Iraq
and Afghanistan, it got unexpected help from
a longtime adversary.
Because the US had, and continues to have,
no official diplomatic ties with Iran, secret
meetings between US officials and Iranian
officials took place in Geneva, with Iranian
representatives being sent there on behalf
of none other than Soleimani.
Through these meetings Soleimani expressed
his support for the US invasions of Iraq and
Afghanistan, a move which no doubt shocked
many in the White House.
The reasoning for Iran's support of the invasions
was simple pragmatism.
Iran hated the Taliban and had been fighting
covertly to limit their influence for years,
and with Shiites in Iraq being suppressed
by the ruling Sunni minority, Iran loved nothing
more than to see their greatest adversary-
Sunni Saddam Hussein- removed from power.
Not only was he brutally suppressing the Shiite
majority, but he was after all the man responsible
for launching the deadly Iran-Iraq War.
Soleimani's cooperation was incredible in
the early months of the war, with his agents
providing American military planners with
targeting data for both Taliban and Iraqi
military targets.
Iranian-backed militias even aided coalition
troops by capturing high value targets and
turning them over for arrest.
For the first time in decades, the US and
Iran seemed to be secretly drawing closer
together, and inside of Iran there was already
some calling for a reconciliation with the
US.
Then President Bush delivered his infamous
Axis of Evil speech, where he named Iran as
one of the three major perpetrators of evil
in the world.
In Washington, the speech was received with
great applause.
In Geneva, the speech was a political disaster.
The secret meeting with Iranian officials
coordinated by Soleimani immediately stopped,
as did the secret cooperation between the
US and Iran against Iraqi insurgents and Taliban
forces.
Overnight, President Bush had destroyed any
hope of reconciliation, and cooperation, with
Iran.
Immediately after the Axis of Evil speech,
Soleimani directed his Quds Force and the
various militias he had groomed for years
to begin open warfare against NATO forces.
Where before Soleimani had worked behind the
scenes to aid US efforts against Al Qaeda,
Taliban, and other insurgent forces in both
Iraq and Afghanistan, he now turned his efforts
to directly supplying and even training those
same forces.
Soleimani weaved together a system of alliances
that ran from Afghanistan all the way into
Syria and Israel's doorstep, and at his disposal
was tens of thousands of jihadis militia fighters
which he turned on NATO over the course of
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Perhaps Soleimani's greatest victory though
came when Iraq's first national elections
took place.
While the US would claim this event as a great
victory in its efforts to rebuild Iraq, the
truth is that Soleimani had completely outwitted
and outmaneuvered America.
Using his vast array of contacts across the
various tribal and ethnic groups.
Soleimani managed to help elect many officials
that he had personally handpicked.
In the end, Iraq's new government was overwhelmingly
in Soleimani's pocket, and has largely remained
so to this day.
This Iraq ace-in-the-hole that Soleimani had
created for himself would pay off in spades
when he 'asked' the Iraqi government to allow
Iranian aircraft to fly across its airspace
in order to deliver critical supplies to Syria's
al-Assad.
Every single day transport aircraft delivered
critical military and other supplies to Damascus-
when al-Assad and his government was on the
ropes and the verge of defeat, Iran's influence
over Iraq managed to save the day and ensure
the pro-democracy revolution in Syria would
fail.
Soleimani has been on an American hit-list
for a very long time, not just for his actions
in the Middle East, but also for international
efforts to attack American resources and those
of its allies.
Seeking to bring the fight to America's doorstep,
Soleimani once reached out to a Mexican drug
cartel member in a bid to carry out an assassination
of a Saudi official inside a Washington D.C.
restaurant.
Unknown to Soleimani though that cartel member
happened to be a DEA informant, and the US
quickly put an end to the plot.
Sanctioned as a terrorist organization, the
Iranian Quds Force and its commander, Qasem
Soleimani, were thus legal targets for an
American airstrike, and his elimination has
no doubt severely hurt Iran's ability to operate
across the Middle East.
Now though people are asking: could this lead
to a major war- potentially even a world war?
Drawing a parallel to the assassination of
Arch Duke Ferdinand in World War I, the US
strike against Soleimani has many worried
about what might happen next.
For Iran though, the options are far more
limited than they were for Austria-Hungary
in World War I, mostly because Iran lacks
the powerful allies that Austria-Hungary enjoyed
at turn of the 20th century Europe.
Without Germany, Austria-Hungary could never
have attempted to seek revenge on the Serbian
government for the killing of Arch Duke Ferdinand,
and thus snowball the series of diplomatic
catastrophes that launched World War I.
To make matters worse, Europe was already
a simmering bed of potential conflict.
The Ottoman Empire was in full decline after
centuries and steadily retreating out of Europe,
leaving behind territories that were quickly
claimed by European powers.
A detente of sorts between Europe's major
powers had spurned on an arms race, and the
smallest of matches could ignite a firestorm-
as it inevitably did.
In the present day, the political situation
in the Middle East is simply not similar enough
to pre-World War I Europe to threaten a full-blown
global war between major powers.
Iran remains relatively isolated on the world
stage, and not even Russia or China- the US's
traditional competitors- are too interested
in risking the ire of the US by drawing close
to the rogue nation.
If Iran chooses to retaliate militarily against
the US for the killing of Soleimani, then
it would do so completely on its own, and
that would be tantamount to national suicide.
Instead, Iran will seek to attack the US and
its allies covertly, using its wide array
of unconventional forces and terrorist, insurgent
and criminal allies- many of which were groomed
into Iranian service by Soleimani- to attack
Western interests indirectly.
What we should expect to see is a wave of
terrorist attacks against American and NATO
targets in the region, along with attacks
against Iran's long-time adversary and US
ally, Saudi Arabia.
The true risk of a global war doesn't come
from the Middle East, as in this region of
the world the only American adversary with
any influence is Russia, and even that influence
is quite limited in scope.
Russia for its part is happy to continue its
strategy of slowly subverting the West by
attacking its democracies, and with President
Trump giving Syria up to Turkey and Russia
by withdrawing US troops and abandoning America's
longtime Kurdish allies, Russia's Putin is
more than pleased to continue challenging
the US indirectly and instead simply seize
greater influence small piece by small piece.
With Syria being delivered to Russia on a
silver platter, the struggling former superpower
is more than happy with restoring its ability
to influence the Mediterranean via naval bases
in Syria.
Despite rhetoric from both the US and Russia,
the only true risk of a major war comes from
China's violation of international agreements
in the South Pacific.
Starting in the early 2000s, when China thought
that the US was distracted by Iraq and Afghanistan,
the Chinese began to build up small atolls
in the South China sea into full-sized islands
that could house Chinese military forces.
This was an attempt by China to secure the
majority of the South China Sea and its vast
mineral, oil, and fish wealth, for itself
by claiming all the waters around the artificial
islands- despite them being more than a thousand
miles away from mainland China.
Soon, Chinese national oil companies had towed
oil barges into waters that traditionally
belonged to Vietnam and other South Asia nations,
and even built a fleet of unarmed coast guard
vessels equipped with water cannons to bully
fishing boats from other nations out of the
South China sea.
China claimed that it was merely enforcing
its territorial claims to the waters, and
deferred to an ancient map of Chinese territory
known as the 'seven-dash-line map'.
This map was internationally unrecognized,
and China's claims officially shut down in
the international court at The Hague.
Despite this, China continued its process
of converting small atolls into full-fledged
islands via dredging operations, then began
to base military equipment on those islands.
The US’s President Obama responded by greatly
increasing America’s naval presence in the
South China Sea, and transferring naval firepower
from its Atlantic fleet to its Pacific fleet.
China agreed to seize the reclamation of islands
across the region, but to this day refuses
to tear down existing military structures
and has actually taken steps to reinforce
those military positions.
In response to this buildup, the US has regularly
sent military vessels on freedom of navigation
exercises through waters that China claims.
According to international law when a foreign
military vessel moves through another nation's
waters, it must do so as expediently as possible.
Instead, the US works to make China's claims
illegitimate by sending its ships on slow,
zig-zagging courses through the waters around
the disputed islands.
Every time that a US naval vessel enters the
disputed waters, the Chinese navy responds
and warns the American ship to leave the area-
a request which is promptly ignored by the
American navy.
While international opinion is against China,
and the world's support is behind the US's
freedom of navigation exercises, there is
nonetheless a major risk of conflict between
the two nations during these operations.
Should a Chinese military official feel particularly
aggressive one day and order a US vessel to
be fired on, the retaliation by the American
navy would be swift and overwhelming, leading
to a full-blown state of war between the two
nations.
Further adding to the risk of conflict between
the two powers though is the situation in
Taiwan.
Having broken away from the mainland after
the Communist revolution in China, Taiwan
today is an independent democratic state-
although most of the world doesn't recognize
it as such out of fear of angering China.
For its part, China is determined to reunite
Taiwan with the mainland- and while it claims
it will not use force to do so, the Chinese
military regularly practices amphibious operations
which can have only one target: Taiwan.
Taiwan is officially protected by the United
States, which has on numerous occasions publicly
declared its willingness to use military force
against China in defense of the democratic
nation.
In the 1990s when tensions between China and
Taiwan hit a crisis point, a US carrier task
force was dispatched to the area and China
immediately stood down its military forces,
knowing it could not possibly challenge even
a single American task force.
That humiliation has not been forgotten by
China, and it has worked extremely hard over
the last three decades to ensure that it would
not be humiliated in such a fashion ever again
on its own shores.
Today it's highly unlikely that China could
successfully invade Taiwan even without US
intervention.
Tides in the Taiwan Strait make a military
invasion possible only on two separate two-week
periods throughout the year, and China lacks
the amphibious capability to launch a contested
landing on the few Taiwanese beaches that
a landing could take place.
To even prepare for such an invasion, China
would have to spend over a month gathering
up the resources to launch an attack, commandeering
hundreds of civilian ships to be used as troops
carriers.
Even then, the only hope would be for China
to seize a working Taiwanese port- something
that is incredibly unlikely to happen.
Despite this though, China's Xi Jinping knows
that his Communist party's continued existence
is in jeopardy the longer democratic Taiwan
is allowed to remain independent.
Even more pressing though is the fact that
for as long as China is unable to militarily
retake Taiwan, it will signal to the world
that it is not a true global power.
What global power after all can't even take
back an island right on its own doorstep?
The Taiwan situation is an ongoing international
embarrassment for the Chinese communist party,
and the pressure to act builds day by day.
Even if the worst comes to pass in either
Taiwan or the South China sea though, the
conflict has no chance of escalating into
a major world war.
China, like Iran, lacks any major allies-
while it has tremendous power to influence
or intimidate even European nations thanks
to its great economic might, no major power
in the world would ever respond to aid China
in the case of war.
To further complicate matters, a war between
the US and China would end relatively quickly
and not go very well for China for a number
of reasons.
First is the fact that the Chinese military
has no real experience to speak of, and routinely
under performs even in highly favorable exercise
scenarios.
China has never waged a modern war, while
the US brings a staggering amount of experience
to the table.
Secondly, China has a critical vulnerability
that it has tried to desperately overcome
in recent years: it relies overwhelmingly
on naval trade.
Not only is the Chinese navy very weak in
comparison to the American navy, it is also
unable to operate far from Chinese shores,
and lacks international support that it desperately
needs in order to protect Chinese naval trade
from American ships.
Most of China's trade takes place through
the sea, and most of that trade has to pass
through several choke points across island
nations in the South Pacific that China can't
reach to defend from American vessels.
To make matters worse, most of these nations
have dispositions favorable to the US.
While China has tried to circumvent this national
weakness by its belt and road initiative,
which saw it build trade infrastructure across
the Asian continent which included rail and
highways, it is still critically vulnerable
to an American blockade.
In short, a war between the two powers would
be bloody but very short, with China starved
into submission as it's unable to protect
its vital trade arteries.
The truth is that the overwhelming firepower
of the American navy and the world's slow
pivot to democratic ideals makes a world war
almost impossible.
Most nations today align ideologically with
NATO's democratic ideals, and the only two
powers capable of launching major military
campaigns against the US are themselves isolated
on the world stage.
Of course a world war isn't necessary for
plenty of death and destruction to occur,
but it's encouraging to know that at least
for now the world won't be seeing the massive
violence between modern nations that scoured
the first half of the 20th century.
Did you learn something from this video and
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