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commentary
It Was Time for an Administration
to Break Foreign-Policy ‘Rules’
F

or 20 years, he had sowed terror and 
confusion throughout the Middle 
East with impunity. As head of Iran’
s 
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), 
Qassem Soleimani was the mastermind 
of the world’
s leading state sponsor of ter-
rorism, as well as the second 
most powerful person with-
in that oppressive Islamist 
theocracy. No matter how 
much mayhem he spread, he 
believed that he was untouch-
able. And three American 
administrations run by both 
Democrats and Republicans validated that 
belief, forgoing opportunities to kill the man 
who had the blood of many Americans and 
countless Syrians, Lebanese, Israelis and 
others on his hands.
But following the orchestration of attacks 
on American forces in Iraq and the stag-
ing of an assault on the U.S. embassy in 
Baghdad, Soleimani’
s get-out-of-jail free 
card that he had been given by the interna-
tional community and successive American 
presidents expired.
When an American drone killed him 

along with the leader of Iran’
s Iraqi terrorist 
auxiliaries, what happened was more than 
a settling of scores. It proclaimed to the 
world that the old rules by which Iran had 
been able to do its worst against the United 
States, Israel and the West — never to face 
any consequences — were no longer valid.
Much like his moves to recognize 
Jerusalem as Israel’
s capital and move the 
U.S. embassy there, Trump’
s authorization 
of the attack on Soleimani proclaims that he 
has thrown out the foreign-policy rulebook 
that had restrained America in the past — 
rules that wound up shielding bad actors 
like Soleimani.
There’
s no way of knowing how far the 
Iranian regime will go in order to retali-
ate for the major blow they have received. 
American citizens and assets are now at 
risk. Yet it is also possible that, as was the 
case with Trump’
s pro-Israel policies, pre-
dictions of the world blowing up over this 
will be exaggerated.
What we do know is that this is likely to 
prove a crucial moment in the history of 
the modern Middle East. For 40 years since 
the Islamic Revolution took place in Iran, 

the regime has been able to go on pursuing 
its agenda of regional hegemony via terror 
and subversion with the West acting as if 
it could not or would not try to do much 
about it.
Indeed, the guiding principle of the 
Obama administration’
s foreign policy was 
an effort to appease and accommodate the 
Iranians, no matter what they did. President 
Barack Obama said he hoped the nuclear 
deal he negotiated with Tehran in 2015 
would enable the regime to “get right with 
the world.” But the ayatollahs didn’
t want 
that opportunity. What they wanted was 
the West’
s seal of approval for their nucle-
ar program and access to foreign markets 
to sell the oil that would finance their pet 
terrorists like the IRGC. the regine bluffed 
Obama into conceding point after point in 
the negotiations to where the pact actually 
guaranteed that Iran would eventually get 
a nuclear weapon, while at the same time 
enriching and empowering the regime. And 
after that, it doubled down on its adventur-
ism, laying waste to Syria while consolidat-
ing control in Lebanon and attempting to 
do the same in Iraq.

Jonathan 
Tobin

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