CFS Have a second? I wanted to share the op-ed I wrote for the New York Times
on why President Trump was right to take out the terrorist Qassim Suleimani. In
service, Tom

<[link removed]>
John,

I wanted to share the op-ed I wrote for the New York Times on why President
Trump was right to take out the terrorist Qassim Suleimani.

In service,

Tom

The Case for Killing Qassim Suleimani

The strike was justified and legally sound.

By Tom Cotton
Mr. Cotton is a Republican Senator from Arkansas.

Jan. 10, 2020

Last week, our military and intelligence services brought justice to Qassim
Suleimani, Iran's terror mastermind. President Trump ordered General
Suleimani's killing after months of attacks on Americans by Iran's proxy forces
in Iraq. These attacks culminated in a rocket strike that killed an American
and wounded others, then the attempted storming of our embassy in Baghdad. The
first attack crossed the red line drawn by the president last summer – that if
Iran harmed an American, it would face severe consequences. The president meant
what he said, as Mr. Suleimani learned the hard way.

Mr. Suleimani's killing was justified, legal and strategically sound. But the
president's critics swarmed as usual. After the embassy attack, a Democratic
senator declared that the president had "rendered America impotent." Some
Democrats then pivoted after the Suleimani strike, calling him "reckless" and
"dangerous." Those are the words of Senator Elizabeth Warren, who also
described Mr. Suleimani – the leader of a State Department-designated Foreign
Terrorist Organization plotting to kill American troops – as a "senior foreign
military official." Senator Bernie Sanders likened America's killing of a
terrorist on the battlefield to Vladimir Putin's assassination of Russian
political dissidents.

Some Democrats seem to feel a strange regret for the killing of a monster who
specialized in killing Americans. The linguist his proxies killed on Dec. 27,
Nawres Hamid, was merely his last victim out of more than 600 in Iraq since
2003. His forces have instigated attacks against our troops in Afghanistan. He
plotted a (foiled) bombing in Washington, D.C., and attempted attacks on the
soil of our European allies. He armed the terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon
with rockets to pummel the Jewish state of Israel. And he was greeted moments
before his death by a terrorist responsible for the bombing of our embassy in
Kuwait in 1983.

Some of the president's critics will concede that Mr. Suleimani was an evil
man, but many complain his killing was unlawful. Wrong again. He was a United
States-designated terrorist commander. As I have been briefed, he was plotting
further attacks against Americans at the time of his death. The authority
granted to the president under Article II of the Constitution provides ample
legal basis for this strike. Furthermore, those who accept the
constitutionality of the War Powers Act should recall that Congress's 2001 and
2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force very much remain in effect and
clearly cover the Suleimani operation. This will be a relief to the Obama
administration, which ordered hundreds of drone strikes using such a legal
rationale.

American forces are in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government, and
they have every right and authority to defend themselves. This legal act of
self-defense was not only proportionate – it was targeted and brilliantly
executed, causing essentially no collateral damage.

So the killing was justified and legally sound. It was also strategically
sensible. If Iran's anemic response on Tuesday is any indication, the Suleimani
strike has already restored deterrence – and our troops in the region are safer
for it. To put it simply, the ayatollahs are once again afraid of the United
States because of this bold action, which is forcing them to recalculate their
odds. In 2019 alone, Iran's violent provocations included mining ships in the
Strait of Hormuz, downing an American drone and threatening the global economy
by striking Saudi oil facilities. President Trump chose restraint at the time
but promised ferocious retaliation in the event of American casualties. The
mullahs must have thought that he was bluffing. Now they're compelled to face
the reality of America's vast overmatch of their forces.

The weeks and months ahead will tell whether the Islamic Republic is
successfully deterred – but it has been deterred in the past, for example, when
Ronald Reagan sank much of the Iranian Navy in 1988. (It has never successfully
been appeased, and President Barack Obama's attempts to buy off Iran with his
nuclear deal only fueled the regime's imperialism and regional campaign of
terror.) Iran is not 10-feet tall. In fact, it's a weak, third-rate power.

Because of this administration's maximum-pressure campaign, the regime
manages an economy trapped in a deepening depression. To remain in power, it
must mass murder its own people, which it did as recently as November. If
maximum pressure is maintained, the ayatollahs will eventually face a choice
between fundamentally changing their behavior or suffering economic and social
collapse. They may also choose to lash out in a desperate bid to escape this
logic, perhaps by making a break for a nuclear bomb. Such impulses must be
deterred or, if recklessly pursued, halted with swift and firm action, as the
president promised on Wednesday.

This tough-minded approach is not a distraction from America's competition
with more serious adversaries like China and Russia, who watch our actions
closely in the Gulf for signs of commitment and resolve. Our long-term
challenge with China, in particular, directly involves the Middle East's energy
resources, to which access remains critical for our allies in the Indo-Pacific,
and indeed for China itself – regardless of important strides in America's
domestic energy production.

The future of our Iran policy is a critical part of our success in the global
competition that will determine the character of this century and the safety of
the American republic within it. And recent events have shown we are up to the
task.

Tom Cotton (@sentomcotton <[link removed]>) is a Republican
Senator from Arkansas.

###











Senator Cotton was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army.
Images do not imply endorsement by the Department of Defense or any service
branch.

PO Box 7504
Little Rock, AR 72217-7504



PAID FOR BY COTTON FOR SENATE
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