By Kambiz Zarrabi

January 24, 2020 "Information Clearing House" -  It is so noteworthy that any reference to the assassinated Iranian commander of the IRGC, Soleimani, by television commentators, and especially by the members of our Congress and other government officials, begins with the preamble that he was a bad, bad actor who had the blood of so many Americans on his hands. Why? Simple: Without emphasizing that point they might not appear "patriotic" enough!

The President and the Secretary of State have referred to him as the world's worst terrorist in charge of a terrorist organization that is the terror arm of Iran, which is itself the world's chief promoter of international terrorism. These characterizations are now fully established in everyone's mind, not to be questioned; and that's that - case closed.

Even the Iranian/American so-called scholars appearing as expert commentators during televised interviews either concur with, or choose not to question, the adjectives casually used in referring to Soleimani, the IRGC, or the Islamic Republic of Iran.

What's this all about? Let's ask a few questions:

Has the Islamic Republic of Iran been involved in the affairs of the Middle East, from Afghanistan to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere? Remember, that's Iran's own backyard. Yes, it has.

Has the IRGC's foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, headed by General Soleimani, been the principle element of Iran's attempt to promote its interests in the region? Yes.

Have these operations also resulted in the deaths of Americans, as well as many others, in the Middle East theater of war? Yes.

So, Aren't these allegations, in fact, statements of the truth? Yes, they are; but not the whole truth. Partial truths could lead us to unintended, but most often deliberately misleading, conclusions!

Let's do a little comparison to better understand this years-long drama:

Has the United States inserted itself for decades in the affairs of the Middle East, half-way around the world? Yes.

Have these involvements included the presence of military forces, massive sales of arms, and the creations of alliances of conveniences to serve America's stated purpose? Yes.

Have these activities caused the deaths of thousands of Americans, and of over a million local people, in addition to a near total devastation of the regional infrastructures and economies, from Afghanistan all the way to the Mediterranean Sea? Yes.

Now, let's set aside the cliché that one man's terrorist is another man's hero or freedom-fighter, and look at who General Soleimani was, whose assassination the Iranian nation mourns, and Iran's enemies celebrate:

The eight-year-war (1980-88) that Iraq's Saddam Hussein waged against the fledgling Islamic Republic of Iran soon after the hostage crisis, has always been regarded by Iran as the "imposed war", encouraged and supported by the Reagan administration to bring Iran to its knees, as well as to weaken Saddam's regime. The scheme was to be followed by some kind of destabilization process to reshape the pro-Iran Syrian government and the Shi'a dominated Lebanon.

This was exactly what the drafters of the 1996 paper, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, had foreseen. The masterminds of that paper were well-known American Zionist Neoconservatives who wrote the paper for Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term as the Israeli Prime Minister.

One year later, in 1997, the same group, plus several other like-minded thinkers, came up with The Project for the New American Century, almost as though designed to follow through with the "Clean Break" strategy.

I urge, I implore, the readers to search these highlighted titles in Wikipedia to better understand for whose benefit thousands of American servicemen and women have paid the price with their blood, and how many millions have lost their lives, injured or made homeless in the Middle East; the region that continues to smolder and ready to reignite in what could be the Grand Opening of the Gates of Hell! This is not another conspiratorial scenario: One of the original drafters of the Clean Break, and the principle architect of the Iraq War, David Wurmser, has just been appointed by Trump to head the Iran Project.

(No one should doubt that the Iranian officials are also well aware of all that and duly concerned about the potential implementation of that blueprint, which showed the collapse of the Islamic Republic as its ultimate goal.)

One of the local heroes of the Iran/Iraq war was a young soldier, Qassim Soleimani, who came close several times to losing his life on the battle front, especially when Saddam resorted to the use of chemical weapons, as the Iranians were reversing Saddam's gains and closing in on the outskirts of Baghdad. He more than likely knew about Ronald Reagan's comments when the American President was told that the Iraqis were using chemical weapons: "Well," Reagan was reported as responding: "an Iranian victory is not acceptable."

After gaining in rank, Soleimani had played an instrumental role in assisting the American counterparts in overcoming the Taliban resistance and to stabilize the new Karzai government in Afghanistan in 2001, for which Iran was officially credited and thanked for its efforts and cooperation with the Americans.

Then came George W. Bush's State of the Union address just a few months later, in February of 2002, during which he lumped Iran together with North Korea and Iraq as the Axis of Evil!

I wrote about it in one of my many posted articles at the time, and commented that I did not believe George W. Bush had any idea what he was reading; the speech was written by a Jewish Canadian Zionist, David Frum, credited for inserting those irrelevant words into that text; some say as an afterthought!

That man has since been rewarded with high tenure in several Zionist and Neocon think tanks, and makes routine appearances on the mainstream media as a writer and TV panelist. There is an old saying that a nutcase can throw a pebble into a well, which takes ten wise men to bring it back out! But the damage was done, and there was no way to undo it.

A year later, the United States attacked and occupied Iraq, supposedly under mistaken intelligence reports. That wasn't the way the Iranians were interpreting the episode. To them, the American occupation of Iraq did not appear as an intelligence error, but as a deliberate action and a prelude to expanding America's presence and influence from Iraq into Syria and, of course, Iran.