Republican Texas Rep. Will Hurd, a former CIA officer, criticized Democratic lawmakers for their reluctance to fully support President Trump’s order of a deadly drone strike against top Iranian general and head of Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad.
“Soleimani was not going through the Baghdad airport on the way to a holiday vacation. He was in Iraq to coordinate attacks on American interests and our allies. When you run a terrorist organization, this is what can happen to you: You are brought to justice for the death toll you have inflicted on innocent people,” Hurd wrote in a Washington Examiner opinion article Wednesday. “Hiding behind the uniform of your government does not change the fact that you are a terrorist.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including its Quds Force, was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the Trump administration in April under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The designation was the first time the United States ever named a part of another government a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
House Republican leadership Wednesday reprimanded Democrats for failing to support the president’s decision to take out Soleimani, despite Democrats’ insistence that Soleimani was an official foreign head of state.
“More than 600 servicemen were murdered by Soleimani. I don’t think there’s any difference of opinion. I think the Democrats are wrong that they even try to raise that issue,” House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told the Washington Examiner. “I hope when they go into the briefing for those who may be new, listen to be educated.”
Hurd joined Republican leadership and denounced Democrats’ stance on Iran, saying, “To my colleagues condemning this decision: We cannot forget that Iran is the culprit, not the victim.”
He asked his Democratic colleagues, “What is the alternative? Do nothing and fail to protect American lives and our shared interests with our Sunni Arab and Israeli partners? Let our embassy get attacked once more? Open our troops up to further attacks? To not support the Iranian people in their quest for freedom?”
