‘Impossible to overstate the importance’: Petraeus calls Soleimani killing ‘more significant’ than bin Laden takedown

“Suleimani was the architect and operational commander of the Iranian effort to solidify control of the so-called Shia crescent, stretching from Iran to Iraq through Syria into southern Lebanon,” he continued. “He is responsible for providing explosives, projectiles, and arms and other munitions that killed well over 600 American soldiers and many more of our coalition and Iraqi partners just in Iraq, as well as in many other countries such as Syria. So his death is of enormous significance.”

Trump ordered the killing of Soleimani after the U.S. government received what Trump described as “very major” and credible intelligence that Soleimani was plotting to kill American diplomats and military personnel in the Middle East. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which Soleimani led, has been designated an official terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

Bin Laden, the mastermind of the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil in history, was taken out by U.S. forces during former President Barack Obama’s administration.

Some Republicans and Trump administration officials have criticized Obama for not doing more to deter Iran’s aggression.

“Many people had rightly questioned whether American deterrence had eroded somewhat because of the relatively insignificant responses to the earlier actions,” Petraeus said. “This clearly was of vastly greater importance. Of course it also, per the Defense Department statement, was a defensive action given the reported planning and contingencies that Soleimani was going to Iraq to discuss and presumably approve.”

Trump has said he did not kill Soleimani to “start a war” but to avoid one.