One of the Senate’s leading Iran critics introduced a resolution on Thursday praising the Trump administration’s successful airstrike last week against Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Sen. Ted Cruz and 42 Republican co-sponsors urged the Senate to express its support for killing the leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force. The text of the resolution praises the U.S. military and intelligence community for their role in taking out the Iranian military leader and “commends the President for ordering the successful operations to locate and eliminate” him.
The proposal also says Soleimani’s death “represents a measure of justice and relief for the families and friends of the hundreds of American men and women who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan” as a result of Iranian-backed terrorism.
“At a time when partisanship and political differences threaten to divide us, President Trump and his administration should be commended for bringing an end to Qassem Soleimani, a terrorist responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people across the Middle East, including at least 603 American service members,” said Cruz, calling the strike a “successful mission to defend America’s national security interests and eliminate a terrorist mastermind.”
The move by the Texas Republican and his colleagues comes days following an Iranian retaliatory strike against U.S. positions in Iraq, during which the Iranians also shot down an airliner taking off from an airport in Tehran, killing the nearly two hundred passengers on board. Democrats and a small number of Republicans have cast doubts on the wisdom of Trump’s decision to take out Iran’s key influence agent in the region.
Trump chose to target Soleimani after the violent storming of the grounds of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which in turn followed the Iraqi government’s condemnation of U.S. airstrikes targeting Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia. The group is part of the broader pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces umbrella guided by Soleimani and run by his adviser Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, who was also killed by the United States. The U.S. blamed Kataib Hezbollah for attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, including one resulting in the death of a U.S. contractor.
Iran increased its influence and footing in Iraq following the Obama administration’s military withdrawal from the country and the subsequent invasion by the Islamic State, with Iran backing Shiite militias influenced and often directed by Soleimani to fill the power void. Iran received an influx of billions in cash as a result of the Iran nuclear deal, which the U.S. has since left.
Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced last spring that the State Department was designating the Revolutionary Guard a “foreign terrorist organization.” Though the State Department has long labeled the Iranian regime the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, it had not before classified an element of a foreign government as a terrorist group. Last year, the State Department revealed that Iran is responsible for the deaths of more than 600 American service members during the war in Iraq, with many of the deaths coming through Iranian-funded explosively formed penetrators and roadside bombs.
