Visiting Column #33 -- Da Doo Tehran Ron, Da Doo Ron Ron

I have a feeling that my zero readers in Iran might have a quizzical look on their faces upon reading the title of this piece.  But since there are non-zero readers in places like Russia and Ukraine, let me mention up from that the title is a very poor allusion to a 1960s pop song written by Phil Spector and recorded by the Crystals.

I probably can't tell you anything about what has been happening in Iran the past week or two that you didn't already know.  Their leaders instigated a siege of our embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, which we resisted, and then President Trump authorized the drone bombing of Qasem Suleimani, the Iranian general responsible for the attack and for uncounted killings of American servicemen and Iranian civilians who protested their government.

The Iranian mullahs who seized power there then forced the people to come out to protest and do their "Ooh, ooh, death to America" chant, presumably in Persian, and certainly at the risk of their lives if they didn't.

At that point, it came out that a Ukrainian passenger jet that had crashed after taking off from Tehran had in fact been blown up by an Iranian missile -- a fact that the mullahs denied until, you know, Russian-made missile parts were found with the luggage, and videos showed a missile, and all that.

The American left, including both the press and the Democrats in Congress, couldn't be satisfied with the fact that Mr. Trump had gotten rid of one of the two or three leading terrorists in the world.  No; the key was that it was this president who had authorized the droning of Suleimani, and therefore it was by definition a bad thing. 

Nothing that Donald Trump does can be allowed to be seen in the press as successful, even if it entailed removing from the Earth a vicious, sadistic terrorist who had been targeting Americans for years and was, apparently, about to launch further attacks.  If, as I heard this week, President Trump were to cure cancer, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and CNN would be arguing for the rights of tumors.

So we were graced with Democrats actually blaming Mr. Trump for the missile attack that Iran had launched on its own territory, a claim that had to have Americans shaking their heads.

So then the White House did a briefing, for congressional leadership, on what happened as far as the drone strike was concerned.  It included mentioning that our intelligence services had good reason to believe that there was an attack on multiple embassies and other attacks coming very soon, led by Suleimani had he not been turned into dispersed body parts.

Now this is how low the Democrats have gone. 

Let us recall that a few years back, while Barack Obama was president, our intelligence determined that Osama bin Laden was hiding out in a house in Pakistan, and the military indicated that Navy SEALs could get in and take him out.  Over the objection of then-VP Joe Biden, according to Joe Biden (he denied it last week, but he is on tape from back then saying that he had objected), the raid went forward and bin Laden was killed.

The Democrats loudly celebrated that a leading Middle East terrorist had been removed and 9/11 avenged.  Barack Obama ran around saying that "bin Laden was dead and GM was alive."  Not a soul on the Democrats' side seemed to have an issue with that.  But of course, St. Barack could do no wrong.

The left seems to have forgotten that, however.  There is no conscionable difference between bin Laden and Suleimani.  Both were Middle East terrorists who targeted Americans and killed many.  Oh yeah, bin Laden was killed under Obama's watch, Suleimani under Trump's, though, and apparently that's a problem.

So after the briefing was done, the Democrats got handed their talking points, and my God, were they stupid.  In the White House briefing, they were told that the intelligence had indicated the attacks, on embassies and elsewhere, were "imminent."

You wouldn't believe this, except you know it happened.  Every Democrat went to the nearest podium, talking points in hand, and challenged what "imminent" meant.  No, I'm serious.  A top terrorist will never harm anyone again, and Democrats are upset about semantics.

I would have supposed that whether "imminent" meant within hours, or within a couple of weeks, would not have mattered in the sense of taking out Suleimani.  No one would think it would have mattered; in fact, the issue of what bin Laden happened to be plotting when his fate was SEALed never came up.

But this is your set of 2020 Democrats.  The logical inference is that if the attacks being plotted were two weeks off instead of two days off, then Suleimani should not have been blown up and should have been allowed to go his merry way.  Isn't that the inference?  Why else would it matter to anyone what "imminent" meant?

And you're right -- it didn't matter a bit.  If the Saudi Air Force type who shot up the Navy flight school in Pensacola had been identified two weeks before he planned to attack people there, then what -- should we have just let him go?  By Democrat "logic", that's what it sounds like.

Well, as you might have expected, things changed quickly in Iran after the confession of having been responsible for the Ukrainian airline disaster.  Remember all the people who crowded the streets at the life-or-death order of the mullahs to cry about Suleimani?  Remember how CNN called him a beloved figure in Iran, and compared him to Princess Diana and Elvis (I'm not kidding)?

Hmmm. Yesterday, the actual, unpaid people of Iran started crowding the streets screaming about their leaders lying to them, and defacing the posters and banners of Suleimani, the apparently-not-so-beloved figure. 

And the mullahs, without Suleimani, now have their own forces firing on the protesters, their own citizens.  That will not end well.  President Trump's tweeted Persian-language exhortation to Iran not to attack their own people became the most-read and most-liked tweet in Persian in the history of Twitter.

Of course, the Democrats are paying no attention to the people's uprising, because it -- say it with me -- doesn't fit their narrative.  President Trump took out a terrorist murderer, and the Iranian people are thrilled, but it was President Trump who approved it, and therefore it can't be good in the left's view.

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 was a surprise in just about every corner of the USA.  Up to the last moment, it was not what polls were suggesting, and not what people thought in a nation that had elected Barack Obama twice.

The reelection of President Trump this fall may be the least surprising outcome, though, since Ronald Reagan's reelection in 1984.  The Democrats have made such utter fools of themselves, by being unwilling to acknowledge the outstanding progress in the economy, by seeing everything through the lens of identity politics, and by starting an impeachment effort before the man was even inaugurated.

And now that foolishness is exacerbated, if that is even possible.  The Democrats, along with the press, are in the bizarre position of defending the rights of a terrorist who is responsible for hundreds of Americans' deaths and far more deaths of his fellow Iranians.  In their anti-Trump fever, in their inability to concede even one thing he has done as being a positive, they have embraced an Iranian bin Laden, a man his own people hated.

They have no chance in November.

Copyright 2020 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around.  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton