“As part of the incendiary and escalating crisis surrounding the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, there has come an explanation of why the Iranian commander was actually in Baghdad when he was targeted by a US missile strike.”
Iraq’s prime minister revealed that he was due to be meeting the Iranian commander to discuss moves being made to ease the confrontation between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia – the crux of so much of strife in the Middle East and beyond.
Adil Abdul-Mahdi was quite clear: “I was supposed to meet him in the morning the day he was killed, he came to deliver a message from Iran in response to the message we had delivered from the Saudis to Iran.”
The prime minister also disclosed that Donald Trump had called him to ask him to mediate following the attack on the US embassy in Baghdad. According to Iraqi officials contact was made with a number of militias as well as figures in Tehran. The siege of the embassy was lifted and the US president personally thanked Abdul-Mahdi for his help.
There was nothing to suggest to the Iraqis that it was unsafe for Soleimani to travel to Baghdad – quite the contrary. This suggests that Trump helped lure the Iranian commander to a place where he could be killed. It is possible that the president was unaware of the crucial role that Soleimani was playing in the attempted rapprochement with the Saudis. Or that he knew but did not care.
One may even say that it is not in the interest of a president who puts so much emphasis on American arms exports, and whose first official trip after coming to office was a weapons-selling trip to Saudi Arabia – during which he railed against Iran – to have peace break out between the Iranians and the kingdom. But that would be far too cynical a thought.
Abdul-Mahdi spoke of his disappointment that while Trump was expressing his gratitude over the mediation, he was also simultaneously planning an attack on Soleimani. That attack took place not long after the telephone call from the president.
There is also the possibility that the US military planners knew nothing about the conversations between Trump and Abdul-Mahdi, and took out Soleimani when the opportunity presented itself.
There may be credence to this, if one follows the narrative which is emerging from defence and intelligence officials in Washington: that the assassination option presented to Trump was bound to be refused, as it had been by his predecessors in the White House. And that there was a desperate scramble to track down Soleimani when, much to their shock, Trump ordered the hit”
INDEPENDENT UK
