Report: Obama Administration Stopped Israel From Assassinating Soleimani in 2015

BY TYLER O'NEIL 1:36 AM ON JANUARY 03, 2020

When President Donald Trump gave the order to kill Iran’s Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani, he not only made an arguably proportionate response to the invasion of the U.S. Embassy this week but he also reversed a policy of the Obama administration. According to a report from 2018, Israel was “on the verge” of assassinating Soleimani in 2015, but Obama’s officials foiled the plan. In fact, they reached out to Iran with news of Israel’s plans.

The Trump administration, on the other hand, gave Israel a green light to assassinate Soleimani, according to a January 1, 2018 report from the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida. The paper quoted a source in Jerusalem as saying that “there is an American-Israeli agreement” that Soleimani is a “threat to the two countries’ interests in the region.” According to Haaretz, Al-Jarida is generally assumed to be a platform for the Israeli government to disseminate its message to other Middle Eastern governments.

According to the report, the agreement between Israel and the U.S. came three years after Washington thwarted an Israeli attempt to kill the Iranian general.

“The report says Israel was ‘on the verge’ of assassinating Soleimani three years ago, near Damascus, but the United States warned the Iranian leadership of the plan, revealing that Israel was closely tracking the Iranian general,” Haaretz reported.

The incident “sparked a sharp disagreement between the Israeli and American security and intelligence apparatuses regarding the issue.” That sounds like an understatement.

President Barack Obama frequently snubbed Israel, considered by many to be America’s best ally in the Middle East. Yet the news that the Obama’s administration prevented Israel from assassinating the Quds Force leader seems particularly significant, since the Obama administration also kept a list of approximately 500 American soldiers who were murdered by Iranian IEDs. Since the Quds Force spearheads Iran’s operations outside the Islamic Republic, Soleimani would arguably be responsible for all of those deaths.

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