Michael Doran: Who was Soleimani?

Soleimani was the architect of Iran's asymmetric warfare against the United States and its allies. He's the guy who put together this network of militias that they have spread across the Arab world and to whom they are delivering precision-guided weaponry. He was absolutely indispensable in their system. He was unique. He was the actual, the de facto foreign minister for Iran. Zarif is his errand boy. He's the one who really determined in all of Iran's most important relationships how they would be run. He was technically the number 2 in the Revolutionary Guards, because he was the head of the Quds Force. That's their external action arm. In fact, he was the more important figure. He had a direct line to the Supreme Leader. He's been doing this for decades. The killing of him was the single most important step the United States has— or most consequential step the United States has taken in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq. Wow.

Why did it take so long? There was no prior opportunity?

There were prior opportunities. I know when I was in the White House, uh, uh, and in the Bush administration, I hate to say, I know personally of 3 times when we literally had him in our crosshairs and did not pull the trigger. Wow.

You were in the Bush— what, you were in the Bush White House?

Yes, I was at the National Security Council for Bush.

And to the extent that you feel free to disclose, why was he not killed then?

Um, there's only one case where I, um, I know all of the details, um, and I, uh, and in fact, I don't feel comfortable discussing them, other than to say that we were afraid of the political backlash inside Iran because he was joined in the car with him, in particular partly because of who he is, but also because he was in the car with him at the time was a a person of some standing in Iraq, and if that person were also eliminated, we were afraid.

Oh, in Iraq. Oh, there was an Iraqi with him. Oh, I see.

Yeah.

All right, well, that would explain that. So it seems to me that the opportunities to kill this man were not— there was not a large number of opportunities.

Well, as I say, I—

you knew of 3, but all right, but the one—

right, but the one you —And the Obama administration, they were not looking for opportunities. Quite the opposite. All right, right.

So tell me, okay, so let me just say that the one example that you gave, I also wouldn't have pulled the trigger. I would not have wanted the United States to deliberately kill an Iraqi leader. I mean, that makes perfect sense to me. I don't know the other two cases, obviously, and Let's talk about— it was the opposite, you said, under the Obama administration with regard to Soleimani. What does that mean?

Well, the Obama administration was— Barack Obama saw his engagement of Iran as his masterstroke, and that was his contribution to American national security, and that was going to be his legacy in history. He thought that coming to a strategic accommodation with the Iranians was the wise move, and he dreamed that a guy like Soleimani would be a partner in counterterrorism. You know, I mean, the dirty little secret of the counter-ISIS campaign, particularly in Iraq, but not only, in Syria too, to a certain extent, is that it was run parallel, in parallel with the Iranians. You know, we went in from the air, you know, coordinating with our Iraqi partners. Knowing full well that our Iraqi partners were at the same time partnering with Iranian militias on the ground.

Did he put— did he remove Soleimani from the sanctions list?

No, not that I know of. That I have never heard.

That's interesting because that's been reported a lot, and if it's not true, that's disturbing because there are some responsible people who have reported that. I don't know.

I could be wrong about that. I haven't seen that.

I'll look into it.

I had never heard that. Okay. Well, you know, there's sanctions and there's sanctions. There's the Quds Force sanctioned and Soleimani was sanctioned, but was the CIA given orders to target him? And I know for a fact that that it wasn't.

Are you aware that just now, I think while actually while we were talking, the House passed a resolution to the effect— and I don't have the words in front of me, oh, maybe I do have the words in front of me— US House to vote on limiting Trump's ability to wage war on Iran. Are you familiar with that?

I'm not familiar with that. You know, it's amazing to me. I wouldn't have thought. We started out this discussion about leftists and liberals. If you'd have asked me last week, you said that Qassem Soleimani is going to be eliminated by the United States. What's going to be the response of the left? And I would have said, they're going to say, they're going to grudgingly admit that it was a good thing, but say that Trump doesn't have a proper strategy or something like that. The extent to which they have gone to say that this was a bad move has actually shocked me.

Good. I want to stay with that. I want to talk to you about that. This is