This week, I am replaying a panel discussion in which I participated, speaking about the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Solaimani, along with Preity Upala (geopolitical analyst with the Jersalem Post and Times of Israel), William Pounds (Independence Media Network), and Chad Wilson (Green Party, running for the party's Presidential candidacy)
We discuss:
- the legitimacy (or not) of the US assassination of Iranian General Solaimani
- US disregard of other nations' sovereignty
- the problem of US ignorance of the difference between Ba'athist, Arab nationalists, Arab socialists, Salafists, Wahabbis, Shias, Sunnis, etc. despite the War on Terror
- the possibility of increasing World Peace by requiring US Congressional approval and re-introducing the draft
- re-alignment of global military and political alliances
- Iran's economic and deep historical connection to India, and the complication of the India-US relationship
- double standards with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia state-sponsoring of terrorism, as opposed to Iran opposition to terrorism
- the difference between the Lebanon-Israel conflict, and Jihadist Salafist terrorism
- nuclear weapons as a deterrent for regime change
- uniting an anti-war political movement in the US across left and right
- the contradiction of Trump's anti-Imperialism -- calling out the Deep State, CIA, FBI, military-industrial complex, G7, NATO -- and the neocon American Imperialists in his Cabinet
- how ISIS and others are benefiting from the US attack on Iran, and the miseducation of the general public
- the necessity of fighting Jihadist terrorism, and understanding it properly, historically and ideologically
- How Christian, Jewish, and Muslim eschatology drives foreign policy in many important ways, but which is ignored in mainstream discourse
- the breakup of the Ottoman Empire as the root of the current confusion in the Middle East
- the spread of Wahhabism as behind Muslim radicalism around the world in Russia, Nigeria, the former Yugoslavia
- Islamism and the left
- The contradictions of American Christianity
- The controversy over the Citizenship Amendment Act in India
- possible implications and repercussions of the Solaimani assassination