History:

1953: Shah of Iran- Raza Pahalvi

1979: Ayatollah Khamenei took over

1979 to1981 U S - 444 days no diplomatic relation

1980-1989 - Iran - Iraq war

2002 - President George W. Bush declares Iran, Iraq, North Korea an “axis
of evil.” U.S. officials accuse Tehran of operating secret nuclear weapons
program.

2006 - Washington says willing to join multilateral nuclear talks with Iran if it
verifiably suspends nuclear enrichment.

2008 - Bush for the first time sends an official to directly take part in nuclear
negotiations with Iran in Geneva.

2013 - Hassan Rouhani is elected Iran’s president on platform of improving

Iran’s relations with the world and its economy.

In September, Obama and Rouhani speak by telephone, the highest-level

contact between the two countries in three decades.

In November, Iran and six major powers reach agree to the Joint Plan of
Action nuclear deal. Iran agrees to curb its nuclear work in return for limited
sanctions relief.

2016 - Iran releases 10 U.S. sailors who ended up in Iranian territorial

waters; the United States and Iran conduct a prisoner swap.

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2018 - U.S. President Donald Trump withdraws from the nuclear deal in
May, and reimposes crippling economic sanctions on Iran.

2019 - The U.S. designates the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a

“terrorist organization” in April.

Iran says in May it will increase enriched uranium production, bucking its
commitments under the nuclear accord.

Oil tankers are attacked in the Gulf in May and June. The United States
blames Iran, a charge Tehran denies.

Iran shoots down an U.S. drone in June it says was in Iranian airspace, and
seizes a British oil tanker in July.

Saudi Arabia’s state-run oil company is attacked in September by drones

and missiles believed to be from Iran; Tehran denies involvement.

In December, attacks on U.S. military bases in Iraq kill a U.S. citizen. The
United States blames an Iranian-backed militia inside Iraq, and fires on its
bases in retaliation.

Iranian-backed militias protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad,

storming the security post.

The roots of the tensions lay deeper—

 Iran’s support for militant groups at war with Israel, such as Hamas,
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and in its ties to

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 enemies of the United States’ Gulf allies, such as the Houthis in
Yemen. No less consequential was Iran’

US policy towards Iran markedly shifted under the Obama administration,

which attempted to improve relations with Iran and ended up negotiating a
landmark nuclear deal, the JPCOA. Under those conditions, it wouldn't
have made sense for the US to take out one of the country's top officials.

Wednesday January 30, 2019

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani slammed his critics defending the political
achievements of a landmark 2015 nuclear deal and calling the US an
"oath-breaker".
Before Trump action on New Year eve:

With each passing day, the United States and Iran draw each other
deeper into conflict. So far, they have stopped short of war. But the
likelihood of an armed conflict increases with every additional provocation,
whether it is an attack on a civilian tanker ship or another round of
sanctions. Both countries, with their all-or-nothing strategies, are to blame.
President Donald Trump’s administration has pursued a “maximum
pressure” campaign against Iran built on suffocating economic sanctions
and a de facto oil and gas embargo.

Iran has pursued a maximum resistance strategy, escalating into

attacks on shipping lanes, downing a U.S. drone over the Persian Gulf, and
rejecting out of hand all opportunities for de-escalatory talks with

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Washington. With both states unwilling to back down, the march toward
war continues.

3-1-2020

Iran's supreme leader appointed the deputy commander of the Quds Force,
Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani, as the replacement for Qassem
Soleimani, the former head of the elite force who was killed in a U.S. air
strike on Friday, state media reported.

The al-Hashd al-Shaabi, an umbrella group of Iran-controlled militias in

Iraq, announced on Twitter that Soleimani was killed along with its leader
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Iran’s state-run media said the strike was carried
out at Baghdad airport.

Ghaani became deputy commander of the Quds Force, the overseas arm
of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, in 1997 when Soleimani became the
Force's chief commander.

Ghaani was quoted by Iranian media as saying in 2017 that U.S. President
Donald Trump's "threats against Iran will damage America ... We have
buried many ... like Trump and know how to fight against America."

Today the United States killed Major General Qassem Soleimani, the
commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Quds Force and
Iraq’s Muhandis.

The United States is now in a hot war with Iran after having waged war via
proxies for the past several decades.

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This doesn’t mean war, it will not lead to war, and it doesn’t risk war. None
of that. It is war.

I do not know of a single Iranian who was more indispensable to his

government’s ambitions in the Middle East.

The people of the Middle East will suffer greatly in the weeks ahead.

“We shouldn’t be surprised to see the Supreme Leader order covert

operations all over the globe (including, dare I say, in the US) that involve
assassinations & other acts of terrorism. We should expect to see the most
significant / aggressive response,” tweeted Yashar Ali, a journalist who
closely tracks developments in Iran.

He added in another tweet: “But killing Soleimani is not like killing the head
of a terrorist org. It’s like killing the head of a terrorist organization and a
head of state. You have to treat it as such and the US has not DIRECTLY
engaged in assassinations on that level in decades.”

Given India’s strong relations with both the US and Iran - external affairs
minister S Jaishankar recently visited Tehran for a meeting with counterpart
Javad Zarif - and the presence of some 8 million Indian expatriates in West
Asia, any escalation in tensions could have widespread ramifications for
New Delhi, both in terms of foreign policy and economy, particularly crude
prices.

The Indian nationals in the Gulf region account for about $40 billion of
the $70 billion that India receives in remittances annually, and any
conflict could not only affect this but also trigger a massive exodus of
the expatriates.

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He had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several
months - including the attack on December 27th - culminating in the death
and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel. General
Soleimani also approved the attacks on the US Embassy in Baghdad that
took place this week,” the statement said.

Tensions between the US and Iran have spiralled since Washington

imposed strict sanctions on Iranian oil exports last year, forcing major
importers such as India, China and Japan, to cut purchases to zero.
Tensions had spiked after several attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf
last year, which the US and its allies had blamed on Iran.

Soleimani’s death could be a major tipping point, given his proximity to

Iran’s Supreme Leader. The al-Quds Force, along with the rest of the
IRGC, reports to Khamenei, and some considered Soleimani to be more
powerful than Iran’s President in matters of foreign policy.

In Syria and Iraq there was some rejoicing at the death of a ruthless military
commander implicated in tens of thousands of civilian deaths. Ali Khamenei
ordered three days of mourning and declared that the US would face
“severe revenge” for the killing of Suleimani.

The 62-year-old general died when his car was targeted by a drone in the
Iraqi capital, Baghdad, as local allies from the Popular Mobilisation Forces
(PMF) were driving him from the airport. The de facto leader of the PMF,
Abu Mahdi al - Muhandis, a close Suleimani associate, was also killed in
the attack.

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“The question that looms now, of course, is how Iranian forces and their
proxies throughout the region and beyond do respond to this attack,”
former US general Petraeus told the Guardian.

Many considered Suleimani to be the second most powerful person in Iran,

behind Khamenei, and arguably ahead of Rouhani. Through a mix of
security operations and diplomatic coercion, he has been more responsible
than anyone else for projecting Iran’s influence in the region. This has been
led in Iraq, but also by establishing a seemingly permanent military foothold
in war-torn Syria, linking Iran to the Mediterranean and a land border with
Israel.

Suleimani’s assassination had followed a tit-for-tat series of strikes by the

US and Iran, protagonists in Iraq since late 2006. The general had been
central to almost all that Iran did and senior officials under Barack Obama
considered him close to untouchable.

Aboard Air Force One on his way back from his holiday trip to Florida, Mr.
Trump reiterated to reporters traveling with him the spirit of a Twitter post
on Saturday, when he said that the United States government had
identified 52 sites for retaliation against Iran if there were a response to
Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani’s death. Some, he tweeted, were of “cultural”
significance.

Such a move could be considered a war crime under international

laws, but Mr. Trump said Sunday that he was undeterred.

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“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our
people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people,”
the president said. “And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It
doesn’t work that way.”

The remarks came just hours after the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo,
walked back Mr. Trump’s tweets and said that whatever was done in any
military engagement with Iran would be within the bounds of the law.

Mr. Trump also vowed to impose sanctions on Iraq if a move to evict

American military personnel from the country takes place, a possibility
heightened by the Iraqi Parliament’s passage Sunday of a measure to
expel foreign troops. And Mr. Trump said that he had been tracking
General Suleimani for many months.

Iraqi Parliament’s passage:

Iraq's parliament passed on Sunday [5th Jan.] a resolution telling the

government to end the presence of foreign troops in Iraq and ensure they
not use its land, air, and waters for any reason.

"The government commits to revoke its request for assistance from the
international coalition fighting Islamic State due to the end of military
operations in Iraq and the achievement of victory," the resolution read.

"The Iraqi government must work to end the presence of any foreign troops
on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any
reason."

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Parliament resolutions, unlike laws, are non-binding to the government, but
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi had earlier called on parliament to
end foreign troop presence.

Iran:

Analysts believe Iran will be conscious that it is more vulnerable than

the US, with all the conflict likely to be in the Middle East itself, including
within Iran.

Trump says U.S. would hit 52 Iranian sites if American targets

attacked:

President Donald Trump said on Saturday the United States has

targeted 52 Iranian sites that it would strike if Iran attacks Americans or
U.S. assets in response to a U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian military
commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq.

Showing no signs of seeking to reduce tensions raised by the strike

on Friday that he ordered, the U.S. president issued a stern threat to Iran
on Twitter.

Trump wrote in a series of tweets that Iran “is talking very boldly
about targeting certain USA assets” to avenge Soleimani’s death. Trump
said the United States has “targeted 52 Iranian sites” and that some were
“at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those
targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said

on Saturday “the Trump Administration’s provocative, escalatory and

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disproportionate military engagement continues to put service members,
diplomats and citizens of America and our allies in danger.”

Iran designates all US forces and

Pentagon employees 'TERRORISTS'

Iran's parliament passed a bill on Tuesday designating all US

forces 'terrorists' over the killing of a top Iranian military commander in a
US strike last week.

Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guards' foreign

operations arm, was killed in a US drone strike outside Baghdad airport on
Friday, ratcheting up tensions between the arch-foes.

Under the newly adopted bill, all US forces and employees of the
Pentagon and affiliated organisations, agents and commanders and those
who ordered the 'martyrdom' of Soleimani were designated as terrorists.

'Any aid to these forces, including military, intelligence, financial, technical,

service or logistical, will be considered as co-operation in a terrorist act,' the
Iranian parliament said.

According to reports on social media, Iranian lawmakers chanted 'Death to

America' while voting for passage of the bill.

Lawmakers also voted to bolster by £170million the coffers of the Quds

Force - the foreign operations arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards that was
headed by Soleimani.

The bill was an amended version of a law adopted in April last year that
declared the United States a 'state sponsor of terrorism' and its forces in
the region 'terror groups'.

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Iran's top security body, the Supreme National Security Council, said that
blackisting came after the US designated Iran's Revolutionary Guards a
'terrorist organisation'.

The future of US troops in the Middle East was thrown into confusion
yesterday when a letter confirming a withdrawal from Iraq was apparently
circulated by mistake.

'We respect your sovereign decision to order our departure,' said the letter,
whose authenticity was confirmed by both Iraqi and US defence officials.

In the letter, US Brigadier General William Seely said the US-led coalition
would 'be repositioning forces'.

But Pentagon Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley said the letter was a mere
'draft' that was sent by mistake.

The Iraqi parliament has called for the expulsion of all American troops
from Iraqi soil, something analysts fear could allow ISIS militants to mount
a comeback.

Germany said Tuesday it was withdrawing some of its troops deployed as

the anti-IS coalition in Iraq.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, France's president Emmanuel Macron and

British PM Boris Johnson have also urged Iraq to not jeopardise the battle
against ISIS.

'Preserving the coalition is of great importance in this context. We call on

the Iraqi authorities to continue to provide the coalition with the necessary
support,' they said.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg warned on Monday that Iran must avoid
'further violence and provocations'.

The European Union, whose foreign ministers will hold emergency talks on
the crisis Friday, said it was in both Iran and Iraq's interests to 'take the
path of sobriety and not the path of escalation'.

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Saudi Arabia - an oil-rich US ally seen as vulnerable to Iranian counter
strikes - also appealed for calm after a 'very dangerous' escalation.

A procession in Tehran on Monday drew over 1 million people in

the Iranian capital, crowding both main thoroughfares and side streets in
Tehran.

Soleimani's death has sparked calls across Iran for revenge

against America for a slaying that’s drastically raised tensions across the
Middle East.

Early Tuesday, the leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard threatened

to “set ablaze” places supported by the United States over the killing of a
top Iranian general in a U.S. airstrike last week, sparking cries from the
crowd of supporters of “Death to Israel!” Hossein Salami made the pledge
before a crowd of thousands gathered in a central square in Kerman before
a casket carrying Soleimani's remains.

The outpouring of grief was an unprecedented honor for a man

viewed by Iranians as a national hero for his work leading the Guard’s
expeditionary Quds Force. The U.S. blames him for the killing of American
troops in Iraq and accused him of plotting new attacks just before his death
Friday in a drone strike near Baghdad’s airport. Soleimani also led forces in
Syria backing President Bashar Assad in a long war, and he also served as
the point man for Iranian proxies in countries like Iraq, Lebanon and
Yemen.

His slaying already has pushed Tehran to abandon the remaining

limits of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers as his successor and

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others vow to take revenge. In Baghdad, the parliament has called for the
expulsion of all American troops from Iraqi soil, something analysts fear
could allow Islamic State militants to mount a comeback.

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