In two recent interviews, retired General David Petraeus highlighted just how significant President Trump’s killing of Iranian terrorist leader Qassim Suleimani was and revealed what the U.S. likely gained from the attack as well as what Iran’s likely response to the would be.
Petraeus, who also served as CIA Director in the Obama administration, told Foreign Policy that it was “impossible” to “overstate the importance” of the U.S. military taking out Suleimani.
“It is more significant than the killing of Osama bin Laden or even the death of [Islamic State leader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi,” Petraeus said. “Suleimani was the architect and operational commander of the Iranian effort to solidify control of the so-called Shia crescent, stretching from Iran to Iraq through Syria into southern Lebanon. He is responsible for providing explosives, projectiles, and arms and other munitions that killed well over 600 American soldiers and many more of our coalition and Iraqi partners just in Iraq, as well as in many other countries such as Syria. So his death is of enormous significance.”
In a subsequent interview on CBS News’s “Face The Nation,” Petraeus noted that killing Suleimani was “the equivalent in U.S. terms of the CIA director, CENTCOM Commander, JSOC Commander, and presidential envoy for the region for Iran. And- and the most powerful figure in Iran for the solidification of the Shia Crescent and also the operational commander of the actions that they were pursuing.”
“So this is bigger than bin Laden,” Petraeus continued. “It’s bigger than Baghdadi.”
Petraeus noted that the strike also likely helped the United States regain the advantage of having the element of deterrence.
“What has happened here, I think, is frankly, that we lost the element of deterrence,” Petraeus said. “The component of deterrence that was seen as American will. Our drone- 130 million dollar drone is shot down, did nothing significant response. Five percent of the world’s oil production taken out of operation. Numerous attacks on shipping and then attacks on our forces. Ultimately, of course, killing an American and wounding four of our soldiers. So ultimately, the president appears to have decided that it was necessary to take an action to shore up deterrence, to show that we were not going to accept this.”
Petraeus said that he believed that the most likely way that Iran was going to respond to the attack was through its proxies.
“The question is now, what will Iran do?” Petraeus said. “Will they dare to respond directly with Iranian missiles against our forces, our embassies, our bases, our shipping or what have you? Or do they continue to operate through proxies, which I’m pretty confident they will do.”
Petraeus’s response to what Iran might do to retaliate was more elaborate in his interview with Foreign Policy.
“Right now they are probably doing what anyone does in this situation: considering the menu of options,” Petraeus said. “There could be actions in the gulf, in the Strait of Hormuz by proxies in the regional countries, and in other continents where the Quds Force have activities. There’s a very considerable number of potential responses by Iran, and then there’s any number of potential U.S. responses to those actions”
Petraeus concluded, “Given the state of their economy, I think they have to be very leery, very concerned that that could actually result in the first real challenge to the regime certainly since the Iran-Iraq War.”