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CSUSB professor interviewed by Iranian news agency on the latest developments in U.S.-Iran relations
Islamic Republic News Agency
Jan. 27, 2020
David Yaghoubian, CSUSB professor of history, ), was interviewed for his analysis and perspective on U.S.-Iran relations in the aftermath of Jan. 3 drone attack that killed Iran’s Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani in Baghdad, Iraq, and Iran’s subsequent rocket strike on Iraqi bases where U.S. troops were stationed.
The strike was ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump. Yaghoubian’s quote was translated from Farsi.
Said Yaghoubian: “Donald Trump is unfortunately correct when he calls the assassination of General Soleimani ‘American justice’ insofar as the United States under his leadership has embraced the law of the jungle completely, and thereby extended its shameful position as the world’s preeminent rogue nation. Whereas scoffing at international law and the United Nations Charter through extrajudicial drone terrorism, and embracing Mike Pompeo’s doctrine of ‘lie, cheat, and steal’ as a general foreign policy directive serves Trump’s short-term domestic political interests by appealing to the Israel lobby and a portion of his popular base, it does not serve long-term U.S. strategic interests and weakens already fraying alliances.
“In the specific case of the assassination of Gen. Qasem Soleimani, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (deputy commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces) and their companions, once again we see how US criminal aggression produces the opposite effect as was desired by the Trump regime, illustrated by the millions of Iranians and Iraqis who took to the streets to mourn these national heroes and chant down US imperialism and its military presence in the region. This purposefully provocative criminal act also legitimated Iran’s self-defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which came primarily in the form of missile strikes on Ayn al-Assad airbase in Iraq.
“Beyond forcing Trump to renege on his psychopathic terrorist threats to bomb 52 sites in Iran including cultural heritage, I believe the accuracy of Iranian missiles has motivated the U.S. military and its regional enablers in the Persian Gulf to reassess the efficacy of overt military aggression against the Islamic Republic,” Yaghoubian said. “Thus, as we have seen, the Trump administration is reverting to its stock economic terrorism and covert hybrid war tactics as it has failed to achieve either diplomatic or military advantage via this most recent outrageous act.”
The article, in Farsi, is at “The Precision of Iranian Missiles Shatters US Calculations.”
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