On January 2nd, at the direction of President Trump, the U.S. Military successfully executed an operation to remove Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, an evil and deadly terrorist, from the battlefield.
Over the last month, Iran has used its proxy groups, terrorist organizations, and militias to attack American bases in Iraq, killing one and wounding several others. President Trump appropriately responded to these attacks by striking known terrorist bases in Iraq and Syria. However, Iran still chose to escalate the situation by attacking our embassy in Bagdad.
Soleimani is a man responsible for the death of hundreds of U.S. soldiers, and by eliminating him from the battlefield, President Trump is sending a clear message to Iran that these types of attacks against our sovereign U.S. territories will not go unpunished. The President took action to protect Americans, our allies, and our service members. He took action to prevent a war, not start a war.
Following the President’s action, this week, Speaker Pelosi chose to bring a Concurrent Resolution to the House Floor, H.Con.Res. 83, a misguided measure that seeks to restrict the President’s ability to protect America’s interests against ongoing threats from Iran. I’m sure you have questions and are looking for specifics about the resolution, so I wanted to share it with you here, and also ask that you please take a moment to review all five pages and share your thoughts with me through my website.
I voted against this resolution because not only is it nonbinding with zero chance of passing the Senate, but more importantly, it’s an irresponsible political stunt that emboldens Iran by undermining the President’s defense policy in the region.
As Congress and the Administration continue to closely monitor the developments coming out of Iran, I wanted to take a moment to cover the history of our diplomatic relations with Iran and General Soleimani.
HISTORY OF AMERICAN-IRANIAN RELATIONS
Up until the years following World War II, overall relations between Iran and the United States remained cordial.
It was not until the Carter Administration that America’s relations with Iran took a dramatic turn. During the 1979 Iranian Revolution, pro-American Shah Mohammad Reza was ousted and replaced with the anti-American Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Tensions continued to escalate, and on November 4, 1979, the revolutionary group Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line seized our American Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Following the takeover, and the subsequent failure of the Iranian government to secure the hostages' release, the United States severed all diplomatic relations with Iran on April 7, 1980.
On January 20, 1981, the same day newly elected President Ronald Reagan delivered his first inaugural address, Iran announced the release of the American hostages. To date, America’s diplomatic relations with Iran remain severed, with Switzerland serving as the protecting power for U.S. interests in Iran.
It was during this period in time that Ayatollah Khomeini popularized the phrase ‘Death to America’, which is still used by Iranians today.
In the 15 years following Iran’s release of the American hostages in 1981, it continued to attack Americans in the region, killing hundreds:
- 1983 – Bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut: An attack carried out by Hezbollah, a Shi'ite Islamist organization and client of Iran. Seventeen Americans died in the attack.
- 1983 – Beirut Barracks Bombing: An attack targeting American and French service members who were part of a military peacekeeping operation during the Lebanese Civil War. The attack killed 241 American peacekeepers, and while Iran originally denied playing any part in the attack, evidence eventually found Iran legally responsible for providing Hezbollah with the financial and logistical support to carry out the attack.
- 1996 – Khobar Towers Bombing: A terrorist attack on a complex housing members of the United States Air Force in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. In all, 19 U.S. Air Force personnel were killed. Iran and Hezbollah were eventually found responsible for the attack.
In recent years, Iran has continued to show aggression against the United States.
In 2016, two U.S. Navy boats were seized by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after mistakenly entering Iranian territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. Iranian media proceeded to publish humiliating photos of the sailors before eventually releasing them 15 hours later.
Over the next few years, tensions between the United States and Iran continued to escalate, eventually prompting President Trump to withdraw from The Obama Administration’s flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, on May 8, 2018. After withdrawing, President Trump reinstated sanctions against Iran that had previously been lifted under President Obama.
In response to the sanctions, Iran threatened to block off the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping, action that would have significant effects on the global oil market. While President Trump welcomed discussions with Iran regarding their nuclear program, even offering a deal that would remove the sanctions that were crippling their economy, Iran refused to negotiate.
One year after President Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA, four commercial ships were damaged in the Gulf of Oman on May 12, 2019. In the days leading up to the incident, the United States had been warned Iran or its proxies could target marine traffic in the region. In response to what the U.S. considered clear indications of a threat, National Security Adviser John Bolton announced the deployment of U.S. naval forces to the region.
The following month, an additional attack was carried out in the Gulf of Oman on June 13, 2019. This attack involved two oil tankers that were attacked with limpet mines or flying objects. The tankers sustained severe fire damage. While investigations seemed to prove Iran was almost certainly responsible for each of these attacks, Iran claims the accusations are part of a campaign of American disinformation and warmongering.
That same month, on June 20, 2019, the IRGC shot down a United States surveillance drone flying in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz, claiming it violated Iran’s airspace.
Clearly, Iran has an extensive history of attempting to carry out attacks against U.S. forces both directly and through its proxies, with the most recent incident being a January 7th missile attack against United States forces stationed at two bases in Iraq.
HISTORY OF GENERAL SOLEIMANI
General Soleimani served as the Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a designated terrorist organization. He was a mass-murderer who is personally responsible for terrible atrocities. During his lifetime, Soleimani had trained terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, launched terror strikes against civilian targets, and instigated civil wars across the Middle East.
According to U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) officials, Soleimani’s Quds Force is responsible for the death of more than 600 American soldiers, and his direct orders have savagely wounded, maimed, and murdered thousands of U.S. troops throughout the region.
Soleimani’s supporters claim he’s a military hero whose victories include defeating the Islamic State (ISIS). While Soleimani might have eventually led the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq, what his supporters fail to realize is that it was his initial overreach in Iraq, eventually leading to the region’s destabilization, that helped produce the Islamic State in the first place and allowed them to capitalize on Iraq’s instability.
For the last two decades, Soleimani has terrorized the Middle East, including his own people. In the months leading up to the January 2nd, 2020 strike that resulted in Soleimani’s death, he had orchestrated attacks that resulted in the death of a United States citizen and wounded multiple U.S. service members. He also approved a subsequent attack last month on the United States Embassy in Baghdad, which turned violent and damaged the Embassy facility.
According to the Administration, at the time of the January 2nd strike, Soleimani was in Iraq in violation of a United Nations Security Council travel ban and was actively developing plans to imminently attack U.S. diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.
LOOKING AHEAD
Following President Trump’s remarks on Iran Wednesday, I’m encouraged that tensions between the United States and Iran have appeared to deescalate for the time being, with the President making it clear that America is ready to “embrace peace with all who seek it.”
Please know I will continue to closely monitor this situation and support the Administration’s defense policies that serve to protect our forces and interests in the region from the continued threat posed by Iran and its proxies.
I hope you found this special edition update helpful. As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback.
Thank you for subscribing to the Amodei Report and stay tuned for next week’s legislative update. For additional information, please visit my website at amodei.house.gov or call my Washington office: (202) 225-6155, Reno office: (775) 686-5760, or Elko office: (775) 777-7705. To receive updates on what I am doing in Washington and in Nevada’s 2nd District follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
