The US regime has assassinated a diplomatic envoy whose mission the USA had requested. Those negotiations over Yemen and the Middle East had been requested by the Trump administration.

Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani had flown into Baghdad on a normal carrier flight, carrying a diplomatic passport. He had been sent by Tehran to deliver, in person, a reply to a message from Riyadh on de-escalation across the Middle East.

Israel’s Fingerprint Are All Over the Assassination of Qasem Soleimani

The bombshell facts were delivered by caretaker Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, during an extraordinary, historic parliamentary session in Baghdad.

So Baghdad was officially mediating between Tehran and Riyadh, at the behest of Trump. And Soleimani was a messenger. Adil Abdul-Mahdi was supposed to meet Soleimani at 8:30 am, Baghdad time, last Friday.

But a few hours before the appointed time, Soleimani died as he was lured into a Zionist trap and became the object of a targeted assassination outside the Baghdad airport.

Under these circumstances, it’s no wonder the Iraqi Parliament approved a non-binding resolution asking the Iraqi government to expel foreign troops by cancelling a request for military assistance from the US military.

But if Iraq would materialize this suggestion, they should brace for sanctions that will make the ones placed on Iran look weak in comparison if it kicks out the US troops. 

President Donald Trump said without first covering the billion dollar costs for an US airbase, they will not leave.

The punitive measures that the USA is ready to slap on its supposed ally in the fight against ISIS will be even harsher than the crippling sanctions already in effect against Tehran.

US troops already are set to remain in Syria illegally – to “take care of the oil.” Iraq, with its extraordinary energy reserves, is an even more serious case.

Leaving Iraq means Trump, US neocons and the Deep State lose control, directly and indirectly, of the oil for good. And, most of all, lose the possibility of endless interfering against the Axis of Resistance – Iran-Iraq-Syria-Hezbollah.

Apart from the Kurds – bought and paid for – Iraqis all across the political spectrum are tuned in to public opinion: this occupation is over. That includes Muqtada al-Sadr, who reactivated the Mahdi Army and wants the US embassy shut down for good.

Hezbollah’s secretary-general Sayyed Nasrallah, tells how the US identified the strategic role of Soleimani in every battlefield – Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iran.

He tells how Israel saw Soleimani as an “existential threat” but “dared not to kill him. They could have killed him in Syria, where his movements were public.”

With a single stroke, the assassination of Soleimani has managed to unite not only Iraqis but Iranians, and in fact the whole Axis of Resistance. On myriad levels, Soleimani could be described as the 21^st century Persian Che Guevara.

No tsunami of pedestrian US mainstream media PR will be able to disguise a massive strategic blunder – not to mention yet another blatantly illegal targeted assassination.

The assassination was intended to escalate America’s presence in Iraq to keep control of the region’s oil reserves, and to back ISIS, Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Nusra and other divisions of what are actually America’s foreign legion) to support U.S. control of Near Eastern oil as a buttress of the US dollar.

That remains the key to understanding this policy, and why it is in the process of escalating, not dying down.” Soleimani was the key strategic asset for Iraq to eventually assert control of its own oil wealth, while progressively defeating the Zionist galaxy. So he had to go.

If Tehran ever decided to shut down the Strait of Hormuz – call it the nuclear option – that would trigger a world depression as trillions of dollars of derivatives imploded.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) counts about $600 billion in total derivatives, linked to oil prices. The derivatives are used to drain a trillion dollars a year out of the market in manipulated profits.

Not really. Swiss sources say there are at least 1.2 quadrillion with some placing it at 2.5 quadrillion. That would imply a derivatives market 28 times the world’s GDP.

On Hormuz, the shortage of 22% of the world oil supply simply could not be papered over. It would detonate a collapse and cause a market crash infinitely worse than 1933 Weimar Germany.

Knowing the US Navy would not be able to keep the Strait of Hormuz open: it would have to leave immediately or, as sitting ducks, face total annihilation.

So Trump threatening to destroy 52 Iranian sites is the stuff of bragging by an ISIS-worthy barbarian. The Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas. ISIS nearly destroyed Palmyra. Trump Bakr al-Mar-a-Lago wants to join in as the destroyer of Persian culture.

Asia Times / ABC Flash Point WW III News 2020.