Greeted as Liberators? Pompeo Says Iranians Will View Soleimani Killing as ‘Giving Them Freedom’
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Iranians will view the U.S. assassination of Qasem Soleimani as “giving them freedom,” an echo of the claim that American forces would be “greeted as liberators” after the invasion of Iraq.
On Friday morning’s edition of CNN’s New Day, co-anchor John Berman interviewed Secretary Pompeo about the Trump-ordered killing of the Iranian leader — which was done without notifying Congress.
Pompeo spent the first part of the interview evading specific questions about the specific nature of the threat posed by Soleimani, but asked by Berman if there were any “threats to the U.S. Homeland?”, Pompeo replied that “These were threats in the region.”
Berman noted that Soleimani has been a serious threat for “decades,” and asked “what is different, or what was different yesterday, than over the last 15 years?”
Pompeo told Berman that intelligence about Soleimani’s activities demonstrated that it was “time to take action to deter further aggression” by the general and the Iranian government, but when pressed, refused to discuss the nature of the “imminent threat.”
Pompeo told Berman that the U.S. is prepared for a range of responses from Iran, but said he hopes the response will be a pro-American uprising.
“I saw last night there was dancing in the streets in parts of Iraq, we have every expectation that people not only in Iraq but in Iran will view the American action last night as giving them freedom,” Pompeo said. “Freedom to have the opportunity for success and prosperity for their nations, and while the political leadership may not want that, the people in these nations will demand it.”
But Berman pointed out that “So far this morning on the streets of Tehran, we’ve been seeing pictures, and we have a reporter there, we have been seeing pictures of large-scale anti-American demonstrations following the death.”
Republican leaders like then-Vice President Dick Cheney and then-Senator John McCain similarly claimed that Americans would be “greeted as liberators” at the start of the Iraq War.
After claiming that “Americans in the region are much safer today” following the killing, Pompeo circled back to the anti-American protests Berman described.
“You know as for the protests that you described, there’s no doubt the last vestiges of theocracy, the kleptocracy in Iran will continue to try and put down these uprisings from the people,” Pompeo said, even though Berman was describing anti-American protests, and went on to claim that “the Iranian people understand that America is a force for good in the region, and I am convinced that the support that we have provided to the people in Iran, and the support we will continue to provide for the people in Iraq will work to protect American interests and to make lives better for those people as well.”
In 2005, Cheney similarly claimed that the Iraq insurgency was in its “last throes,” six years before the war would eventually end.
Watch the clip above via CNN.
