In the wake of the U.S. drone assassination of the head of the Iran’s IRGC, Qassem Soleimani, hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets in protest of Soleimani’s death amid the official 3 days of mourning, uniting a sometimes fractured country. Common Dreams reported yesterday:

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians flooded the streets of Tehran and other cities across the country Friday to condemn the U.S. assassination of military leader Qassem Soleimani, discrediting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s prediction that the people of Iran would “view the American action last night as giving them freedom.”

Images and videos of massive rallies circulated on social media as Iranians gathered following Friday prayers to denounce Soleimani’s killing, which was ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump and carried out via drone strike Thursday night.

Soleimani’s assassination, according to Al-Jazeera, “triggered a wave of emotions and garnered a response of solidarity and retribution across the otherwise divided Iranian political spectrum.”

The Iraqi parliament is set to hold an emergency meeting today to consider the expulsion of U.S. troops from the country. The two largest political blocs in parliament, which don’t always agree, will likely unite behind giving U.S. forces – which had a specific mandate of fighting ISIS to justify their presence – the boot.

Meanwhile, the leader of one of those blocs. Moqtada Al-Sadr, has announced reactivation of his once formidable army. According to Antiwar.com:

Influential Shi’ite cleric and leader of the top political bloc in Iraq Moqtada al-Sadr has announced Friday that he is reactivating his paramilitary group, the Mahdi Army, issuing a statement on Twitter telling them to “be ready.”

The Mahdi Army was a major faction from the US occupation of Iraq in 2003 until 2007, when they made a deal with the Iraqi government to disband. Sadr has at times suggested he would reform the militia to ensure the US complied with pullout dates.

Sadr has long opposed the Iraqi government’s reliance on both Iran and the US, and the reconstitution of the Mahdi Army is a response to recent US attacks against other Shi’ite militias.

Washington has not been content to rest since it’s deadly attack on Soleimani’s convoy on Thursday. It followed up with another drone attack on a convoy of Iraqi militia leaders in northern Baghdad yesterday. Zerohedge reports:

Less than 24 hours after a US drone shockingly killed the top Iranian military leader, Qasem Soleimani, resulting in equity markets groaning around the globe in fear over Iranian reprisals (and potentially, World War III), the US has gone for round two with Reuters and various other social media sources reporting that US air strikes targeting Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units umbrella grouping of Iran-backed Shi’ite militias near camp Taji north of Baghdad, have killed six people and critically wounded three, an Iraqi army source said late on Friday.

Iraqi official media has also confirm that two vehicles were targeted north of Baghdad, carrying commanders of the pro-Iran militias in the PMUs.

The Pentagon also announced yesterday that it’s sending 3.500 more troops to the Middle East, most likely Kuwait.

Some of you may have heard Soleimani referred to as someone with “blood on his hands” and responsible for the deaths of Americans. Award-winning journalist and expert on Iran, Gareth Porter, has debunked those claims. Linking to an article he wrote recently for Truthout, Porter announced on Twitter:

Big media are all repeating the Trump-Pompeo justification that #Soleimani was responsible for killing 600 American boys in Iraq. But as I’ve documented in great detail, that was a completely fabricated story Cheney was using to justify an attack on Iran.

In the article from July of 2019, Porter explains how this claim made by Trump administration officials this past summer was a repackaging of claims made by vice president Dick Cheney during the Bush II administration:

The history of the myth begins with Vice President Dick Cheney’s determination to attack Iran sometime before the end of the George W. Bush administration. Cheney had contemplated a campaign of U.S. airstrikes on Iran, to be justified by charging that Iran was trying to produce a nuclear weapon. But that rationale for a U.S. military strike on Iran was unanimously rejected by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a December 13, 2006, meeting with Cheney and President George W. Bush, according to a report by political columnist Joe Klein in TIME magazine.

After that rebuff, Cheney began to focus on another rationale for war on Iran: the alleged Iranian role in killing U.S. troops in Iraq. On January 10, 2007, President George W. Bush gave a speech that included language accusing Iran of “providing material support for attacks on American troops.” Although Bush did not threaten in that speech to retaliate against Iran, his words established a legal and political basis for a possible future attack, according to Hillary Mann Leverett, former National Security Council staff director for the Persian Gulf, in an interview with me in 2008.

After Gen. David Petraeus took over as commander of coalition forces in Iraq in January 2007, the command went all out to support Cheney’s strategy. Its main argument was that Iran was providing Shiite militias with the powerful roadside bombs called Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) that were causing increasing number of U.S. casualties in Iraq.

But the evidence proved otherwise. Hezbollah — not Iran — had been well known as the world’s most knowledgeable designer and user of EFPs. Michael Knights, who had been following the role of EFPs in Iraq for nearly three years for a private security company in London, told me in an exclusive interview in January 2007 that it was Hezbollah that had transferred EFPs and components for manufacture to Palestinian militants after the second intifada began in 2000. He also observed in a detailed account in Jane’s Intelligence Review in 2006 that the first EFPs to appear in Iraq in 2004 were believed to have come from Hezbollah.

Newsday had reported on August 12, 2005, moreover, that Shiite militiamen had begun copying Hezbollah techniques for building as well as using EFPs, based on Lebanese and Iraqi official sources.

The U.S. military intelligence chief in Iraq had claimed in September 2006 that the C-4 explosive used in EFPs in Iraq bore the same batch number as the C-4 found on a Hezbollah ship said by Israeli officials to be bound for Palestinian fighters in 2003. But Knights observed this statement showed that Iran wasn’t shipping the materials for EFPs to Shiites in Iraq. If Iran had been shipping the C-4 to Iraq the previous year, he pointed out, the batch number would have been different from the one given to Hezbollah at least four years earlier.

Read the full article here.

This compilation is courtesy of Russia Matters, a project of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School at Harvard:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron have expressed concern over the killing of Soleimani by U.S. forces during a phone call on Jan. 3. “Both sides have expressed concern over the death of Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force Q. Soleimani in a U.S. missile strike at the Baghdad airport,” according to the Kremlin press service. (TASS, 01.03.20)
• “We regard the killing of Soleimani as a result of an American missile strike on the outskirts of Baghdad as a reckless step which could lead to a growth of tensions across the region,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. (RFE/RL, 01.03.20)
• “We have encountered a new reality—the murder of a representative of the government of a sovereign state, an official in the absence of any legal grounds for these actions,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said. (Interfax, 01.03.20)
• The killing of Soleimani will lead to an escalation of military-political tensions in the Middle East, negatively affecting the global security system, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement Jan. 3. The ministry has highlighted the contribution of Soleimani to combating the Islamic State in Syria. (TASS, 01.03.20)
• By killing Soleimani, the U.S. ruined any hope for resolving the problem around the Iranian nuclear program, chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev has said. “The last hopes for resolving the problem of the Iranian nuclear program have been bombed. Iran can now accelerate production if of nuclear weapons, even if it has not been planning to do so,” Kosavhev wrote on his Facebook page.  Kosachev has called the killing “the worst-case scenario.” (The Moscow Times, 01.03.20, Interfax, 01.03.20, Kosachev’s Facebook page, 01.03.20)
• “The Americans have crossed the ‘red line,’ and this time the consequences can be most serious,” chairman of the Russian State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky said. (TASS, 01.03.20)

Details are still coming in but it is being reported by Iraqi media and others that Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, has been killed in a U.S. airstrike. Almasdar News is reporting:

The head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, has reportedly been killed in a strike near the Baghdad International Airport, along with senior leaders of the Iraqi Shia militia the US blamed for the attack on its embassy.

“The American and Israeli enemy is responsible for killing the mujahideen Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Qassem Soleimani,” said Ahmed al-Assadi, a spokesman for Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, as cited by Reuters…

…Reuters reported that the Pentagon has claimed responsibility for the strike, citing an unnamed US official.

According to the military analyst The Saker, Russian media is reporting the following:

The Telegram channel of RIA News reports that the US has claimed that it was responsible for that attack.

So far, PressTV [Iranian state news outlet] has NOT confirmed the death of Soleimani but other media outlets have.

Middle East analyst Danny Makki explained on Twitter the significance of the killing of Soleimani:

Qassem Suleimani was more than just a General or a military leader, he was Iran’s ultimate symbol of power, strength & influence in the Middle East, rushing between Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, his assassination is not just an escalation, its effectively a declaration of war.

Two questions come to mind. First, how can Iran not treat this as an overt act of war? Secondly, how was this act by the U.S. government in the interest of Americans?

Update #1: It is now being reported that Trump personally ordered the assassination of Suleimani.

Iran expert Trita Parsi has publicly said the following:

Spoke to a very knowledgeable person about what Iran’s response to Soleimani’s assassination might be. This would be the equivalent of Iran assassinating Petreus or Mattis, I argued. No, he responded, this is much bigger than that…

Update #2: Here are a couple of videos from The Hill’s Rising morning show in which Iran expert Trita Parsi is interviewed, along with journalist Aaron Mate.

During his traditional end of year Q&A on December 19th, Putin made some comments about possible changes that could be made to the Russian constitution. These comments have been the subject of some attention by international media and Russia watchers. This has included some strange interpretations suggesting that Putin may use the mentioned changes to somehow finagle staying in office past 2024 when his current presidential term ends.

As context for Putin’s comments, currently the Russian constitution states that a president cannot serve more than two consecutive terms. The 1993 constitution came about as a result of the showdown that had arisen that year between Yeltsin and the Duma – which tried to rein in his abuses of power. The standoff was resolved when Yeltsin ordered the military to attack the parliament building with force, killing around 500 and wounding around 1,000. The 1993 constitution consequently provided for a strong executive and a weak legislative branch. Putin inherited this arrangement and has utilized it to great effect to implement his agenda, but he was not responsible for its establishment.

Below is a transcript of Putin’s remarks regarding the constitution, including the question that prompted them:

Yelena Glushakova: Yelena Glushakova, RIA Novosti.

Since you mentioned that you are a lawyer, the first part of my question relates to legal matters, Mr President. My question will be on the Constitution. In your opinion, could it be that the time has come to amend the Constitution? These questions surface every now and then, and have recently been discussed. If the time has come, what part could be changed? Are you satisfied with the amendments that were introduced ten years ago to change some articles in our Constitution?

The second part of my question is about politics, and relates to the political system our country has. Within a few days, it will be 20 years since you came to the helm. Is there a need, in your opinion, to make changes, like maybe reassigning powers between the parliament, the government or even the president?

And my final question, if you allow me. Do we have competition in Russian politics, in your opinion?

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Regarding the Constitution, this is a live tool that has to keep up with the evolution of society. However, it is my belief that we do not have to change the Constitution, I mean adopt a new one, especially since it sets forth some fundamental principles that we have yet to fully achieve. This refers to its first chapter. I believe this part to be sacrosanct.

All the other provisions can be amended in one way or another. I am aware of the ongoing debates on this subject; I see them and hear them. I understand the logic behind what others propose. This is related to possibly expanding the powers of parliament and changing to some extent the powers of the president and the government. But all this has to be well prepared, result from a meaningful debate within society, and be carried out with extreme caution.

Regarding the past amendments, as far as I know, they were related to the number of terms. What could be done in this respect? We could take out the mention of “consecutive” terms. We have this provision, and yours truly served for two consecutive terms, then left this office and had the constitutional right to once again become president, because this did not interfere with the “two consecutive terms” limit. Some political observers and civil society activists have voiced misgivings over this provision. We can probably remove it.

There are some other questions, but they are more about preferences rather than necessity.

I can once again mention the powers of parliament. I do understand political parties, especially those represented in parliament, that believe that we have reached a level in the development of parliamentarism in Russia when parliament could take on additional functions and assume greater responsibility. All we need is to give this idea serious thought.

As for competition in politics, 54 parties are registered in Russia, and four of them I believe are about to be dissolved. Still, 50 parties is a good number, and 12 of them operate at the federal level. I believe that this meets the standard for political competition.

My guess is that Putin will step down in 2024 with a chosen successor who will run successfully in the election. Putin, barring a serious breakdown in physical or cognitive health, will likely still have a strong advisory role behind the scenes.

Over the weekend, it was announced that a large prisoner exchange was successfully completed pursuant to the recent Normandy meeting. Democracy Now! reported the following details on December 30th:

Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists completed a prisoner swap Sunday in Eastern Ukraine. The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced at least 76 pro-government prisoners had been returned in exchange for over 120 pro-Russia detainees. Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on the exchange during peace talks in Paris earlier this month.

Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting that a gas transit deal was finally reached between Ukraine and Russia’s Gazprom just before the current deal was set to expire December 31st.

MOSCOW/KIEV (Reuters) – Russian and Ukrainian companies signed a final five-year agreement safeguarding Russian gas transit to Europe via Ukraine, Kremlin-controlled gas giant Gazprom and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday night…

…The final deal on the Russian gas transit to Europe via Ukraine was finally sealed after the two countries initially agreed on the protocol on Dec. 20

Payment of $2.9 billion in legal damages by Russia to Ukraine on Friday was one of the key issues standing in the way of the gas deal. In response, Ukraine dropped more multibillion-dollar legal claims against Russia.

In response to an attack last Friday in Iraq that killed a U.S. military contractor and injured several U.S. servicemembers, the U.S. bombed Iraqi Shia militias known as Popular Mobilization Units (PMU’s), particularly one known as Ketaib Hezbollah, which it claimed was responsible for the Friday attack. The Iraq government warned Washington not to conduct the retaliatory attack, citing violation of Iraq’s sovereignty. The conflict has arisen amid a climate of relations that were already frayed as many of the recent popular protests in Iraq were partly an expression of disgust about perceived foreign control of the country by both the U.S. and neighboring Iran, in addition to domestic grievances. Common Dreams reported the following:

The U.S. strikes, which hit targets in Syria and Iraq, killed at least 25 people and injured dozens more.

The bombing campaign sparked swift condemnation from Iraqi leaders and warnings of a devastating proxy war between the U.S. and Iran, which the Trump administration says is funding and arming Iraqi militias.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi on Sunday called the U.S. strikes “a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and a dangerous escalation that threatens the security of Iraq and the region.”

Further reporting reveals Washington using the attacks in an apparent attempt to try to escalate tensions with Iran, claiming – without evidence – that Iran was behind the Friday attacks and that the PMU’s are proxies for Iran. This is in spite denials of responsibility and condemnation for the attack by Iran:

Following Sunday’s US attacks on Iraqi militia bases in western Iraq and eastern Syria, the US State Department is now saying that the attacks were a “defensive action,” and also were carried out as a “warning” against neighboring Iran.

As the U.S. bombing further inflamed tensions in Iraq, angry protesters stormed the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, forcing embassy staff to flee the building.

Trump is publicly blaming this turn of events on Iran also, stating in a tweet:

“Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many,” Trump tweeted. “We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!”

Yesterday, Iran completed four days of joint naval maneuvers with Russia and China off the coast of Iran in the Gulf of Oman. According to the WSWS:

The chief of the Iranian fleet participating in the exercise, Rear Admiral Gholamreza Tahani, said that its purpose was to demonstrate the close relations between Iran, Russia and China. “The message of this exercise is peace, friendship and lasting security through cooperation and unity, and its effect will be to show that Iran cannot be isolated,” Tahani said. He added, “Us hosting these powers shows that our relations have reached a meaningful point and may have an international impact.”

The Israeli government didn’t miss an opportunity to lobby for war against Iran on the eve of the maneuvers:

As Russian warships arrived in Iran [last] Wednesday, Israel’s Army Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi called for military action against Iran. “It would be better if we weren’t the only ones responding to them,” Kohavi said, in what the Times of Israel called a rebuke to Washington, the Saudi monarchy and other Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms for not attacking Iran earlier. Kohavi added that Israeli forces would operate openly as well as clandestinely across the area, “even at the risk of war.”

Representatives of both Russia and China sought to downplay tensions while insisting that the maneuvers were meant only to increase stability in the region and cooperation among the three nations:

Russian and Chinese officials guardedly expressed concern over possible war and their support for Iran. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: “We are dealing with the issues of maintaining stability in the region, security and the fight against terrorism. This co-operation and interaction are built on both a bilateral and multilateral basis but exclusively on a legal basis.”

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said, “The drill will deepen exchange and cooperation between the navies of the three countries.” Wu called the exercises “normal military-to-military co-operation,” adding that they were “not necessarily connected with the regional situation,” an apparent reference to the risk of a US war of aggression against Iran.

In the event that the U.S. and/or Israel were to attack Iran, I think it would be unlikely for Russia or China to directly intervene in fighting. However, both countries, especially Russia, would go into overdrive diplomatically to de-escalate the situation. If that failed, then either or both countries may provide indirect support to Iran. Both China and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union are heavily invested in the New Silk Road/Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI) which seeks to connect Asia, Europe and the Middle East in an economic and trade consortium. Iran is viewed as a critical hub in this program. Therefore, peace and stability is the primary goal of all three nations. Conversely, certain strategists in Washington would be just fine with keeping the region de-stabilized in order to prevent the successful viability of BRI, which would represent more strengthening of the region while the U.S. declines as the lone superpower.