The Soleimani Strike Two Years Later
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 5 January 2022
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Two years ago this week, the head of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassem Soleimani, was killed in an American strike. At the time, we convened a group of Brookings and Lawfare experts to talk about the potential benefits and risks of the strike, and two years later, we got the gang back together. Benjamin Wittes sat down with Suzanne Maloney, the head of Foreign Policy program at Brookings and an Iran specialist; Dan Byman, terrorism expert, Middle East scholar and Lawfare’s foreign policy editor; and Scott R. Anderson, Lawfare senior editor and Brookings fellow, to talk about what two years has wrought. They discussed whether the threat of terrorism and escalation in response to the strike was overstated, if U.S. interests were harmed in Iraq as a result of the strike, and what may have kept the Iranian regime from taking stronger action than it eventually took.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:33.9 | There was a certain degree of luck that meant that the Iranian initial response was significant |
| 0:39.5 | enough for the leadership to take some sense of pride and say to their own people that |
| 0:46.6 | they had not simply let this attack go un-responded, but it also may have scared them off combined |
| 0:53.0 | with the negative backlash to the downing of the Ukraine airline civilian passenger jet. |
| 0:59.2 | We may have scared them off in terms of trying to launch a wider series of retaliations |
| 1:05.7 | against the United States. |
| 1:08.3 | I'm Benjamin Wittes and this is the LawFair podcast January 5, 2022. |
| 1:16.4 | Two years ago this week, the head of the Kudz force of the Iranian Revolutionary God |
| 1:22.4 | Kassan Sulimani was killed in an American strike. |
| 1:27.0 | At the time, we had a group of Brookings and LawFair experts discussing it. |
| 1:33.6 | Suzanne Maloney, the head of foreign policy studies at Brookings and an Iran specialist. |
| 1:41.3 | Dan Bynon, terrorism expert, Middle East scholar, and LawFair's foreign policy editor, |
| 1:49.2 | and Scott R. Anderson, LawFair senior editor and Brookings fellow. |
| 1:54.5 | At the time we talked about the potential benefits and risks of the strike, and two years |
| 1:59.9 | later we got the gang back together to find out what two years has wrought. |
| 2:06.8 | As the threat of terrorism and escalation in response to the strike overstated, were |
| 2:13.8 | US interests harmed in Iraq as a result of the strike, and what may have kept the Iranian |
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