By Claudel Leveille
Estimated reading time: 20 mins
President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks during a press conference Friday, Jan. 3, 2020, following the U.S. airstrike in Iraq that resulted in the death of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani.
Introduction
On January 3, 2020, less than a handful of days into the new decade a seismic geopolitical event took place. Qassem Soleimani, the Major General of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was killed by a United States drone strike. Almost instantaneously, social media was set ablaze, particularly Twitter, where Trump’s simple tweet of the American Flag in bold defiance against the Iranian regime garnered hundreds of thousands of retweets and likes. Various media and news outlets were whipped into a frenzy in the ensuing hours after the strike, with numerous predictions (and even affirmations) of yet another costly and unending Middle Eastern conflict or even a 3rd World War. Social media websites were flooded with World War III memes and lively discussions about what would happen if the draft were reinstated. Many pundits feared the doom that would fall upon the United States once the Iranians avenged the loss of their top general. Surely, they would unleash the full vindictive fury of their revolutionary Islamic ideology and smite the United States and its citizens with the might of Poseidon!
Four days later on January 7, 2020, Iran delivered its promised response by firing nearly two dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi military bases housing US troops. Notably, it was the first time since the rise of the Ayatollah in 1979 that Iran had openly and directly launched missiles at US military bases in the Middle East. However, all soldiers and coalition forces had already been evacuated from the premises and there were no casualties. According to Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi, Iran notified Iraq of the impending attack. Iraq then proceeded to alert U.S. army personnel, which allowed them to avoid the barrage. This somewhat underwhelming display of force came after Iran’s saber-rattling about seeking “severe revenge” to exact retribution on the United States for Soleimani’s death and the apocalyptic rhetoric from U.S. media outlets about the two nations being on the brink of war. President Trump addressed the country the morning after the missile attack acknowledging that although Iran responded with a fusillade that could have theoretically killed U.S. soldiers, the reality was that there were no casualties. Trump stated that the United States’ interpretation of Iran’s retaliatory act was that Iran was effectively “standing down” from further violent conflict.
“Ayatollah Ali Khameini” by Aslan Media is licensed under (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
While high-ranking Iranian officials including the Ayatollah stated that the response was “proportionate,” it was obvious to any observer that the United States had delivered an Iron Mike Tyson-like haymaker while Iran only offered a Floyd Mayweather-esque jab in return. While the attack was far less severe than many alarmists were predicting, the missile strikes still served two important purposes for Iran. First, they were a symbolic military gesture intended to cement Qassem Soleimani’s legacy as an Iranian martyr. Second, they were a reminder to the United States that Iran possesses a dangerous arsenal of ballistic missiles that can strike targets hundreds of miles away from Tehran with considerable accuracy. In the context of the second reason, the United States should not be lulled into complacency just because the worst case scenario did not unfold after Soleimani’s death. Iran could very well be planning other forms of retribution in the near or distant future.
A Quick Summary
At the moment, it is safe to say that an all-out war has been averted. But how did the situation between the United States and Iran reach such a low point? Here is a quick recapitulation of the last 5 years.
1) In 2015 after nearly two years of negotiations between the Obama administration and Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed in Vienna, Austria. The deal was signed by the United States, Iran, the European Union, and the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, plus Germany). The deal came after over 30 years of tension over Iran’s alleged efforts to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran consistently stated that they had no real intention to create a nuclear weapon but the international community was wary.
Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities (uranium enrichment, heavy water production), and allow international inspectors to frequently check their facilities. In return, Iran would be freed of crippling economic sanctions that had been hurting their economy for many years.
The treaty included a 15-year term in which the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program would expire around 2030.
2) In May 2018, the United States under the Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and reinstated severe sanctions on Iran, sending their economy into an immediate recession.
3) In April 2019, the United States designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, spiking tensions. Then on June 13, 2019 two oil tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz. The United States blamed the attack on Iran although Iran denied any involvement. The United States government was convinced that Iran was becoming more bellicose and thus deployed more soldiers to the Middle East.
4) On June 20, 2019, Iran shot down a U.S. spy drone that they claimed violated their international air space. One month later, the USS Boxer, a United States assault ship, shot down an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz. Both incidents were seen as signs of impending military conflict.
5) On September 14, 2019 oil processing facilities in Eastern Saudi Arabia were blasted by drones. The Iranian-backed Houthis fighting in Yemen claimed responsibility, but the United States and Saudi Arabia claimed that the attack was launched by Iran. Iran denied committing the devastating attack on the oil fields, which destroyed about 5% of the world’s crude oil production
6) The situation became dire on December 27, 2019 when an American defense contractor was killed and multiple U.S. military service members were wounded in a barrage of rockets on a U.S. base near Kirkuk, Iraq. The attack was blamed on a militia named Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades. Kataeb Hezbollah receives training and resources from Iran’s Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Importantly, the Quds Force commander was none other than Qassem Soleimani.
7) Two days later, the U.S. military struck back, killing at least 25 Kataeb Hezbollah members at several sites in Iraq and Syria.
8) On New Year’s Eve, the American Embassy in Baghdad was brought under siege by pro-Iranian militias who set parts of the outside structure ablaze while tossing rocks in protest of the United States’ airstrikes against Kataeb. It is important to note that in order to get into the highly fortified Green Zone surrounding the Embassy, the Iranian-backed political groups and militias almost certainly received cooperation from Iraqi security forces who normally would not have allowed them in. One hundred Marines were deployed to secure the Embassy and disperse the protesters, ending the siege. President Trump would subsequently threaten Iran on Twitter for storming the embassy.
9) On January 2, 2020 (January 3, 2020 in Iraq) Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani and a pro-Iranian Iraqi military commander named Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were killed in a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport. The official reason given by the United States was that Soleimani posed an “imminent threat” and he was planning terrorist acts against U.S. bases.
Photo by Chandler Cruttenden on Unsplash
Two Major Opinions On The Matter
Qassem Soleimani’s hellish demise was the stunning climax of nearly two years of increasingly combative rhetoric and action between the United States and Iran. The deadly operation was a shocking event for two primary reasons: First, the average person was not expecting the United States to launch an attack on a high-ranking official of the Iranian government. Although tensions between the United States and Iran were at their zenith, they were not at war. Second, the chosen target of the drone attack was perplexing because many people had never heard of Qassem Soleimani. In the aftermath of the cataclysm, two vastly different opinions have emerged concerning whether the Trump administration’s decision to kill Soleimani was justified. The pro-drone strike camp asserts that Soleimani’s death greatly improves the safety of U.S. soldiers, citizens, allies, and other interests abroad because he was a dangerous terrorist who had been responsible for 17% of all American deaths in Iraq since the start of the Iraq War (2003). The anti-drone strike camp posits that killing Soleimani was a reckless act of war that may unify Iran against the United States, incite pro-Iranian militias and “Iranian sleeper cells” to attack U.S. soldiers and civilians, and remove any remaining incentives for Iran to stay in compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.
So which camp is right? Was the United States justified in killing Soleimani as a preemptive measure, thereby saving precious U.S. lives? Or was the drone strike a violation of the rules of engagement when it comes to international conflict and an unjustified assassination that may possibly cost U.S. lives in the future? The answer is not simple.
My primary contention is that the drone strike was unjustified in one sense, but justified in another.
Was Soleimani A Terrorist?
For comparison’s sake before moving on, recall that there was no real debate about whether the death of ISIS leader Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi in a U.S. raid in October 2019 was warranted. Similarly, when Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda was killed by Navy Seals in 2011, his death was praised by the international community as a defining moment in the “War on Terror.” The crucial difference is that ISIS and Al-Qaeda are internationally recognized as terrorist organizations with no official ties to any existing nation or state. Consequently, killing bin Laden and al-Baghdadi did not violate the sovereignty of any country. In contrast, Soleimani served a legitimate position in the Iranian government as a high-ranking official, arguably second only to the Ayatollah himself, and fulfilled a central role in Iranian affairs in the Middle East and abroad. Therefore, labeling Soleimani as a terrorist in the same spirit as Osama bin Laden or al Baghdadi is inaccurate even if the three men shared similarities in tactics. What truly set Soleimani apart from opponents such as al-Baghdadi was his uncommon ability to act synchronistically as a foe and an ally of the United States for over 20 years in the midst of bloody Middle Eastern conflicts. That frightening quality made him a unique figure in the history of U.S. operations against foreign adversaries.
Qassem Suleimani by Aslan Media is licensed under (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
Soleimani’s Background
Qassem Soleimani was a clandestine figure who kept an astoundingly low profile even though he was the puppet master behind Iran’s military. His first major appearance occurred during the bloody Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) in which he became a division commander, establishing key ties with Shiite Iraqis and Kurds while fighting against Saddam’s Sunni regime. Almost immediately after the Iran-Iraq War, Soleimani commanded Iranian troops against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban is a natural enemy of Iran due its fundamentalist strain of Sunni Islam. Soleimani was concerned with their actions against Shiite Muslims in Afghanistan and also the opium drug trade. It is quite notable and ironic that Soleimani was fighting against the Taliban long before the United States officially turned against them in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Before 2001, the United States supported the Taliban against Soviet Russia during the Soviet occupation (1979-1989), during the Afghan Civil War (1989-1992), and for a brief period in the mid 1990s.
Soleimani became the head of the Quds Force in 1998. The Quds force is the elite arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This was a key moment because it was then that Soleimani became plausibly the second most powerful figure in Iran behind the Ayatollah. The Quds force is largely responsible for extending Iran’s influence beyond its borders via military combat, intelligence operations, political financing, sabotage, and other unconventional methods. Some of its major initiatives include: financing and supporting Hezbollah’s military operations against Israel in Southern Lebanon, offering military support to Hamas against Israel in the Gaza Strip, lending strategic support to Bashar al-Assad’s secular Shiite government in Syria in the Syrian Civil War, training Iran-backed militias in Iraq while maintaining key relations with Iraqi Kurds, and taking part in the proxy war against Saudi Arabia in the Yemeni Civil War by supporting the Houthi rebels in Sanaa. Up until his death, Soleimani was the chief strategist behind all those ventures. He also gained a mythical reputation among his Middle Eastern supporters for occasionally making bold appearances on fierce battlefields without protective armor.
“Khomeini” by Matthew Carson is licensed under (CC BY-ND 2.0)
The U.S. “Alliance” With Soleimani
Since the Ayatollah came to power in 1979, Iran has been staunchly anti-Western, anti-Israel and anti-U.S.A. Qassem Soleimani became a national hero in his country largely due to his success in directing lethal attacks against Americans and Israelis by training and funding militant Islamist groups like Hezbollah. Iran and the United States spent over 20 consecutive years as bitter enemies before an unexpected pause in hostilities occurred after the horrific September 11th attacks by al-Qaeda in the United States. The U.S. government accused the Taliban of protecting Osama bin Laden and being complicit in the attack. So for a brief moment in time, the ideological visions of the United States and Iran/Soleimani aligned against the Taliban. As mentioned before, the Taliban is Iran’s natural enemy and in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, both the Iranian and the United States governments feared that the Taliban (who were the de facto government over 75% of Afghanistan at the time) would gain a firmer grip in the Middle East with the support of al-Qaeda and other jihadist movements. A few days after September 11th, a United States State Department official by the name of Ryan Crocker actually flew to Geneva and engaged in secret discussions with Iranian diplomats who assured him that Soleimani would be willing to cooperate with the United States to fight the Taliban. At the start of the War in Afghanistan, the flow of key strategic battlefield intel between Soleimani and the United States military operatives was a factor in the eventual overthrow of the Taliban’s government in October 2001 and subsequent installation of a new government by December 2001.
The adventitious thaw in the icy relationship between the United States and Iran reverted back into a frozen tundra after George W. Bush’s State of the Union speech in January 2002. In his address to the nation, Bush declared that Iran, Iraq, and North Korea were part of an “Axis of Evil.” In retrospect, it seems a little odd that Bush did not take Soleimani’s support in fighting the Taliban into consideration when he made the speech. In any case, after hearing of President Bush’s denunciation of Iran as a potential nuclear threat and a sponsor of terrorism, Soleimani cancelled his coordination with U.S. forces in the War in Afghanistan. Although the unforeseen collaboration of U.S. and Iranian forces against the Taliban flatlined, Iran’s goals would again coincide with those of the United States during the 2003 War in Iraq. Soleimani would be in the center of it all, conducting cunning maneuvers as a homme fatale vis-à-vis the United States.
Iran viewed the United States’ decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein in 2003 as a golden opportunity to redeem itself from the brutal stalemate that was the Iran-Iraq War and to expand its influence in the Middle East. Between 1979 and 2003, Hussein’s Sunni regime suppressed the Shiite majority in Iraq and placed a stranglehold on the Iraqi Kurds. With Saddam out of the picture, Iran could then swoop in and establish control of the country. While the United States and other coalition forces were in the stage of setting up a provisional Iraqi Governing Council shortly after Hussein’s fall, Crocker and Soleimani indirectly exchanged opinions about who the leaders of the Council could be.
By 2004, it was clear that the United States was losing control of the situation in Iraq and Soleimani viewed that as an opening to use the Quds Force and Iran-backed Shiite militias such as the Mahdi Army in Iraq to kill American soldiers and further destabilize the country. The war in Iraq soon became utterly paradoxical in the sense that even though Iran and the United States were sworn enemies, they both aimed to strengthen Iraq’s Shiite majority. The power struggle between Iran and the U.S. for control of Iraq led to a very peculiar state of affairs in which Soleimani simultaneously bargained with and ordered killings of American forces. While instructing Iraqi paramilitary groups who carried that sophisticated attacks such as the 2007 Karbala Provincial Headquarters infiltration that killed 5 American soldiers, Soleimani also indirectly negotiated with U.S. Army General David Petraeus and called off planned attacks on U.S. bases in 2008. Throughout the Iraq War, Soleimani’s existence was a double-edged sword for the United States. While he was incidentally helpful in taking down common enemies, (loyalist Hussein military forces, Sunni insurgents in the power vacuum left in the wake of Saddam’s fall, and Al Qaeda in Iraq) he was also orchestrating the spilling of American blood.
Soleimani proved to be useful to the United States one last time during the rise of ISIS in Iraq following the end of the Iraq War. After the Obama administration withdrew troops from Iraq in 2011, the country quickly descended into mayhem as bloody sectarian conflicts emerged between the Sunnis and the Shiites. The concomitant instability in the Middle East due to the Arab Spring led to increasingly radicalized and violent movements in the region which culminated in the ascent of ISIS, a terrorist supergroup led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. By 2014, the frightening group made it clear that its aim was to ferociously conquer as many nations as possible in order to establish a fundamentalist Islamic caliphate that would follow strict adherence to Sharia Law. ISIS viewed alternative forms of Islam and other faiths in the region as apostasy punishable by death and Iran’s Shiite regime was no exception to that belief. Hence, despite being sworn enemies, the United States and Iran once again had a mutual and extremely terrifying foe.
Soleimani used his military acumen in a major way during Iran’s fight against ISIS in Iraq. He galvanized a coalition of Iraqis, Kurds, and Iranian-backed Shiite militias to engage ISIS in some notable battles such as the Second Battle of Tikrit (2015). The mission in Tikrit was to retake the city from ISIS, which had sacked the city in a bloody assault in 2014. The mission was especially dangerous because ISIS had set up numerous Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and positioned snipers all over the city in preparation for the opposition. For at least one month before the offensive and then throughout the entire operation, Qassem Soleimani delivered indispensable battle strategy to the Iraqi military, the Quds force, Iran-backed Shia paramilitary forces, and even Sunni tribal militias that resulted in the complete expulsion of ISIS from Tikrit. The United States, later delivered crucial air strikes, and then Iraqi Security Forces finished the job, thus recapturing the major city from ISIS. Without Soleimani’s methodical and cerebral approach it would have been far more difficult for anti-ISIS forces to achieve such a major success in Tikrit.
“Battle Front” by United States Forces Iraq is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Another striking example of the dicey “alliance” between the United States and Soleimani in the war against ISIS occurred months after ISIS laid siege to the city of Amirli. In June 2014, ISIS blockaded the city with the apparent goal of starving the resident population of Shia Turks. Shortly after the siege, the United Nations warned the international community that ISIS was on the verge of committing genocide against the Shia Turkmen. By August 2014, the Iraqi Army, Iraqi Kurds, Iran-backed Iraqi Shiite Militias including the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and Kataeb Hezbollah, as well as the Quds force all descended upon Amirli in a coordinated mission to break the siege. The U.S. military for its part performed pinpoint airstrikes on ISIS targets. Soleimani acted as the chief strategist of the undertaking and purportedly stationed himself close to the action. Soleimani’s input was instrumental in guiding the Iraqi and Iranian troops and leading the perilous offensive to victory. The United States, United Kingdom, France, and Australia provided key humanitarian aid to make sure that the residents of Amirli would survive the ordeal. In sum, the Soleimani directed ground forces, buttressed by aerial strikes from the United States Air Force, were able to free the Shia Turkmen and liberate the city from ISIS control.
By the end of 2017, the ISIS Caliphate had lost most of its organized territory and had reverted back into a disorganized insurgency using guerrilla tactics. Iraq was finally able to take a brief respite from the imminent threat of the caliphate. The triumph against ISIS can definitely be attributed to the United States military and its usual allies, but an equal share of that success (if not more depending on the lens through which one views the situation) can be ascribed to Iran’s efforts, specifically through Soleimani and the Quds Force. After the collapse of ISIS, Iran and the United States returned to regularly scheduled programming: fighting for control over Iraq. The ravaged country remains critically divided between having a Western-style democracy or having an Islamic theocracy. The Iraqi army continues to work with the United States, while the militias and other paramilitary forces such as the powerful Badr Organization continue to pledge allegiance to Iran. Iran’s influence on Iraq’s political trajectory cannot be understated. The current Shiite Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi claimed the position in 2018 via heavy influence from Iran. The pro-Iranian Fatah Alliance holds the second largest parliamentary bloc in Iraq behind the Iraqi nationalist Alliance Towards Reform. To complicate matters even further, there are still factions within Iraq that are against both the United States and Iran: Sunni rebels and pockets of ISIS fighters who still remain in the country. The future of Iraq continues to hang in the balance.
“IRAQ-SECURITY/SOLEIMANI” by coolloud is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
My Final Analysis
Fast forward to January 2020: Qassem Soleimani is dead, and Iran and the United States have probably reached the lowest point in their relationship since the 1979 Revolution. The success of the U.S. drone strike on Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis exposed cracks in Iran’s intelligence and security forces since they were obviously blindsided by the attack. Moving forward, Iran will definitely be on the defensive and will try to project as much power in the Middle East as possible. But the question remains: Was his death good for the United States or was it not? The truth is that it is probably both good and bad.
The Good: On the one hand, his death is a severe blow to Iran because it lost a multipurpose general who provided the Islamic Republic with unrivaled and inimitable military success for over 30 years. His demise will significantly lessen the short-term effectiveness of Iranian-backed militias fighting against U.S. soldiers since they will have to adjust to new leadership. While Iran figures out a new strategy, American lives will be spared. Additionally, his loss probably grants the United States momentary leverage in the Civil War in Syria considering that the Quds Force had been providing Bashar al-Assad’s forces with money and munitions while the United States has been trying to depose him. In fact, Soleimani’s influence was so strong that he was able to convince the Iraqi government to permit Iran to use its airspace to fly men and weapons to Syria but now that he is no more, there is no guarantee that will continue. Importantly, Soleimani’s downfall serves as a major benefit to America’s main Middle Eastern allies Israel and Saudi Arabia. His death helps Israel because the Quds Force has been assisting Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip against the Israelis. Saudi Arabia welcomes his demise because the Islamic Kingdom has been in a proxy battle for Middle Eastern hegemony against Iran for decades. Last but not least, various Sunnis in Iran, Iraq, Syria and other parts of the Middle East who perceived Soleimani as an existential threat are happy that he is gone.
The Bad: On the other hand, Soleimani’s death means that the United States and other nations can no longer benefit from his nonpareil acumen with regards to concocting military stratagems against the Taliban who continue to be a big problem in Afghanistan or against a potential resurgence of ISIS in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. The severe action taken by the United States military has further antagonized Iran and has made the country far less likely to cooperate with the United States concerning their nuclear program. Moreover, the attack appears to be unpopular within Iraq’s current Parliament and it could potentially push Iraq even further into Iran’s sphere of influence. The Iraqi government recently voted to expel U.S. troops from the region after calling the attack a “violation” of Iraqi sovereignty.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, joined by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, left, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley, addresses reporters Sunday, Dec. 29, 2019 about the U.S. military defensive strikes against Iranian supported militias in Iraq and Syria
Killing Soleimani also brings to the fore rules of engagement in international conflict. Technically speaking, the U.S. executive branch can only authorize military force against a foreign government official without Congressional approval if there is evidence of an imminent threat. However, the ostensible reason for the strike was in response to Iran’s increasing bellicosity throughout 2019 which culminated in the killing of a U.S. contractor and the New Year’s Eve storming of the U.S. embassy. In the aftermath of the drone strike, the United States government alleged that Iran’s recent attacks were orchestrated by Soleimani and according to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, there were more attacks being planned against U.S. military personnel in the indefinite future. The problem with Pompeo’s justification is that Soleimani had been an “imminent threat” ever since he started fighting against the United States nearly 20 years ago.
Concluding Thoughts
Uncertainties aside, it appears that the Trump administration decided to kill Soleimani at this juncture in order to overpower Iran with a staggering military response to its 2019 outbursts and to deter Iran from responding in kind. Also, the new sanctions placed on Iran right after the rocket attacks demonstrate that the United States intends to politically isolate Tehran and economically crush the Islamic Republic until it agrees to abandon its expensive nuclear program. This is not a novel tactic; the United States has pursued economic obliteration of Iran on many occasions in the past, and each time, Iran has managed to stay afloat. It remains to be seen if this round of suffocating sanctions will force the stubborn and guileful nation to capitulate.
In closing, it must be stated that Soleimani’s appearance in Baghdad so soon after the assault on the U.S. embassy may indicate that he did not anticipate that the United States would retaliate by killing him. Since the Bush administration (at the last minute) decided against killing him, and the Obama administration did not pursue it, he may have become overconfident. It is plausible that both the Bush and Obama administrations performed cost-benefit analyses on the merits of not killing Soleimani and then decided that it would be better to absorb the heavy costs while reaping the ample benefits. Perhaps because of the constantly changing nature of Middle Eastern conflicts, the unpredictable Trump administration came to conclusion that the benefits of killing Soleimani outweighed the risks. As of now, Iran has fortunately only offered non-lethal rocket attacks in retaliation for the demise of their top general. Perhaps the relatively muted attack provides proof that Iran cannot afford to engage in a direct conflict against the military colossus that is the United States. Or maybe Iran is regrouping in preparation for a larger response in the future, potentially with nuclear capabilities in tow. In any case, it is very possible that the full scope of both the positive and negative aspects of Soleimani’s death will not be identifiable for months or even years to come. Even so, one incontrovertible truth that can be fished from the murky waters of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is that Qassem Soleimani was a complex figure who quite possibly claimed as many American lives as he inadvertently saved.
Photo by Srikanta H. U on Unsplash
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