According to the Associated Press, an Iranian court has issued an arrest warrant for President Donald Trump, for the drone-strike which killed General Qassim Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. General Soleimani led the expeditionary Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Quds Force (Persian: نیروی قدس‎, romanized: niru-ye qods,Jerusalem Force) is one of five branches of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specializing in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations. U.S. Army’s Iraq War General Stanley McChrystal describes the Quds Force as an organization analogous to a combination of the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the United States. Responsible for extraterritorial operations, the Quds Force supports non-state actors in many countries, including Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the State of Palestine’s Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Yemeni Houthis, and Shia militias in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

The Quds Force reports directly to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei. After Qassem Soleimani was killed, his deputy, Esmail Ghaani, replaced him. The U.S. Secretary of State designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) based on the IRGC’s “continued support to and engagement in terrorist activity around the world.”

President Trump specifically ordered the elimination of General Solemani, the Defense Department stating:

General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more. He had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months – including the attack on December 27th (2019) – culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel. General Soleimani also approved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week.

This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.

Sounds like the killing was a good thing.

Most responsible American leaders would laugh at Iran’s arrest warrant, but when you have notable Philadelphia Inquirer columnists like Helen Ubiñas and Trudy Rubin calling for the President to somehow be punished, I would not be surprised if a lot of our friends on the left would support the President’s extradition to Iran, where he would face a death sentence.

More probable, of course, is that the left will be calling for all sorts of criminal charges against the President after he leaves office, but in the United States; they would like nothing more than the sight of him behind bars. I don’t think that the Justice Department under not-Supreme Court Justice Merrick Garland will pursue charges, but state prosecutors in New York seem eager to do so.
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Cross-posted on RedState.