The episode examines Trump’s January 2020 strike killing Qasem Soleimani—UN-banned in 2007/2015—after Iran-backed attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, contrasting it with Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech legitimizing adversaries and alleged appeasement toward Iran’s nuclear program via sanctions relief and cash transfers. Soleimani’s role in orchestrating global violence, including Iranian protests, is highlighted, while media bias (NYT, Globe and Mail glorifying him) and Canadian politicians’ pro-Iran stances—like Trudeau’s vacation in Costa Rica and Champagne’s call for "restraint"—are criticized. Meanwhile, UBC’s cancellation of Andy Ngo’s January 29 talk on antifa violence amid free speech lawsuits underscores institutional suppression, mirroring broader patterns of media and political complicity with adversaries while undermining U.S. resolve. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I try and make sense of the battle between the U.S. military and the Iranian military and their terrorist auxiliaries, Trump's targeted decapitation of a senior general over there.
I like it.
I don't think it's the start of a war.
I think it's a measured but strong response.
I'll make my case for that and I hope you listen.
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You get the video version of this podcast.
And I have some video clips that I think are good to see, especially to help make sense of things.
Just go to premium.rebelnews.com.
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Here's the podcast.
Tonight, Iran attacks a U.S. embassy so Donald Trump kills an Iranian terrorist general.
So does that mean we're going to war?
It's January 3rd, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Yesterday we talked with our friend Joel Pollack about the attempt by Iran-backed paramilitary groups.
Soleimani and Benghazi Parallel00:15:45
That's another word for terrorists, by the way, including Hezbollah.
It was an attempt by them to smash their way into the massive U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
I found the footage to be so shocking.
It brought back so many awful memories of the al-Qaeda attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where the ambassador inside was very lightly protected and he asked for help from Hillary Clinton, then the Secretary of State.
He asked for help on more than 29 occasions, actually, and no help ever came.
And he was murdered along with three other embassy staff.
The place was overrun.
It was torched.
The ambassador himself was horribly tortured before he was murdered.
You know, there's a U.S. air base just across the Mediterranean called Avellano in northern Italy.
It's about a 90-minute flight from Avellano to Benghazi, I'm guessing.
So they could have sent help.
They were ready, but they were never permitted to come.
How awful for both sides of that, for the Americans trapped in the consulate in Benghazi, knowing no help would come, and how awful for the Americans ordered grounded in Avellano, Italy, knowing they were not allowed to go help.
That's the first thing I thought of.
Later, I thought of the Iranian raid on the U.S. embassy in Tehran itself in 1979 and the hostage-taking incident there.
52 American hostages were kept for more than a year by Iran.
It was a low point in American self-respect, in American world respect, the epitome of Jimmy Carter's awful foreign policy.
It was a reason why Ronald Reagan had such a massive victory the following year.
But the thing is, Iran never really paid the price for that embassy invasion.
An embassy, legally speaking, is a patch of foreign territory you allow within your own country.
It's a reciprocal courtesy given to each other's countries, and diplomatic staff are immune.
So it would be horrendous enough for Iran to have taken hostages of any sort, let alone for 444 days.
But diplomats, it literally was an act of war.
It was legally no different than had Iran invaded and occupied a piece of the American mainland.
But that's what the world has come to expect from America, certainly from Jimmy Carter.
Now, Ronald Reagan brought some respect and dignity and strength back to America, but even he did not avenge the embassy hostage-taking, did he?
And soon after George W. Bush was elected in 2001, I'm talking about Republicans, you'll notice, China forced a U.S. aircraft with sensitive equipment and information to land in Hainan, China, and held the airmen hostage for more than a week.
What lesson do you think that taught China of what they could get away with?
Democrats, well, don't get me started on Barack Obama.
I'll just mention the most egregious example.
Remember this, I even hate to show this footage.
U.S. military personnel captured in the Persian Gulf, humiliated on camera, no come-uppance.
And by the way, that body of water, totally dominated by American Navy.
They weren't allowed to defend themselves.
I mean, Obama wanted a deal with Iran no matter what humiliations Iran foisted on America.
You'll recall, Obama literally shipped pallets of cash to Iran to beg and bribe them to sign a deal.
I won't even call it a peace deal because, of course, it did the opposite.
It legalized Iran's illegal nuclear program.
It lifted the wartime-style sanctions against Iran.
It was crazy, but it was literally the most important foreign policy goal of Obama's administration, to turn Iran into a regional power.
That was Obama's goal.
I don't know if you recall his very first speech as president, foreign affairs speech, he went to Cairo in 2009.
He invited the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group to listen to him.
He promised never to interfere in Iran, no matter what.
In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.
Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.
This history is well known.
Rather than remain trapped in the past, I've made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward.
The question now is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build.
I recognize it will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude, and resolve.
There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect.
Boy, they loved him, didn't they?
Obama gave them everything.
Cash, legalizing their nukes, effectively blessing their dictatorship, undermining Iran's democracy activists.
Abandoning Iran's enemies in the region, it was incredible.
It was awful.
Trump tried to put the toothpaste back in the tube, trying to press countries to put sanctions on Iran again.
Here's Nikki Haley a couple years back, who was then Trump's UN ambassador, talking about specific sanctions on one Qasim Soleimani, the senior military and terrorist general for Iran, the man assassinated yesterday by the Pentagon on Trump's orders.
Here's Nikki Haley a couple years ago.
Iranian general and head of the IRGC Quds Force, Soleimani, is leading an effort to influence the composition of a new Iraqi government.
I remind my colleagues that Soleimani was banned from traveling outside of Iran by the Security Council in 2007.
That ban was reaffirmed in 2015 with the passage of Security Council Resolution 2231.
Despite this unambiguous travel ban, Soleimani has practically taken up residence in Iraq since the May elections.
This fact was noted by the Secretary General in the most recent 2231 implementation report.
And let's be clear what Soleimani is up to in Iraq.
He is not there to help create a government in Baghdad that is responsive to the Iraqi people.
He is there to build an Iraqi government that is under the control of the Iranian regime.
So America tried.
Trump tried.
He didn't threaten to invade Iran.
Sort of the opposite.
He's been bringing troops back from the Middle East over the objections of his own generals, over the objections of his own defense secretary.
He brought America out of Syria.
It's a reason he lost his last defense secretary.
You cannot call Trump a warmonger, sort of the opposite.
He pulls American troops out and demands that American allies lift their own load.
That's what he was criticizing Justin Trudeau about just last month.
Mr. President, Canada does not meet the 2% standard.
Should it have a plan to meet the 2% standard?
Well, we'll put them on a payment plan, you know?
We'll put Canada on a payment plan, right?
I'm sure the Prime Minister would love that.
What are you at?
What is your number?
The number we talk about is 70% increase over these past years, including, and for the coming years, including significant investments in our fighter jets, significant investments in our naval fleets.
We are increasing significantly our defense spending from previous governments that cut it.
Okay.
Where are you now in terms of your number?
We're at 135?
1.3.
1.
1.4.
1.4.
And continuing to move.
They're getting there.
They know it's important to do that.
And their economy is doing well.
They'll get there quickly, I think.
And look, it's to their benefit.
But it was too much, this attack on the Baghdad embassy by Iran's militias in Iraq.
It was too much like Benghazi.
Trump obviously saw that parallel.
He wasn't about to let his domestic political opponents dunk on him.
Look at that tweet.
The anti-Benghazi.
He immediately dispatched Marines from Kuwait who came in to reform, to excuse me, to reinforce the embassy and secured it without any loss of life.
But still, the attack was done on the embassy.
Iran-backed militias did try to storm the embassy.
The fact that they failed goes to the damage done, but not to the moral and legal and political and military offense.
Iran's militias in Iraq tried to storm the U.S. embassy.
On Donald Trump's watch.
Yeah, nope, nope, nope, nope.
They got the wrong guy, don't you think?
On New Year's Eve, he said Iran would pay.
This is not a warning, it is a threat, he said.
And 48 hours later, indeed, they did pay in a precision airstrike.
Qasem Soleimani, the number two man in Iran, the head of their military and terrorist forces, was killed.
In Iraq, I should say, in Baghdad.
He was going and coming into Iraq as he pleased because he was colonizing Iraq on behalf of Iran.
It was shocking to the world that had gotten used to America being disrespected and treated as a doormat for nearly 50 years.
Benghazi, even the Tehran embassy in the 1970s, people were just used to America taking it.
Of course, the attack on the embassy in Baghdad on the 31st was an act of war.
Just like, of course, seizing U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf was an act of war.
No one expected America to defend itself, though, because they still needed to learn a little bit more about Donald Trump, I guess.
He wasn't quite like the others.
The deep state, the anti-American media, they were all shocked that Trump shot back.
They were outraged.
But why?
Trump wasn't invading Iran.
Certainly not in a ground war as Bush did in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Trump wasn't going to spend thousands of American lives doing what?
Trying to turn Afghanistan into Switzerland, as Joel Pollock joked yesterday.
Trump just decapitated a very bad man.
Look at the reaction, though.
Here's Rose McGowan, a political Hollywood type.
Look at that.
Dear Iran, the USA has disrespected your country, your flag, your people.
52% of us humbly apologize.
We want peace with your nation.
We are being held hostage by a terrorist regime.
We do not know how to escape.
Please do not kill us.
Soleimani.
A little bit crazy.
I don't blame Rose McGowan.
She is messed up.
She is one of Harvey Weinstein's rape victims.
She shaves her head like Sinead O'Connor did.
She's unwell, I think.
But thousands and thousands of normal people repeated and retweeted her insane comments, none of whom objected to the Iranian assault on the U.S. embassy in the first place.
They were actually sort of cheering for the bad guys, hoping to give Trump up Benghazi.
Now, Rose McGowan's a Hollywood personality, but here's Chris Murphy, a U.S. senator, a Democrat, of course.
Now, look at the two tweets for comparison, just days apart.
Here's the first one.
After the embassy attack, he's chiding Trump, saying, no one fears us.
No one listens to us.
America has been reduced to huddling in safe rooms, hoping the bad guys will go away.
And then Trump fights back, and he tweets just the opposite.
Did America just assassinate the second most powerful person in Iran?
Oh, they can never be satisfied.
Trump is always wrong, no matter what he does.
He does nothing, he's wrong.
He does something he's wrong.
But look at this glorification of Soleimani in the New York Times.
Rare personal video of General Soleimani reciting poetry shared by a source in Iran about friends departing and him being left behind.
Oh, it's so nice guy.
He looks a little bit like George Clooney, doesn't he?
I bet he's smoldering like that.
So they're playing a video of him reciting poetry with background music.
They're treating a terrorist general like a great man or a celebrity.
Of course they are.
So was Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper.
Look at this.
Who was Qasim Soleimani and why was he an icon in Iran?
Not a terrorist, not a murderer.
He's an icon.
Well, Trump knew that if he didn't explain things on Twitter, the media sure wouldn't explain it for him.
This is why Twitter is so important to him.
60 million plus people can hear from him directly, not the media who love our enemies.
So here's what Trump said.
He said, General Qasim Soleimani has killed or badly wounded thousands of Americans over an extended period of time and was plotting to kill many more, but got caught.
He was directly and indirectly responsible for the death of millions of people, including the recent large number of protesters killed in Iran itself.
While Iran will never be able to properly admit it, Soleimani was both hated and feared within the country.
They're not nearly as saddened as the leaders will let the outside world believe.
He should have been taken out many years ago.
I think that's largely true.
I mean, Soleimani was a terrorist general.
How can you not smile when you see other terrorist generals of the dictatorship of Iran literally crying today?
Look at that guy.
You'd need a heart of stone not to be pleased to see his tears given how many people Soleimani had murdered, including hundreds of Americans, but of course thousands of Iranians.
Soleimani was the head of many things in Iran.
He was the number two guy for sure.
He was in charge of colonizing Syria and Iraq.
He was in charge of beefing up Hezbollah terrorists around Israel.
Israel had wanted to take out Soleimani years ago, but Obama stopped them from doing so.
Though Soleimani ran something called the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Quds Force.
Do you see that?
That is on Canada's list of banned terrorist groups under Canadian law.
That's our list of terrorist groups.
They're banned.
He was the head of that thing.
Now, Parliament in Canada wanted to designate all of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group, not just the Quds force.
Even some liberals, like this Jewish Trudeau MP from Toronto named Michael Levitt, look at this tweet from June of last year.
Michael Levitt says, earlier today I sent the following letter to Ralph Godale asking him to initiate the process for listing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity in Canada, further to the House motion on Iran adopted on Tuesday.
He has confirmed that the process has been initiated.
That was in June of 2018, and the process has not yet concluded.
Trudeau's Vacation Dilemma00:03:33
Isn't that amazing?
Yeah.
But Trudeau just doesn't believe that Iranians are terrorists because Trudeau is actually pro-Iran in terrifying ways.
In recent weeks, credible news reports have alleged that one of Trudeau's own MPs, Maja Johari, is an Iranian asset working with Iran.
Now, he denies it.
We sent our own David Menzies to Johari's house to ask him, but he wouldn't even come out the door to answer.
There are other strange things, like the fact that liberal MP Maryam Monsef is permitted by Iran to travel freely back and forth to that country.
Extremely unusual.
And of course, you know, she lied.
She claimed to be born in Afghanistan when, in fact, she was born in Iran.
Look at this lie.
So you were born in Afghanistan, correct?
I believe I was.
So whose side is she on?
Whose side is Johari on?
Whose side is Trudeau on?
Well, Trudeau's brother, Alexandre Trudeau, literally made a film in cooperation with the Iranian government, a pro-Iran, anti-U.S. film called The New Great Game.
And as you'll recall, Justin Trudeau appointed Alexandre Trudeau to be his chief foreign policy advisor during his leadership campaign.
So we're in trouble deep.
So where's Justin Trudeau now?
Well, he's still in Costa Rica.
Here's his schedule for today.
He's now into his third week of vacation there.
Seriously, who takes a three-week vacation?
What world leader, at least, in the middle of a crisis?
One of many crises?
Well, Trudeau does, of course.
Our media couldn't care less.
They don't dare to ask about his absence.
They'll lose their bailout money if they do.
We have to rely on people on the streets of Costa Rica to tweet pictures of a haggard-looking Trudeau buying booze or whatever he was doing there.
Who knows, marijuana, maybe, I don't know, we know he loved the stuff.
He still hasn't poked his head up, even though the world is on the verge of what?
War, maybe?
I don't know.
Hundreds of Canadian soldiers are in Iraq right now.
But he did send out his foreign minister with a statement, this guy.
Trudeau couldn't be bothered to shave and put on a suit.
He's probably stoned.
I'm not even being mean.
We know he's a lifelong marijuana user and he's deep into a three-week vacation.
But here's the statement that his foreign minister named François-Philippe Champagne put up.
But here's the key sentence.
We call on all sides to exercise restraint and pursue de-escalation.
Really?
So on the one side, you have the United States, our Democratic friend and ally, that killed an Iranian terrorist leader in Iraq, by the way, after an attack on the U.S. Embassy while planning more attacks.
That's the one side.
And on the other side, you have a pro-terrorist dictatorship, a Muslim theocracy, that sponsors violence around the world that has surely killed Canadians too.
And Trudeau's foreign minister says, both sides have to cool it.
They're both morally equal.
Both are to blame, I suppose.
Both have to simmer down.
Both have to restrain themselves.
That's what the statement says, both sides.
A democracy has to restrain itself as much as a terrorist group does.
That's Canada's position.
That's Trudeau's position, at least.
Well, we already know that's Trudeau because he has had two Canadian hostages in China for more than a year.
Both Sides Must Restraine00:10:49
And he doesn't really give a damn about them.
He's just shocked that any other world leader might actually care about their own citizens and fight back for them.
Stay with us for more.
Well, maybe you've heard the name Andy Ngo.
He's a Vietnamese American from Portland.
Portland's such a lovely city, beautiful, but politically a very sick city.
It's a hotbed of antifa extremism.
Now, I don't like to call antifa by that name.
It stands for anti-fascism.
But of course, like most perverse things, its name is opposite of what it is.
Like the Human Rights Commission is against human rights.
Antifa are actually fascists themselves.
And the reason I mention this is because when Andy No went to cover an antifa protest in his home city of Portland, he was brutally and physically attacked.
You can see him being swarmed by fascists, punched, kicked.
That's him right there.
He was actually wounded.
And they wouldn't let up.
They filmed their own attack.
You can see they're dressed in black with face masks.
That is a tactic called black block to make them hard to identify, as is the masks.
Well, Andy No would not be silenced.
In fact, it became a bit of a springboard for him to talk about what he had learned in his home city of Portland.
He did the media circuit on the growing threat of these street gangs in America that are really the street gangs, the paramilitary wing of the U.S. Democratic Party.
Well, we have some antifa violence in Canada too.
Thankfully, it's not to the same extent as seems to be permitted in the United States, but it's worth discussing.
And so at the University of British Columbia, which is not far from Portland, Andy No was invited to speak about the threat.
In fact, the title of his discussion was Understanding Antifa Violence.
And he was invited by the aptly named Free Speech Club at UBC.
The whole discussion is set to happen on January 29th, just a few weeks from now, until the University of British Columbia decided they were going to cancel the discussion about antifa violence because of the threat of antifa violence.
Here to explain it is Andy No's lawyer who is telling the CBC, you'd better go ahead with the talk or else you know the lawyer.
He's one of the few free speech lawyers left in Canada.
His name is John Carpe and he's the boss of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.
John, great to see you again.
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year to you, Ezra, and to all of the viewers of the Rebel.
Well, thank you very much.
Did I accurately summarize who Andy No is and what the nature of his planned January 29th talk at UBC is?
Yes, absolutely.
He's scheduled to come in on January the 29th and speak.
We hope the event will be reinstated.
UBC gave a green light to the Free Speech Club back in November to hold this event.
And then suddenly, just before Christmas, December the 20th, the UBC said, no, we're canceling the event.
The site Safety and Security, I call it the SS.
I've been dealing with the SS for a long time.
It's safety and security is always used as a pretext for trampling on free speech.
And I've seen it at the University of Calgary, at the University of Alberta, and throughout all across Canada.
You get the SS that is trampling on free speech, safety and security.
UBC was not specific about, you know, was this Antifa or did they feel that people might be emotionally triggered by having, you know, possibly hearing what Andy No had to say?
Not clear.
Just safety and security is all that was mentioned.
Well, you know what?
It sounds like they, it sounds like one of two things.
Either they are ideologically opposed to Andy No, and I haven't met the lad, but I've talked to him on the phone and I've had some correspondence with him.
He seems very mild-mannered.
He couldn't possibly be offensive.
His style is very, very calm.
Yeah, calm, very academic, very philosophical.
Yeah, and I mean, not that it matters, but he happens to be a Vietnamese American and he happens to be gay.
And neither of those are relevant other than like he's not a big, brutish, you know, skinhead.
I'm a white surprise.
Like he's like, he presents no challenge to the woke culture other than he's calling out antifa.
So there's nothing endemic to who he is that's offensive in any way.
In fact, he checks all the boxes for, you know, today's academic left other than he's calling out the violence of that.
So it could be an antipathy towards Andy No, but I don't see that.
So I think they're just caving in to a threat of violence.
And I don't know how big UBC's security personnel is.
Like, it's a pretty big university.
It's one of Canada's biggest.
They probably have more than 100 security guards on that campus.
They probably have very close working relationships with the RCMP, with Vancouver or Richmond or Burnaby Police.
I don't know.
Sorry, I'm sorry.
I don't know which police force would be.
But there's no way they could not handle a challenge of some protesters.
And even if some protesters brought masks and clubs, as we saw in Portland, there is absolutely no way UBC security or our CMP or city police can't handle it.
I think they're just taking the easy way out, the coward's way out, and they're joining the mob themselves.
Well, we can't let Antifa or anybody else dictate who is allowed to speak and who is not allowed to speak.
And, you know, it's interesting.
You mentioned earlier, you know, their name anti-fascist, but it was fascists in Europe in the 1920s and 30s, and not just in Germany and Italy, but in most European countries, had fascist movements.
And these people rejected debate.
They rejected intellectual inquiry.
And their attitude was, if we don't like what you're saying, we're going to shut you up.
We're going to shut down your events.
And we're going to be a bunch of thugs and we're going to interrupt and obstruct.
And really, free society and free expression are actually, in a way, they're quite fragile because all it takes is one person to get up in a, you know, if there's a conference, for example, or there's a speaker, there's a debate, all it takes is one person to stand up and start shouting.
And that can, you know, shut down the debate or delay it.
You know, you have to have the person removed.
So, I mean, if we care about the free society, we need UBC to step up to the plate.
And it's not just UBC.
I mean, the University of Alberta in Edmonton has condoned mob censorship of pro-life display in a case that's before the courts.
We're still waiting for a decision.
But UBC cannot pander to this kind of mob censorship where somebody takes it upon themselves to declare that somebody else is not allowed to be heard.
You know, and the more that you pander to this stuff, the more that you cave into it, the stronger that it grows and becomes.
Last question, I know you got a run.
You have been retained, the JCCF, and I'm very glad of it.
What is, I don't want you to give away all your legal strategy because I know, you know, some of that may be privileged.
But what is your legal grounds or what is your rationale that you're saying, hey, UBC, you're breaking this rule or you're breaking this contract.
What is your grounds for sending a demand letter to the UBC?
Well, there's administrative law.
There's a duty of fairness that UBC owes, that all large bodies owe to other people.
So to have approved an event and have the Free Speech Club book the flights for Andy Mo to come to Vancouver to incur these expenses and then suddenly, without any specific reason, without warning, suddenly pull the rug out from under.
They were selling tickets on Eventbrite for the event.
So there's administrative law and there's contract law.
UBC has a legal obligation towards its students and towards the students' clubs to honor its own statements about freedom of expression being a forum where all views can be presented and debated.
And so UBC and all universities have a legal obligation in contract law to facilitate free expression on campus.
So legal grounds are that UBC has violated the contract that it has with its own student, with the Free Speech Club, as well as administrative law has violated its duty of fairness.
Well, John, we wish you good luck.
We'll let it go there.
And we will be sending a reporter to cover the event on the 29th, God willing, if it proceeds.
And I hope it does.
John, keep fighting for freedom, my friend.
Thanks, Ezra.
All right.
There you have it.
John Carpe.
He's the boss of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom.
You can find their website at jccf.ca.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Hey, welcome back to my monologue yesterday about CBC's coverage of an illegal pipeline protest.
Devin writes, liberals have created a country where one protester can bring down the economy.
Yeah, that's not too far from the truth.
20 out of 20 Indian bands along that pipeline want it to go.
Liberals and Pipeline Protests00:01:14
But it's been delayed years because a handful of American-funded troublemakers.
Mark writes, the liberal propaganda from CBC is a big reason why Confederation is falling apart.
Defund the CBC.
Well, on the oil and gas issue, I kid you not, David Suzuki, who was their star for decades, ran a registered lobby group against the oil sands.
The CBC used their mighty resources and their platform to follow his personal agenda, his lobbying agenda, to devastating effect.
On my interview with Joel Pollock, Richard writes, attacking the American embassy was the last straw.
Iran finally went too far.
Yeah, but I don't think Donald Trump's going to invade.
I mean, as Joel pointed out, it's not like America has 100,000 troops in the theater and no one wants a ground invasion of Iran.
Probably not necessary.
This was a surgical strike that knocked out the number two guy.
A bit of a shock and awe move.
But, you know, I saw that Jagneet Singh did a tweet.
Oh, American actions in Iran.
American knew anything in Iran.
That's part of the craziness here.
This Iranian general was in Iraq, illegally, by the way.