The list of US sins against Iran is long and growing, harking back to the halcyon days of yore, when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA Director Allen Dulles were able to manipulate US foreign policy to favor their former Big Oil clients by engineering the overthrow of the secular, democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. We’ve been on the wrong side of Iran ever since, and now we’ve committed an act of war by assassinating Gen. Qassam Soleimani for his support of Shia militia in Iraq. And the lapdog media is quick to label Soleimani as “bloody handed” and a terrorist.
Perhaps the media might bother to provide a LITTLE background:
Iraq is 65% Shia; 35% Sunni. Saddam Hussein was a Sunni Baathist and the Shia were oppressed in Iraq for years. In the 1980's, the US, angry with Iran for taking over the US Embassy* and revealing it to be a nest of CIA spies working to overthrow the Iranian government, provided Saddam with $1B in precursor chemicals for weapons, provided intel, and encouraged him to launch a war with Iran. Saddam used chemical weapons and 1,000,000 troops and civilians died in the conflict.
Iran is predominantly Shia, and Iran has a long history of supporting Shia elements inside Iraq. After 9/11, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and even "moderate" Colin Powell lied to the American people and the world about Iraq's WMDs and links to al Qaeda. The US unlawfully invaded Iraq, and between 500,000 and 1,000,000 civilians were killed, many of whom were Shia.
Then Coalition Provisional AUthority Director Paul Bremer, Bush/Cheney’s hand-picked Ivy League pedigree, Brooks Brothers/combat booted face of the US in Iraq dissolved the Iraqi military, putting 300-400,000 armed Sunni soldiers out of work. These soldiers became the military core of ISIS. ISIS was openly hostile to Shia in Iraq, so Iran began working through its Shia militia to support Shia militia in their fight against ISIS.
Iran-backed Shia militia in Iraq also resisted the unlawful American invasion and occupation of Iraq. It;s true, these Shia militia organized and backed by Soleimani may have killed as many as 500 American troops, but there was a war going on in Iraq, a war WE started. If we want to label Soleimani as "bloody-handed" what does that make Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell? They were responsible for 2000 times as many deaths as Soleimani.
Additionally, Soleimani's Shia militia were the most efficent fighters against ISIS in Iraq. The US was essentially aligned with Soleimani when it came to the fight against ISIS.
[NB: The conflicts between Shia and Sunni Muslims go back to the seventh century and the death of the Prophet Muhammad. The separation of the two groups started after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. The Sunni majority believed that his rightful successor was his father-in-law and close friend, Abu Bakr, but a small Shia group believed the Prophet Muhammad's successor should be Ali ibn Abi Talib, his cousin and son-in-law and father of his grandchildren. 1400 years later they're still hating on each other; about as stupid as the Protestant/Catholic troubles in Ireland.]
[* The other reason the Iranians took over the Embassy was when the Shah left Iran, he allegedly stole as much as $12,000,000,000 from the iranian treasury, and the US let him enter the US bringing stolen $$ to Western banks.]
So, yes, Gen. Soleimani was a hard guy and had some blood on his hands. but please, compared to war criminals Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld or Rice, he's strictly a novice bloodletter. And the United States is neither safer nor more moral as a result of Trump’s transparent actions.