Sucker Punch

In the early hours of January 3 2020, Major General Qasem Soleimani, Iran's most senior military officer and commander of the Quds force, was assassinated in a drone strike at the Baghdad Airport whilst on a diplomatic mission from Tehran. Moments later, U.S. president Donald Trump tweeted a lo-res image of an American flag. The assassination of a diplomatic envoy in a third country means that the US is now officially at war with both Iraq and Iran. It also guarantees, as Eric Striker observes, that no American soldier will ever be safe in the Middle East again. The repercussions of this cowardly act of open provocation can scarcely be gauged in the moment, and are better left to more qualified political analysts to speculate on. What follows instead is a review of some of the cinematic aspects of this brazen travesty.


With its waxing and waning subplots, hero-villain romances, changing lead actors, regular character derailments, low budget special effects and stock visual metaphors, US foreign policy begins to look a lot like a serialised TV sitcom from the wrong decade - A shaggy dog story that more often than not leaves the audience shaking their heads wondering what the fuck was all that about?

Back from the Xmas ad break, season 45, episode 4 opens with a plot reference to season 42, where Bill Clinton launches a series of airstrikes against Iraq, effectively delaying the impeachment vote against him. CNBC leads with the infantile headline: America Just Blew up the World's No. 1 Bad Guy.

Trump's gambit is cowardly and reckless, and comes across with the kind of fuck-you arrogance and nonchalance that only a supreme low life like Trump could pull off. He literally walks onstage and shoots Soleimani in the back. Meanwhile taking the world to the brink of WWIII Sarejevo style functions as a kind of action prologue for what promises to be a more fast-paced episode than we're used to.

And about bloody time.

The Trump storyline so far takes story arc fatigue to a whole new level. From the interminable dreariness of Russiagate to the on-again-off-again tryst with Kim Jong Un; from the rise and fall (and rise and fall, and rise and fall) of ISIS to the many deaths of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, possibly a pop culture reference to the character Kenny from South Park. As cliches go this one is well past its expiry date, as is the over-used doomsday device trope a.k.a weapons of mass destruction (Saddam has biological weapons, Iran is developing a nuclear arsenal, repeat as required.)

Most painful of all though has been the tedious suspension of disbelief around the central character himself. Trump is introduced to us as a variation of the chosen one who will find the sword and kill the dragon; in this case the political outsider who will drain the swamp and end the forever war. And yet at the same time we all know he's an unscrupulous conman and a malignant narcissist. So it's been three years and he hasn't started any new wars - its not like he hasn't got his hands bloodied. How much misery has he inflicted on ordinary Americans while lining the pockets of his campaign donors? How many kids has he separated from their parents at the US/Mexico border? And don't forget his adventures in Latin America, the attempted overthrow of Venezuela and the successful Bolivian coup.

It’s hard to invest much in a story where the outcome seems predetermined, but equally frustrating when we're 3 episodes in and we're still waiting for the character reveal, the moment we find out that our hero was evil all along.

For the attention paying viewer, the lampshade was hung early in episode 3 with this tweet from Trump:

"The Iranian regime is the leading state sponsor of terror. It exports dangerous missiles, fuels conflicts across the Middle East, and supports terrorist proxies"

It really is only in hindsight that episode 3 starts to make any sense at all. The assassination of Bhagdadi was an embarrassingly sloppy piece of writing - like they weren't even trying. They chased him down a tunnel and he blew up his suicide vest? What is this meant to be? Some sort of dark comic relief? And awarding a Medal of Honour to Conan the dog? What was all that about? Bhagdadi was (obviously) never a real target and his death was (obviously) staged. The whole Bhagdadi affair is simply a foreshadowing device. (See also the Israeli assassination of Islamic Jihad commander Abu al-Ata, who was claimed at the time to have been "planning imminent attacks against Israel")

Assassination by executive order was Obama's gift to Trump. An MQ-9 Reaper drone armed with a laser guided hellfire missile, a high resolution camera and a remote operator was all that was needed to take out Soleimani. Fan fiction may forever be divided as to whether the drone was controlled from Ali al Salem or Tel Aviv. It's immaterial. What is material is that Iran's highest ranking military officer - the man most responsible for taking out ISIS and al Qaeda - was invited to Iraq as a peace envoy, only to be murdered in broad daylight. In this vulgar and cowardly act of obsquience to his neocon handlers, our hero finally crosses the moral event horizon. This is Trump's character defining moment.

How will the Democrats react to Trump's new found taste for blood? Will Iran respond with fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus - let justice be done, though the world perish? Will Trump be re-cast as the villain-protagonist who finally gets what's coming to him? Will the series ultimately deliver its object lesson, that crime, in this case imperialism and genocide, doesn't pay? Or are we headed for a classic downer ending where the villain wins everything and his crimes go unpunished? Will there be a nested-story reveal at the end for the Q fans? And what will become of Random Guy?

My prediction is an ending where everyone dies. Like in Hamlet but with less poetry. Then again what self respecting auteur could resist paying homage to James Cameron's Alien 3, with Ali Khamenei in the role of Dillon?

Khamenei:“You’re all gonna die. The only question is how you check out. Do you want it on your feet? Or do you want it on your knees? Begging? I ain’t much for begging! Nobody ever gave me nothing! So I say fuck that thing! Let’s fight it!” 

With Russia, China and Turkey waiting in the wings, this promises to be a season finale with more than a few plot twists in store, so grab yourself an extra large bucket of popcorn and settle in for an unforgettable hour of the best damn reality show ever.

Empire of Chaos: Epilogue screens now until November 3.