The assassination of top Iranian military commander and leader of its Quds Force, Qassem Sulaimani, has left the world divided. The assassination which was carried out in Baghdad, on Thursday, hasn't received bipartisan support in United States, as well.
While Republicans have welcomed the bold move, Democrats have criticized the step and the President, to varying degrees. One of them, is the Congresswoman from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, who has widely criticized the assassination, which is bound to escalate tensions in the already volatile region.
Omar's war of words with Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, who was the runner-up for the Republican nomination for President, in the 2016 elections, said, "According to the Obama Department of Defense, Qasem Soleimani was a terrorist directly responsible for the murder of over 500 [sic] US servicemen & women. Why are congressional Dems outraged that he's finally dead?"
To this, she replied, "We are outraged the president would assassinate a foreign official, possibly setting off another war without Congressional authorization and has zero plan to deal with the consequences". "But of course you know that", she further added, referring to Cruz's statement during 2016 US Presidential elections, in which he questioned Donald Trump's ability to lead
"I don't know anyone who would be comfortable with someone who behaves this way having his finger on the button", Cruz had said about Trump, in 2016.
"This reckless mind is now leading us to war!", she tweeted, along with some of Trump's older tweets in which he said that the then US President Barack Obama would start a war with Iran, in order to get re-elected. She also called for Congress to "stop Trump from starting a catastrophic war with Iran".
Omar drew a comparison between the current escalation with Iran, with that during Iraq war (2003), in which the US invaded Iraq accusing it of having Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), and later toppled Saddam Hussein's regime.
