We should recognize the accomplishments even of wicked men. Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani rose from a family of landless peasants in Iran’s Kerman province. He enlisted in 1979 in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the theocracy’s paramilitary vanguard, and fought against Kurdish insurrectionists, Saddam Hussein’s legions, and drug-running Baluchis who refused to allow the IRGC a monopoly on Afghan opium. Unlike many of the Islamic Republic’s founders, Soleimani didn’t avoid danger. He didn’t casually send his men in waves...

Source: Wall Street Journal January 03, 2020 23:15 UTC