While there was no shortage of triumphant voices coming from Washington DC on Friday after the targeted assassination of a senior Iranian general, that of John Bolton seemed especially cheerful.
The former national security adviser in the Donald Trump administration took to Twitter to congratulate "all involved in eliminating Qassem Soleimani," the commander of Iran's elite Quds Force.
"Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran," Bolton quipped.
The mustached cheerleader for any and all foreign interventions ever conceived in the US, Bolton has a long record of advocating a war with the Islamic Republic. He even wrote an opinion piece titled "To Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran" at the peak of Barack Obama's negotiations with Tehran on the now-scrapped nuclear deal.
Soleimani was killed in a US airstrike as his convoy was traveling outside Baghdad International Airport early on Friday morning. Washington claimed the assassination was an act of self-defense, accusing the Iranian general of plotting attacks on American citizens. Tehran said it was an act of international terrorism and pledged to retaliate.
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