Iranian state media are airing a propaganda video that shows Iranian death squads executing U.S. President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to avenge the death of Iran’s Gen. Qasem Soleimani in a U.S. airstrike.
In the video, posted and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a group of Iranian operatives hears a report that “Hajj Soleimani” has been “martyred” by a “terrorist attack.” (The title “hajj” means that Soleimani made the obligatory Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in his life.)
Iraqi Shiite militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, killed in the same airstrike that liquidated Soleimani, is also saluted as a holy warrior and martyr in the video.
The Iranian hit squad has a rather lengthy discussion about whether to “hit them,” plans out their White House attack in detail with a workaround for their inability to coordinate the attack by radio, sneaks around through an urban area that does not look much like Washington, DC, blows up the Capitol building as a distraction from the real attack, and then guns down everyone in the White House in a rampage so bloody (and expensive to film) that only its gruesome aftermath is seen.
These scenes are presumably meant to convey that Iran’s heroic warriors are a bit reluctant to murder dozens of people but will overcome their reservations to carry out a justified act of vengeance, and would have little trouble overcoming the sophisticated forces protecting the American president and any high-ranking Jewish leaders who might happen to be visiting the White House when the hit goes down.
The film ends with the death squad standing over the bloody corpses of Trump, Pompeo, and Netanyahu. “Severe revenge awaits the criminals whose impure hands are soiled with his blood,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei intones in the background.