Bernie Sanders on Terrorist Soleimani: U.S. Should ‘Work Out Our Differences’ at U.N.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) responded when asked during Friday’s Democrat debate in New Hampshire if he would have also ordered an airstrike on Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Gen. Qasem Soleimani by saying that the United States should largely lean on the United Nations to “work out our differences.”

President Donald Trump ordered that airstrike in January after, the administration insisted, evidence surfaced of Soleimani organizing an imminent attack on American troops. Days before the airstrike, a mob of pro-Iran militants wrote Soleimani’s name on the wall of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.

Soleimani was in charge of all of Iran’s terrorist operations abroad as the head of the Quds Force.

Sanders, whom moderators noted had referred to Soleimani’s elimination as the “assassination” of a government official, suggested that the U.S. should not take out prominent terrorists, as the U.S. did with Iran’s top terror chief:

“There are very bad leaders all over the world,” Sanders said, naming a number of authoritarian leaders across the globe.

“You cannot go around saying, ‘You’re a bad guy; we’re going to assassinate you,’ and then you’re going to have — if that happens — you’re opening the door to international anarchy,” he said, adding, “Every government in the world will then be subjected to attacks and assassination.”

Instead of taking out terrorists, Sanders suggested that the U.S. strengthen its “diplomatic capabilities” and lean on the U.N. — not just the military.

“What we’ve got to do is bring countries around the world together, with our power and our wealth, and say, ‘You know what. Let us sit down and work out our differences through debate and discussion at the U.N.,’ not through more and more war, the expenditures of trillions of dollars, and loss of God knows how many lives,” he said.

Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans and injuries of countless more. The Pentagon said he approved the recent attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and was actively planning further attacks.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll taken last month showed that the majority of Americans approved of the strike that took out the terrorist leader.