Soleimani was a murderer, responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of Americans. But this reckless move escalates the situation with Iran and increases the likelihood of more deaths and new Middle East conflict. Our priority must be to avoid another costly war.

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 3, 2020

Progressives want to avoid war with Iran. Warren made abundantly clear in that tweet that she thinks war with Iran should be avoided. So what was their beef? It was her use of the word “murderer” to describe Soleimani, which is perfectly accurate and apropos for the occasion but which angered some lefties because it seemed to validate Trump’s decision to target him — or so they claim. Trump said he was a bad guy who needed to die. He was a bad guy, Warren allowed.

How dare she.

Upwards of 95 percent of the grief she took for that tweet, I suspect, was driven by Berniebros searching for any new pretext they can find to call her a squish and a sellout ahead of the big vote in Iowa. Sanders’s fortunes have improved in the early states over the past few months as Warren’s have declined, presumably because some progressives torn between them have concluded that Bernie is the purer exemplar of left-wing populism. Her Soleimani tweet was an opportunity for his fans to extend that critique to foreign policy. Can we really trust Warren not to get us into new foreign wars the way we can trust Bernie not to do so when she’s fast out of the gate calling Soleimani a “murderer”?

It was a cynical play but it worked. She followed up with a second tweet clarifying that it’s Donald Trump who keeps her awake at night, not the terrorists in Iran’s government:

We’re on the brink of yet another war in the Middle East—one that would be devastating in terms of lives lost and resources wasted. We’re not here by accident. We’re here because a reckless president, his allies, and his administration have spent years pushing us here.

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 3, 2020

All three of my brothers served in uniform. I know the sacrifices we ask of them and their families. Trump’s actions put every service member and diplomat in the region at risk. This is a moment for vigilance—for Americans to speak up and speak out. No more Middle East wars.

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 3, 2020

McCain was obviously testing her this morning to see how far she’d go to sustain that pander to the left by avoiding criticism of Soleimani. Whether he was a “terrorist” or not doesn’t matter much compared to the question, say, of whether his targeting was lawful self-defense or an illegal assassination of a foreign state official. But it was a gut check for Warren to see how she’d frame her message when facing a national audience of mainstream voters instead of the usual DSA Twitter trash to whom she’s normally grandstanding. Terrorist or not? Warren gave the correct answer, albeit two minutes late.

The funny part is that her tweets about Soleimani aren’t close to being the most dubious thing she’s said about the killing. That would be this:

“I think the question that we ought to focus on is why now? Why not a month ago, why not a month from now? And the answer from the administration seems to be that they can’t keep their story straight on this. They pointed in all different directions. And you know, the last time that we watched them do this was the summer over Ukraine. … And of course, what emerged then is this was Donald Trump just trying to advance Donald Trump’s own political agenda. Not the agenda of the United States of America. So what happens right now? Next week, the president of the United States could be facing an impeachment trial in the Senate. We know he’s deeply upset about that. I think that people are reasonably asking, why this moment?“

I’ve written two posts already about why it’s goofy to think targeting Soleimani was designed to distract the public from an impeachment process to which it’s not paying much attention in the first place, so I won’t bother with a third here. The bottom line is this: Given how little Trump’s polling has suffered during impeachment and the assurance of acquittal in the Senate, the fallout from killing Soleimani is a much graver risk to his reelection chances than impeachment is. It’d be the dumbest manufactured “distraction” in modern history. Nothing’s going to happen at the trial that’ll meaningfully increase his chances of losing next fall. A war with Iran will very definitely affect those chances.

Asked several times by @MeghanMcCain if Gen. Soleimani was a terrorist, Sen. Elizabeth Warren says, "Of course he is. He's part of a group that our federal government has designated as a terrorist. The question, though, is what's the right response?" https://t.co/tmqF9En73W pic.twitter.com/kr7By0AyEl

— ABC News (@ABC) January 7, 2020