Robin Wright writing at The New Yorker.

Suleimani, a flamboyant former construction worker and bodybuilder with snowy white hair, a dapper beard, and arching salt-and-pepper eyebrows, gained notice during the eight-year war with Iraq, in the nineteen eighties. He rose through the Revolutionary Guard to become head of the Quds Force—an Iranian unit of commandos comparable to the U.S. seals, Delta Force, and Rangers combined—in 1998. He was the most feared and most admired military leader in the region. He famously rallied followers with flowery jihadi rhetoric about the glories of martyrdom.

“Construction worker,” a real man’s man.  To wit, a “bodybuilder” (I lifted on the Clemson powerlifting team in college – tell me if this guy looks like a “bodybuilder”?).  “Salt-and-pepper eyebrows.”  “Flowery rhetoric.”

Good Lord, Robin.  You want to go to bed with him or something?  But this isn’t the best part.  Let’s repeat it again for good measure.

He rose through the Revolutionary Guard to become head of the Quds Force—an Iranian unit of commandos comparable to the U.S. seals, Delta Force, and Rangers combined—in 1998

That’s it.  Combine the Rangers, Delta, and SEALS (she forgot to mention Green Beret, some of whom are part of Tier 1 SOC), and that’s what Quds is.

She might have said that Suleimani was responsible for the attack that killed Americans at Benghazi, you know, that attack where my own military readers knew within 24 hours that it was a pre-planned, well-coordinated operation using combined arms and emplaced crew-served weapons, for which Obama trotted out Susan Rice for half a year to claim it was some idiotic video.

She might have mentioned that Suleimani was responsible for the deaths of over 600 American servicemen in Iraq.  She might have said that Quds was a brutal, thuggish group that wars against its own people.  There are a whole host of things she could have mentioned, but honestly, it never occurred to me that anyone would associate him with bodybuilding or creating the combined Rangers, Delta and SEALs in a single unit called Quds.

Robin, have you been on your meds lately?  Are you under supervision?

How do my SpecOps readers feel about being bested by Quds? Green Berets. How do you feel about being left out of the best? How about you guys, Marine Recon and MARSOC? One of the hardest, most squared away guys I’ve ever known was a Recon Marine who did four consecutive tours of Iraq by switching units. He literally never came home until four tours were over.

Guess he’s nothing compared to Quds.