For a brief moment, the assassination of Qasem Soleimani a year ago was “the story” of 2020. Analysts were frenzied in their alarmist predictions that not only was war with Iran on the horizon, but a broader conflict across the region was also imminent. Instead, 2020 proved to be noteworthy for how little the assassination altered the status quo.
Soleimani’s assassination in Baghdad was the biggest foreign policy gamble of President Trump’s term in office, but it was perhaps less audacious than George W. Bush’s venture in Iraq or Barack Obama’s war in Libya. The ostensible rationale offered by the Trump White House for the Soleimani strike was the murder of a US citizen in a rocket attack on an air base in Iraq, a clear act of provocation and one linked to Soleimani’s Revolutionary Guard-directed proxies.
For fans of Trump, the strike on Soleimani was bold, decisive, surgical and successful. For his detractors it was hasty, foolhardy and unnecessarily provocative. Such critics could point out that the strike provoked an Iranian missile attack on US forces in Iraq that injured 100 American soldiers.
However, a year has passed without the predicted conflagration in the Middle East. Not only did the mouse fail to roar, it barely squeaked. Perhaps Iran deemed its missile attack on the US air base in Iraq a proportionate response to the targeted killing of a senior military commander, an act that could reasonably warrant a declaration of war. Another possible explanation for Iranian restraint was its own role in shooting down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 five days after Soleiman’s assassination, with the loss of all 176 passengers and crew, nearly 150 of them Iranian. Such collateral damage may have caused Ayatollah Khamenei a moment of reflection and reticence. Indeed, Iran only reluctantly admitted its role in shooting down the plane.
In either case, Iranian actions in response to Soleimani’s assassination reveal considerable insight into Tehran’s approach to geopolitics. The Quds Force under Soleimani regarded its terrorist plots and proxies in the Middle East as part of a long-term chess game. They are patient enough to study the board several moves ahead, and recognize their opponents may be impatient because of political and other factors. Tehran is adept at resisting the temptation to act impulsively or impetuously, and is willing to outlast opponents’ administrations and regimes if it serves their interests — even if that means sacrificing key pieces on the board.
Killing Soleimani was intended to coerce Iran into abandoning its aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East. One year on, that history appears to be repeating itself with a rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad. Again, Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iraqi militia with close ties to Tehran, is denying responsibility for an attack on US citizens, but evidence appears to point to its involvement and that of Iran.
In light of this recent incident, and its relative proximity to the anniversary of Soleimani’s assassination, it is worth noting that Soleimani did not die alone on that day in early 2020; also killed in the drone strike was Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, the commander of Kata’ib Hezbollah, who had been designated a terrorist by the US and the UAE. It would not be implausible to infer that the latest embassy attack is retribution for Al-Muhandis, even though he was an incidental casualty in the strike intended for Soleimani.
The assassination of Soleimani revived global attention on Iraq, as well as Iran’s continued and growing influence over Iraqi politics and indeed the larger Middle East region. As a consequence of the killing, and as evidence of how much sway Tehran holds over Iraq, the parliament in Baghdad passed a resolution calling for the expulsion of US forces from Iraq. This resolution was approved only by pro-Iranian Shiite political parties and boycotted by a coalition of Kurdish and Sunni Arab politicians, as well as some Shiite groups. Iran prefers pulling levers to launching missiles as a way of achieving its objectives. This is a key part of its long game.
Iran’s overt influence has been a contributing factor to street protests in Iraq, which began in October 2019 and have continued until now, albeit dampened by the pandemic. Indeed, a massive leak of documents in November 2019 revealed the broad extent to which Iran controls Iraqi public life. The New York Times obtained the cache of documents and gave the story greater visibility, though for most Iraqis it was hardly a revelation.
The Trump administration’s targeting of Soleimani was part of a wider strategy meant to roll back Iran’s influence in many parts of the Middle East. Indeed, another US drone strike in Yemen targeted Abdulreza Shahlai, a brigadier general in the Quds Force, on the same night as the Soleimani strike. Shahlai escaped but the strike did kill a lower ranking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps soldier, the first combat death the IRGC has acknowledged in its long war in Yemen.
Iran remains undaunted in its approach despite the death of Soleimani and even the killing of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. As I wrote here last year, Iranian operatives in South Africa planned to kill the US ambassador there, a personal friend of Trump. Last week the US designation of a pro-Iran Bahraini group as a terrorist organization also speaks to Iran’s commitment to building up the capabilities of its proxies across the region.
Soleimani’s assassination was certainly a significant blow to Iran, the loss of a high-value member of Tehran’s inner circle of leadership. A clever and careful strategist, Soleimani also possessed immeasurable experience and expertise at playing the long game. Indeed, he gained influence from the 1990s, often by pursuing carefully crafted policies focused on strategic long-term outcomes far more effectively than his predecessors. But his approach to the geopolitical chessboard is shared by the Tehran regime collectively. One year on, Soleimani is long dead, but the terrorist network he has built across the region — from Iraq to Yemen — lives on.
*The writer is a journalist and former Fulbright Public Policy fellow with the government of Malawi.
January 4, 2021
The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of Aequitas Review.
