Brian M Downing
An American drone strike has killed Qassem Soleimani, the renowned head of the IRGC’s foreign operations. Over the last decade he patched together dozens of Syrian, Iraqi, and international-Shia militias. They fought US troops in the years after the 2003 invasion, bolstered faltering Syrian forces, fought alongside, albeit uneasily, US-trained troops against ISIL, and are now attacking Americans in Iraq.
Early on in the Syrian war the indigenous militias he patched together massacred Sunnis, turning the conflict from a broad-based opposition to Assad to a vicious sectarian war. Soleimani was also a powerbroker in Iraqi politics. He was able to get fractious Shia parties to form coalitions, though not lasting ones.
Exceptionally popular in Iran, Soleimani was thought to be a potential political leader, one of course aligned with religious and military hardliners. His death brought grief across Iran. It will also bring more counterstrikes.
Responses
Soleimani’s death comes amid years of low-scale violence between Iran on the one hand and the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel on the other. Iranian positions in Syria have been attacked and insurgencies simmer inside Iran itself. Iran and its allies struck Saudi oil facilities, Israeli border outposts, and US personnel in Iraq. The attack on the US embassy in Baghdad, though not resulting in any deaths, was a significant escalation. Soleimani’s killing was another, larger one.
Iran’s reach outside the region isn’t great but it has had successes. It’s unclear who struck the US embassy and US-French troops in Beirut back in 1983, but an IRGC hand, perhaps with Shia Amal, is highly likely. Iran is thought to have been behind a bombing of a Jewish center in Argentina that killed 85 people in 1994 but the evidence isn’t irrefutable. Iran was adept at assassinating exiled dissidents in Europe back in the 80s and more recently has assassinated MEK and Khuzestan-separatist figures there too. Attempts to kill Israeli diplomats have failed.
Regional responses are more likely, if only because Tehran is trying to attract foreign sympathy, especially from Europeans. Hisbollah could certainly strike US and Israel targets but past Israeli responses have been ruinously destructive across large parts of Lebanon. US personnel would likely be much higher on the target list.
The IRGC may again target shipping near the Strait of Hormuz. Previous attacks annoyed European countries but in manner directed more against Washington than on Tehran. After all, US claims regarding Iran’s nuclear program are not widely believed. US naval vessels may be targeted but their firepower and air support exceed anything Iran can put up.
Iranian-backed militias inside Iraq will be eager tp avenge their chief benefactor. One of their principal commanders, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was killed alongside Soleimani, leaving thousands of fighters without their top command structure. Responses may be swift, extensive, and perhaps chaotic. American troops, diplomatic personnel, and contractors will be prime targets.
Iranian-backed militias may begin protracted, fierce fighting with anti-Iran militias. The latter are celebrating Soleimani’s death. The possibility of militia warfare further undermining the Iraqi central government and perhaps brining about its collapse has been presented in previous reports here. Baghdad cannot control events inside its borders; politics is taking place in street battles, not parliamentary debates.
Russia and China
Wars are acts of rational politics and emotions must be held back, or so Clausewitz instructed. But emotions almost always get involved and the death of a revered national hero is causing emotions to flare in Iranian cities and villages. Generals and mullahs too imagine flattened barracks and falling buildings.
Iran has been acting with the support of Russia, its chief arms supplier, and China, a large oil purchaser. They want to use the present crisis to expand their influence in the region and world, at the expense of the US’s, but they do not want things to get out of hand. They will press Tehran to avoid worsening the situation and bringing outright war. Better to respond in a highly visible but limited manner and get back at the US more fully another way.
Russia and China will try to calm things by calling for an international inquiry into the basis of the conflict (Iran’s nuclear program), advocate stricter IAEA inspections, and ask for all foreign powers to withdraw from Iraq. The plan will not bring stability to Iraq, nothing will, but it will present Russia and China as supporters of diplomacy and the US as reliant on military force.
Most EU and Asian states will be supportive of diplomatic efforts. The global prestige of Moscow and Beijing will go up if only slightly, Washington’s will continue to diminish.
© 2020 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.