After decades of political setbacks, Iran’s former Revolutionary Guards commander has returned to the center of power. Is he an incidental beneficiary of war, or have observers underestimated him all along?
Gulf states and their partners are increasingly looking beyond their most immediate interests of containing the war with Iran. While recent talks between Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, and Iran have kept de-escalation on the agenda, a broader regional security framework and non-aggression pact has also emerged, envisioning a longer-lasting solution to regional conflicts. The talks have yet to produce a settlement, but they reflect a growing recognition that Gulf security cannot depend entirely on Washington. Iran will still be there, and its neighbors will have to find ways of living with it.
Recent elections for the Israeli Knesset and American Congress may make less of a difference in the Middle East than some people think. Elections are significant indicators of national political trends, but do not always translate into changes in national security strategies. That is likely the case now in both nations.
In the early hours of Jan. 3, 2020, a U.S. Military MQ-9 drone fired multiple air-to-ground missiles and killed the commander of the elite Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – Quds Force, Major General Qassem Soleimani. The targeted killing of Soleimani was carried out as he left the Baghdad International Airport under overt military authorities. Given that the strike was carried out under this authority, it was publicized globally shortly after it was completed. There were other options available to target Soleimani, however.
While these latest protests will likely also be repressed, the anger against Khamenei and his foot soldiers in the Revolutionary Guards will not go away.
In the aftermath of the latest round of U.S. and Iranian brinksmanship, hawks and liberals are interpreting developments as validating their positions. Hawks are claiming victory for “maximum pressure,” arguing how the U.S. strike against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani frightened the now weakened ruling clerics into submission. Liberals argue that Iran took the high road, demonstrating a willingness to respond to incentives and negotiate.
The Iranian pattern of ‘strategic patience’ has evidently transferred to its cyber activity, justifying vigilance, but not panic.
MEI experts Randa Slim and Alex Vatanka join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the sharp escalation in US-Iran tensions following the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Gen. Soleimani, head of the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad on Jan. 3, along with Iraqi paramilitary leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. After several days of waiting to see how Iran might respond, on Jan. 7 Tehran launched more than a dozen missiles at two bases in Iraq housing US forces. No casualties were reported, and in comments on Jan. 8 President Trump promised to impose new sanctions on Iran, but seemed to back away from further military action.
Trump has taken such a forward-leaning and aggressive position now that he has set himself, and the U.S., in a conflict trap that he might not be able to defuse.
While yesterday’s vote in the Iraqi Council of Representatives on a decision to remove U.S. forces is not legally binding, it creates dynamics inside the U.S. and Iraq that make a U.S. decision to remove its forces all but inevitable.
Tehran will do what it can to avenge Soleimani’s death, to save face at home and abroad, but it will not seek a direct military confrontation.
For almost 40 years, American national security officials have looked down the barrel of the gun of war with Iran. I sat in rooms in the White House and Pentagon several times as small groups of senior officials considered what such a war would look like, how it would end, and whether we would be better off for having fought it.
The answer was always the same: It would be highly destructive in several nations, it would end in a stalemate with the Iranian regime in place, and nothing positive would have been accomplished.
Seven MEI experts weigh in with their views on what the killing of Iran’s Qassem Soleimani means for the region
The killing of Qassem Soleimani is one of the biggest developments in the Middle East in decades — it far eclipses the deaths of Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in terms of strategic significance and implications.
Just when we thought we had a good understanding of President Donald Trump’s Middle East policy — which boils down to “get out of the region and avoid another endless war there” — he pulls off something dramatic like this.
We must keep in mind that Iran exercises what Barack Obama liked to call “strategic patience.” They pursue strategies and tactics that serve their interests, not emotions. Their interests remain to get Trump to ease off on crippling economic sanctions; to maintain or increase their influence in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon; and to maintain regime security at home. The death of a senior military officer of theirs is significant but doesn’t change their institutional relations, their interests, or their overall strategy.
After a career in the military with a lot of time spent in this region, I have learned that you must respect your adversaries and their ability to hurt us.
In the wake of the airstrike, there have been many calls inside Iraq for restraint among Iraqis and between the Americans and the Iranians, most notably from the Shi’a clerical establishment in Najaf. There is a wide consensus in Iraq that the country should not be at the center of an American-Iranian military fight.
The oldest peer-reviewed publication dedicated to the study of the modern Middle East, MEI’s flagship journal covers politics, society, and culture in the region.
