The Middle East without Soleimani

Following the US assassination of Qasem Soleimani, who was an IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) general and the Quds Force commander, Iran retaliated against the US by launching a missile attack on US bases in Iraq. What further impact will Soleimani’s death have? And what will it mean for US interests in the region?

On January 22, Carnegie Endowment for International Studies hosted a panel discussion on The killing of Soleimani and the future of the Middle East. The discussion included three speakers: Rasha Al Aqeedi, the managing editor of Irfaa Sawtak (Raise Your Voice) and a research analyst of contemporary Iraqi politics and political Islam, Dexter Filkins, a journalist for The New Yorker, and Emile Hokayem, a senior fellow for Middle East Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The panel discussion was moderated by Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow with the Carnegie Middle East Program.

Soleimani projected Iran’s power in the region

Filkins described Soleimani as a “master spy” and “a man in the shadow.” His influence was pervasive. Lebanese people didn’t decide their government, Soleimani did. Assad was not running the war, Soleimani was. Soleimani was a product of the Iran-Iraq War, during which he worked on strengthening and allying with the Shia around the Middle East.

Hokayem depicted him as one of the most influential actors in the Levant for securing Iran’s long-term interests. Soleimani turned Hezbollah from a formidable insurgent group into a conventional actor with missile forces menacing Israel. He was implicated in Hariri’s assassination in 2005, led efforts to shore up the Assad regime in 2012, and was also involved in the Battle of Kirkuk in 2017.

Al Aqeedi noted that when ISIL (The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) took over Mosul in 2014, Soleimani reacted by forming security forces/militias to help Iraq, based on Iran’s interests. Since then, Soleimani had kept the US-trained Iraqi army as weak as possible, while strengthening and formalizing the Shia militias in Iraq. In 2017, Soleimani rallied the Iraqi army to forcefully retake Kirkuk and suppress the results of Kurdistan’s independence referendum.

Further retaliation?

Sadjadpour believes that the assassination has energized the radicals of the Iranian regime, who may intensify their repression, but the downing of the Ukrainian airline has constrained popular support for retaliation. Filkins doubts benefits to US interests from the assassination.

Al Aqeedi noted that if any Iranian retaliation targeted US embassies or Americans, the US may intensify its retribution against Iran. Hence, Iran and the US need to think twice before taking any further actions. Hokayem suggested Iran possesses lots of tools to retaliate, not necessarily against American targets but also against regional American proxies, such as Saudi Arabia.

Impacts

Hokayem emphasized that the assassination neither mitigates Iran’s threat to its regional rivals nor changes the ordering of the region. Iran has secured its presence in the Eastern Mediterranean. He also claimed that the Trump administration doesn’t care much about Iraq. The US military presence was keeping a low profile even before the Iraqi parliament urged the government to expel foreign troops from its territory.

Al Aqeedi agreed with Hokayem that the US isn’t interested in being involved in the Iraqi protests. She underlined that the US presence in Iraq is not an occupation, and there is no US military base in Iraq. Hence, she argued that the current campaign against US presence in Iraq is a distraction from the protest, which targeted the IRGC. The Iraqi protesters are reluctant to be dragged into the US-Iran confrontation and want Iraq to avoid becoming a proxy for any external actors. Al Aqeedi is deeply concerned that Iraqi protesters are likely to encounter more violence from the IRGC and forces it controls.