The Profitable Martyrdom of Qassim Soleimani

January 4, 2020, 7:45 a.m. Arabian Standard Time

Whatever else might be said about the character of the recently deceased head of the Kuds Force element of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, it cannot be doubted that he was willing to give his life in the service of what is known in his country as the Islamic Revolution.  To the extent that movement is identified with the policy of the present regime in Teheran, the consequences of his assassination could well be more than adequate reward for what his co-religionists have dubbed martyrdom.

If hard-line elements within the Shiite majority of the Iraqi parliament are able, in the wake of this provocative American act, to compel the Iraqi government to demand the withdrawal of U.S. forces from that country, there will be jubilation in the councils of Supreme Leader Khameni.  Iraq is all that lies between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and an Iraq stripped of Western occupiers and under a Shiite government which is free to express sympathy with Teheran is the Saudi regime’s worst nightmare – and would be even in the absence of powerful Iraqi Shiite paramilitaries more or less openly aligned with Teheran.

That nightmare is all the more troubling to the Saudis in light of the Trump Administration’s underwhelming reactions to various 2019 Iranian maritime provocations in the Gulf and to last September’s attack on the Abqaiq and Khurais oil processing facilities.  Even with more American forces trickling into Iraq, there have recently been signs that Saudi Arabia is seeking détente with Teheran.  Should Western forces be removed from Iraq, Iran would likely be able to secure effective safe passage for its forces through Iraq, and its army of half a million men could seize the Saudi north, where the Shiites and the oil are, within a week.  Even if there is some secret American commitment to defend the Saudi kingdom, Prince Bin Salman is probably too shrewd to place much reliance on it.

In that event, the only question would be to what extent, and at what price, Iran is willing to reach an accommodation with the Saudis.  The result would be a sea-change in power relationships all across the Middle East, a change greatly in Iran’s favor.  Governments and factions by the dozen, resigned to seeing off the Americans, would be seeking accommodation with Iran while assiduously courting Russia.  In fact Turkey’s Erdogan, never one to let grass grow under his feet, is already taking advantage of America’s distraction to move more forces into northern Syria, elbowing in closer to the small U.S. force there, which Trump said he would remove and then didn’t (possibly the most tempting target for Iranian revenge – via surrogates, of course).

It is hard to see what opposition could now plausibly be made to the demand, even before the Soleimani assassination being pressed by the more militant Shiite parties, that the Iraqi government require the U.S. to withdraw its forces.   In our surprise attack on the Baghdad airport we blew up prominent Iraqis along with Soleimani, after all.  Even disregarding the Iraqi fatalities, the government of Iraq would forfeit any claim to sovereignty or independence if it failed to express resentment of this assassination carried out on its soil by foreign armed forces.  The government of Iraq is no government if it will not defend its right to decide who in Iraq is deserving of death.

The Kurds have largely withdrawn into their northern enclave, politically as well as physically, and have recently been given a good lesson about trusting Trump’s America.  The Sunni Arab minority will rightly fear the removal of the only serious counterweight to Iranian influence, but Trump’s action, murdering Shiite Arabs along with the Persian general in flagrant disregard of Iraq’s sovereignty, has deprived it of any argument other than its own fear.  The pro-Iranians will plausibly suggest that, with ISIS gone (according to Trump, anyway), the Americans in Iraq  are the greatest stimulus to sectarian strife there, and Iran and Sistani can afford, and might even mean, the most extravagant promises of intra-Islamic toleration.  By now Sunni leaders must have given up the dream that America will restore their position of dominance, and will surely see how the wind is blowing.

As an intermediate step toward demanding withdrawal of U.S. forces, the parliament might enact an immediate renunciation of the aspects of our status-of-forces agreement that afford extraterritoriality to U.S. service members, followed by the institution of criminal prosecutions against some of them.  This would leave the U.S. no politically viable alternative but to initiate hostilities against Iraq (another occasion of joy in Teheran) or withdraw its forces even without being asked.

The story that our action was defensive because Soleimani was planning attacks on our forces will not even be repeated, except in mockery, by anybody but spokesmen for the Trump Administration.  Soleimani and many others have been laying anti-American plans for decades, of course.  The usual way to thwart hostile plans is not to kill the planners, however.  For one thing, killing a planner neither stops the planning nor erases a finished plan.  And it could facilitate the execution of such plans as are made – as undoubtedly it will do in this instance (if the new opportunities created by the American attack have not rendered all prior plans obsolete).

At present there is less semblance of a national government in Iraq that is distinguishable from the Baghdad parliament than there has been at any time since the American occupation government called that assembly into being.  The Iraqi political ramifications of the killing of Soleimani will be played out there unless they are played out on the streets of the capital, as present indications are they might well be.  Either way, the only question is whether the result will be the elimination, or merely a serious curtailment, of American military presence in that country.

Russia will see the predictable Iraqi reaction as presenting an opportunity to reduce American influence in the region, which the Putin regime sees as an end in itself.  Increasing Russia’s oil revenue will be an objective, but a fresh opportunity to fish in troubled waters will be more inviting in Russian eyes.  Even today Lavrov was in Baghdad acting the sympathetic arms dealer.

China is the power that has been most assiduously courted by Iran, and it will be watching developments in Baghdad closely.  Once the Iraqi government lodges a diplomatic protest with Washington, China will join other countries in labeling the Baghdad airport attack a violation of international law and calling for an independent U.N. investigation of the Soleimani assassination.  Whether China will go further is another question.  Unless escalating strikes and counter-strikes lead to hostilities of strategic significance, China will likely be content quietly and patiently to take advantage of declining American influence in the region.