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The Breathtaking Unravelling of the Middle East After Qassem Suleimani’s Death
The flag-draped coffin of General Qassem Suleimani was thronged by wailing mobs in Tehran on Monday, as the fallout from his death, in a U.S. air strike, accelerated with breathtaking speed. Iran has not seen such an outpouring of emotion on the streets since the death of the revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989. His successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wept openly—as did other political leaders and military officers—as he prayed over the casket. Esmail Gha’ani, Suleimani’s successor as head of the Quds Force, the élite wing of the Revolutionary Guards, vowed to confront the United States. “We promise to continue down martyr Soleimani’s path as firmly as before, with the help of God, and, in return for his martyrdom, we aim to get rid of America from the region,” Gha’ani said at the funeral.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went on five Sunday talk shows—curiously, wearing a red tie on two shows and a blue tie on three others—to brag about the U.S. operation. “We took a bad guy off the battlefield,” he said, on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “There is less risk today to American forces in the region as a result of that attack.” Yet nothing seems further from the truth. Some form of conflict between the United States and the Islamic Republic, overt or covert, seems more possible now than it has at any time since the 1979 Revolution. The U.S. investment in neighboring Iraq—thousands of American lives, hundreds of billions of dollars in American treasure, decades of American diplomacy—appears to be unravelling, with rippling effects across the Middle East. Diplomatic missions in other Middle Eastern and South Asian countries are on virtual lockdown, with American citizens urged to evacuate Iraq and Iran and lie low elsewhere in the region.
Instead of being a dead bad guy, Suleimani appears almost as potent in his “martyrdom” as he was in life. His death has already spurred anti-American sentiment across the Middle East. It has unified Iran’s divided society. And it has also precipitated the first action to wind down or end the American military presence in the region—Suleimani’s primary mission since he took over the Quds Force, in 1998.
With almost no debate, the Iraqi Parliament voted on Sunday to expel more than five thousand American troops and other foreign forces, jeopardizing a six-year campaign by a U.S.-led coalition against isis. Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi called the U.S. operation against Suleimani a “political assassination” and pressed for “urgent measures” to either oust U.S. troops or limit their mission to training Iraqi forces. “Despite the internal and external difficulties that we might face, it remains best for Iraq on principle and practically,” he said. The vote passed 170–0, largely by Shiite members; even more Sunnis and Kurds didn’t vote at all. The resolution still needs the signature of the Prime Minister, who is Iraq’s Commander-in-Chief, though Mahdi is only in a caretaker role since his resignation, in November. So the Parliament’s move is still subject to the fractured and fragile politics of Iraq.
Yet the U.S.-led coalition felt sufficiently threatened that it suspended military operations against isis, also known by its Arabic name, Daesh, which has been resurging in recent months. It still has between fourteen thousand and eighteen thousand jihadi militants in Iraq and Syria, according to U.S. intelligence estimates. U.S. troops have now assumed a defensive posture—just protecting themselves—against possible retaliation by either pro-Iranian militias or by Iran. “This has limited our capacity to conduct training with partners and to support their operations against Daesh and we have therefore paused these activities, subject to continuous review,” the coalition said, in a statement. The hiatus is a boon to isis, which has carried out dozens of bombings and targeted assassinations since the fall of its caliphate, last March. Ironically, the only issue on which Iran and the United States ever coöperated militarily—sometimes operating out of the same Iraqi bases—was fighting the Sunni extremist group. Tensions between the two countries may provide further space for isis to regroup.
In Iran, Suleimani’s coffin was flown to three cities—Ahvaz, the holy city of Mashhad, and then the capital in Tehran—for memorial processions where huge crowds shouted “Death to America” and burned American flags. In Tehran, Suleimani’s daughter, Zeinab, told hundreds of thousands of mourners—Iran claimed millions—that her father’s death would be avenged. “The families of the American soldiers in western Asia . . . will spend their days waiting for the death of their children,” she said, producing cheers. “You crazy Trump, the symbol of ignorance, the slave of Zionists, don’t think that the killing of my father will finish everything.”
Suleimani’s death plays to a central concept of Shiite Islam—martyrdom by a minority fighting for survival against bigger rivals—that dates back to the founding of Islam’s second branch, in the seventh century. The fury has unified disparate sectors of Iranian society, which just weeks ago was riven by street protests challenging the government in dozens of cities.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-...ing-of-the-middle-east-after-suleimanis-death
The flag-draped coffin of General Qassem Suleimani was thronged by wailing mobs in Tehran on Monday, as the fallout from his death, in a U.S. air strike, accelerated with breathtaking speed. Iran has not seen such an outpouring of emotion on the streets since the death of the revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989. His successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wept openly—as did other political leaders and military officers—as he prayed over the casket. Esmail Gha’ani, Suleimani’s successor as head of the Quds Force, the élite wing of the Revolutionary Guards, vowed to confront the United States. “We promise to continue down martyr Soleimani’s path as firmly as before, with the help of God, and, in return for his martyrdom, we aim to get rid of America from the region,” Gha’ani said at the funeral.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went on five Sunday talk shows—curiously, wearing a red tie on two shows and a blue tie on three others—to brag about the U.S. operation. “We took a bad guy off the battlefield,” he said, on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “There is less risk today to American forces in the region as a result of that attack.” Yet nothing seems further from the truth. Some form of conflict between the United States and the Islamic Republic, overt or covert, seems more possible now than it has at any time since the 1979 Revolution. The U.S. investment in neighboring Iraq—thousands of American lives, hundreds of billions of dollars in American treasure, decades of American diplomacy—appears to be unravelling, with rippling effects across the Middle East. Diplomatic missions in other Middle Eastern and South Asian countries are on virtual lockdown, with American citizens urged to evacuate Iraq and Iran and lie low elsewhere in the region.
Instead of being a dead bad guy, Suleimani appears almost as potent in his “martyrdom” as he was in life. His death has already spurred anti-American sentiment across the Middle East. It has unified Iran’s divided society. And it has also precipitated the first action to wind down or end the American military presence in the region—Suleimani’s primary mission since he took over the Quds Force, in 1998.
With almost no debate, the Iraqi Parliament voted on Sunday to expel more than five thousand American troops and other foreign forces, jeopardizing a six-year campaign by a U.S.-led coalition against isis. Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi called the U.S. operation against Suleimani a “political assassination” and pressed for “urgent measures” to either oust U.S. troops or limit their mission to training Iraqi forces. “Despite the internal and external difficulties that we might face, it remains best for Iraq on principle and practically,” he said. The vote passed 170–0, largely by Shiite members; even more Sunnis and Kurds didn’t vote at all. The resolution still needs the signature of the Prime Minister, who is Iraq’s Commander-in-Chief, though Mahdi is only in a caretaker role since his resignation, in November. So the Parliament’s move is still subject to the fractured and fragile politics of Iraq.
Yet the U.S.-led coalition felt sufficiently threatened that it suspended military operations against isis, also known by its Arabic name, Daesh, which has been resurging in recent months. It still has between fourteen thousand and eighteen thousand jihadi militants in Iraq and Syria, according to U.S. intelligence estimates. U.S. troops have now assumed a defensive posture—just protecting themselves—against possible retaliation by either pro-Iranian militias or by Iran. “This has limited our capacity to conduct training with partners and to support their operations against Daesh and we have therefore paused these activities, subject to continuous review,” the coalition said, in a statement. The hiatus is a boon to isis, which has carried out dozens of bombings and targeted assassinations since the fall of its caliphate, last March. Ironically, the only issue on which Iran and the United States ever coöperated militarily—sometimes operating out of the same Iraqi bases—was fighting the Sunni extremist group. Tensions between the two countries may provide further space for isis to regroup.
In Iran, Suleimani’s coffin was flown to three cities—Ahvaz, the holy city of Mashhad, and then the capital in Tehran—for memorial processions where huge crowds shouted “Death to America” and burned American flags. In Tehran, Suleimani’s daughter, Zeinab, told hundreds of thousands of mourners—Iran claimed millions—that her father’s death would be avenged. “The families of the American soldiers in western Asia . . . will spend their days waiting for the death of their children,” she said, producing cheers. “You crazy Trump, the symbol of ignorance, the slave of Zionists, don’t think that the killing of my father will finish everything.”
Suleimani’s death plays to a central concept of Shiite Islam—martyrdom by a minority fighting for survival against bigger rivals—that dates back to the founding of Islam’s second branch, in the seventh century. The fury has unified disparate sectors of Iranian society, which just weeks ago was riven by street protests challenging the government in dozens of cities.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-...ing-of-the-middle-east-after-suleimanis-death
