The US murder of General Soleimani and Iran’s active prevention of a regional war

Ali Naghieh
  
The assassination of General Qassem Soleimani- one of the highest ranking military commanders of the Islamic Republic of Iran- was a blatant contravention of international law. A reckless terrorist attack that violated the sovereignty of a third country, with responsibility officially and shamelessly claimed by the President of the United States. This was a significant turning point in contemporary international relations history, cementing the new reality that the world is overtly shifting towards a ‘rule of the jungle’ order.
Paradoxically, this attack did not serve the national interests of the United States of America. It degenerated the US into fulfilling the dangerous whims of Israeli hardliners and hot-headed Saudi’s aligned with Neocon Evangelical delusions. The killing led to a strong resolve in Iran and Iraq to counter US military presence in the region. The “million-strong march” in Iraq followed the attacks, with a subsequent vote in the Iraqi parliament for expelling US troops from Iraq. 
The assassination was an escalation of the US “Maximum Pressure” campaign on Iran, which encompassed a toolbox of severe sanctions that primarily targeted the Iranian people in order to foment public dissent and force regime change. It crucially included a carefully orchestrated psychological warfare apparatus involving US, UK and Saudi-backed Farsi language television stations alongside various official and unofficial US social media accounts, intending to diminish public trust in the Islamic Republic. In the aftermath of the murder of Qassem Soleimani, much of these demoralizing efforts were neutralized, leading to what some international observers depicted as one of the biggest funerals in History. General Soleimani was publicly celebrated as Iran’s foremost national hero in contemporary times, and millions of people with contrasting lifestyles and political leanings openly grieved their martyr. Hundreds of video clips surfaced, portraying Soleimani’s warmth and compassion towards people of all walks of life in Iran and neighbouring countries. Overwhelmed by the monstrosity of this brutal assassination, many of those who were formerly critics of Iran’s regional policy justified and legitimized it as a necessary means of national defence, further undermining longstanding US efforts to influence Iranian public opinion.
In the days following the assassination, Iran’s retaliatory missile strike on the American Ayn al-Asad military base served as a balancing tactic, intended to avert other potentially planned offensives by the United States. Iranian officials announced that this was not the “proportionate revenge” that was to come at an unspecified time and place, and there were reports that Iran had even warned the Americans to evacuate soldiers before the strikes. This response was significant in that it was the first direct Iranian attack on a US base. Moreover, it demonstrated Iran’s measured and contemplated regional military behaviour, which in the words of Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes -the celebrated Iraqi General who was assassinated alongside Qassem Soleimani- follows “a cool head and a warm heart” approach. It later emerged that on this specific trip, Qassem Soleimani was in fact on a diplomatic mission. He was scheduled to meet with the Iraqi Prime Minister who was attempting to broker a detente between Iran and the Saudis.
The murder of Qassem Soleimani, various acts of sabotage of Iranian sites by the Israeli’s, targeted missile attacks on Iranian forces in Syria by Israel, the inhumane Maximum Pressure campaign by the US and its siege on timely medical and humanitarian supplies in the Covid-19 pandemic, and most recently another brutal assassination of a high-ranking nuclear scientist Dr Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, have repeatedly provoked Iran into escalations that would have led to inevitable war if executed proportionately. If the Nobel Peace Prize had maintained the course its founders intended and not deviated into a politically-charged antique that it is today, it would deservedly be awarded to the Islamic Republic of Iran for its monumental restraint and active prevention of a regional war in the past 3 years.