How does Iran take revenge on the US? 9
Major General Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s second most powerful official, was killed in a US airstrike in Baghdad, Iraq, amid Iran’s sphere of influence in the region, which he successfully built over the decade.
In Iraq, street protests broke out in October to protest Tehran’s influence, often led by pro-Iranian Shiites.
In Lebanon, an anti-corruption protest movement was launched in October, challenging the political system tightly controlled by the pro-Iranian armed group Hezbollah.
But in the Middle East, what people want is not necessarily important.
`This is a difficult time for Iran, but it is not the beginning of the end of Iran’s influence in the region,` said Emile Hokayem, a Middle East security expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, England.
General Soleimani demonstrated that in Syria, where Quds forces and Shiite militias from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere poured in, they helped President Bashar al-Assad maintain power throughout nine years of civil war.
However, Iran’s efforts to consolidate its influence are being challenged by Israeli airstrikes and new cooperation between Russia, Assad’s main donor, and Türkiye.
Before Soleimani’s death, officials in the Middle East believed that sooner or later Iran would conduct air strikes on a number of locations in the region to break the deadlock and show the need to adjust their interests.
After the airstrike, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday vowed terrible revenge on the United States.
Iranian people carrying pictures of Major General Qassem Soleimani protested in front of the United Nations headquarters in the capital Tehran on January 3.
That feud doesn’t necessarily pay off immediately.
`They will calculate how to retaliate so that the US does not react too violently. A full-scale war is not in Iran’s mind. But this is a dangerous game when both want to see the other side.`
Iran has long sought to avoid major military conflict with the United States.
What Tehran can do to retaliate for the death of General Soleimani is to incite militias throughout the region, trained and supported by the late commander of the Quds force, against the United States.
These militias began escalating tensions even before Soleimani was killed.
Unlike Syria, which the US has considered a state sponsor of terrorism since 1979, Iraq and Lebanon have always successfully maintained a balance between Washington and Tehran.
That balance seems to be in a difficult position, if not completely impossible to maintain, after General Soleimani died.
The biggest direction Tehran can retaliate is its efforts to push Washington away from Baghdad, by increasing attacks on US facilities and creating a wave of political reaction against its presence in Iraq.
Iraq’s parliament will meet and leading politicians are calling for the expulsion of nearly 5,000 US troops deployed in the country.
`The public and arrogant way this airstrike was carried out on Iraqi soil will incite nationalist sentiment among Iraqis, making them lean more towards Iran,` said Ellie Geranmayeh, a Middle East expert at
If that leads to the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, `it will fulfill Soleimani’s ambition in a project he has wanted to achieve since 2001: no US footprint within Iraq’s borders,` she said.
There are powerful forces in Lebanon and Iraq that do not want their countries to be completely dependent on Iran.
But the Middle Easterners understand that the important goal, and one repeated repeatedly by US President Trump, is to withdraw troops from the region.
And Iran will not withdraw anywhere, with or without Soleimani.
US missile strike kills Iranian general.
See more:
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