If you study the military record of the late General Qassim Suleimani, you’ll see why U.S. military and political leaders feared his prowess, yet did not wish him dead.
The embodiment of America’s stance was President George W. Bush. In January 2008, Bush was informed he had a real-time opportunity to kill Suleimani as he attended a meeting in Syria. At the time, Suleimani was known to U.S. intelligence as the commander of Iran’s special forces. He had played a leading role in nurturing the anti-American insurgency that bled U.S. forces in Iraq from 2003 to 2011.
Bush was not soft on terrorism or Iran. He knew that upwards of 600 U.S. soldiers had been killed by Iraqi militias sponsored by Suleimani. But the 43rd president also had bruising experience with geopolitical reality: the fiasco of his Iraq invasion. He knew better than anyone that just as eliminating Saddam Hussein unleashed a whirlwind of chaos and terrorism that the United States could not control, so “taking out” Suleimani might have unforeseen bloody consequences. Oft-derided for being dim, Bush had actually learned a hard lesson by the end of his failed presidency that Trump may yet absorb: violently removing an enemy may create far larger problems than it solves. Twelve years ago, Bush prudently passed on killing Suleimani.
On January 3, Trump did not. The president chose to do what Israel’s Mossad had considered and rejected on multiple occasions, concluding that killing Suleimani would not enhance Israel’s security. With little deliberation, the president pulled the trigger.
Was Suleimani “assassinated,” that is to say, killed for political reasons? Or was he the victim of a “targeted killing,” meaning he was a legitimate target of war? The Defense Department said he was “actively developing plans” to attack Americans. Two anonymous U.S. officials told the New York Times the evidence for that claim was “razor-thin.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told NBC’s Chuck Todd that Suleimani was planning an “imminent” attack on American targets when he was killed. When CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed for details on how imminent, Pompeo said, “this is not something that’s relevant.”
Washington chatter aside, Suleimani was a guest of the Iraqi government, which is a military ally of the U.S. government. He was not unwelcome in Baghdad. Iraqi government documents leaked last year to the Intercept show that Suleimani wielded wide influence in Iraqi affairs, often with top officials who were also on good terms with the United States.
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi told the Iraqi parliament on January 5 that Suleimani came to Iraq the week he was killed to respond to a diplomatic note from Saudi Arabia. While bitter enemies, the Saudi monarchy and the Islamic Republic were privately negotiating steps to pacify the region, which has been roiled by anti-Iranian and anti-American demonstrations.
“I was supposed to meet Suleimani in the morning the day he was killed,” Mahdi said, according to news reports. “He came to deliver me a message from Iran responding to the message we delivered from Saudi to Iran.”
The Iraqi parliament proceeded to unanimously disinvite the 5,000 U.S. troops stationed in the country. The parliament did not set a deadline for their departure, and scores of non-Shia parliamentarians did not vote.
Why Kill Suleimani?
Suleimani was not feared by U.S. (and Israeli and Saudi) policymakers because he was a terrorist (though he used terror tactics). He was feared because he was, against the odds, successful on the battlefield. According to journalist Yossi Melman, Israeli intelligence assessed him as “a daring and talented commander, despite the considerable number of mistakes in his assessments and failed operations in the course of his career.”
Whether you think Suleimani was a “deadly puppet master” or an Islamic martyr, there’s no disputing he helped the Islamic Republic achieve three significant goals.
First, Suleimani played a key role in driving U.S. occupation forces out of Iraq. As Quds Force commander, he presided over the creation of anti-American militias in 2003 that mounted deadly attacks on U.S. occupation forces. One Iraqi militia leader, Qais al-Khazali, who debriefed U.S. intelligence officers in 2008, said he had “a few meetings” with Suleimani and other Iranian officials of similar rank.
According to Khazali, Suleimani did not take part in the operational activities—providing weapons, training or cash. He left those tasks to deputies or intermediaries. Under Iranian tutelage, these militias specialized in using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to kill upwards of 600 soldiers, according to General David Petraeus.
Suleimani's attacks—along with the manifest failure of U.S. goals to reduce terrorism and spread democracy—contributed to President Obama’s politically popular decision to withdraw most of the U.S. troops in 2011. That was a priority for the government in Tehran, and Suleimani helped achieve it.
Nemesis of ISIS
Second, Suleimani played a key role in driving ISIS out of Iraq—a victory in which the United States ironically helped boost his reputation.
In this battle, Suleimani took advantage of U.S. vulnerability, not hubris. When ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed an Islamic State in western Iraq six years ago, Tehran was just as alarmed as Washington. The Sunni fundamentalists of ISIS regard the Shia Muslims of Iran and Iraq as infidels, almost as contemptible as Americans and Israelis.
After the regular Iraqi armed forces collapsed, Iraqi Ayatollah Ali Sistani blessed the creation of Shia militias to save the country. Sistani’s fatwa empowered Iran to mobilize and expanded Suleimani's militia network. The Iranian-sponsored fighters, along with the Kurdish peshmerga, proceeded to do most of the bloody street fighting that drove ISIS out of Mosul, Kirkuk and other Iraqi cities.
While Suleimani moved openly in Iraq, U.S. commanders did not attack him because Iranian forces did not attack them. Sometimes, pro-American and pro-Iranian soldiers even fought side by side. Thanks to this tacit U.S.-Iranian cooperation that neither country cared to publicly acknowledge, ISIS was expelled from Iraq into Syria by 2017. In Iran, Suleimani emerged as a hero in the fight against the deadliest religious fanatics on the planet, especially after ISIS had carried out a terror attack in Tehran on June 2017 that killed 12 people.
In Iraq, the rout of ISIS enhanced the prestige of Suleimani and the Iranian-backed militias. Some of their leaders entered politics and business, drawing complaints about—and demonstrations against—heavy-handed Iranian influence. Many Iraqis grew unhappy about Iran’s new influence, but success made Suleimani an indispensable security partner for an embattled government. That’s why he visited Baghdad the week of his death.
Besting the CIA
Third, Suleimani helped defeat ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria’s civil war. In 2015, President Bashar al-Assad’s armed forces were losing ground to Sunni fundamentalist forces funded by the CIA and the Persian Gulf oil monarchies. The CIA hoped to overthrow Assad. Iran feared losing its ally in Damascus to a hostile anti-Shia regime controlled by Al Qaeda. President Obama feared another Iraq and refused to commit to regime change.
Suleimani brought in Iranian advisers and fighters from Hezbollah, the Shia militia of Lebanon that Iran has supported since the 1980s. With help from merciless Russian bombing attacks and Syrian chemical attacks, the Iranian-trained ground forces helped Syria turn the tide on the jihadists. The CIA, under directors Leon Panetta, John Brennan and Mike Pompeo, spent $1 billion to overthrow Assad. They had less influence on the outcome than Suleimani.
The net effect of Suleimani's three victories—abetted by U.S. crimes and blunders—was, for better or worse, to bolster Iranian influence across the region. From Afghanistan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west, Iran gained political ground, thanks to Suleimani. He perfected the art of asymmetric warfare, using local proxies, political alliances, deniable attacks, and selective terrorism to achieve the government’s political goals.
(Suleimani, it is worth noting, had no record of attacking non-uniformed Americans. While Pompeo said that Suleimani “had put so much pain and suffering on the American people,” it is a fact that not a single American civilian was killed in an Iranian-backed terror attack between 2001 to 2019.)
Iran’s cumulative successes provoked dismay in Washington (and Tel Aviv and Riyadh). In the course of the 21st century, Iran overcame international isolation and to actually gain, not lose, an advantage to its regional rivals. He also became a media personality in the regime using selfies from the battlefield to promote an image of an accessible general who liked to rub shoulders with his soldiers.
Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security didn’t kill Americans, but it did take a number of hostages, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. Across the region, Iran’s ambitions stirred up widespread opposition from secular, feminist, and nationalist movements that reject the theory and practice of Iranian theocracy.
But those non-violent movements mostly favored the nuclear deal that Trump tore up. They never called for the United States to attack Iran militarily. They are not welcoming Suleimani's death, and they are unlikely to support the U.S. (or Israeli) attacks in the coming conflict. Quite the contrary. The anti-Iranian demonstrations in Iran and Iraq are over for the foreseeable future. Iranians and Iraqis who publicly supported the United States and opposed the mullahs have been silenced. In death as in life, Suleimani had diminished the U.S. influence in the Middle East.
Jefferson Morley is a writing fellow and the editor and chief correspondent of the Deep State, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He has been a reporter and editor in Washington, D.C., since 1980. He spent 15 years as an editor and reporter at the Washington Post. He was a staff writer at Arms Control Today and Washington editor of Salon. He is the editor and co-founder of JFK Facts, a blog about the assassination of JFK. His latest book is The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster, James Jesus Angleton.
This article was produced by the Deep State, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
