The options before Iran

Vivek Katju

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Ex-secretary, Ministry of external affairs

President Trump’s decision to order the killing of Gen Qassem Soleimani, the legendary leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s al-Quds force, in a drone strike in Baghdad on January 3, has domestic political and foreign strategic objectives. The most significant in the former category is to show his decisiveness in protecting US interests even though he stands impeached by the House of Representatives in which the Democrats have a majority. The important element in the latter is to convey to Iran and also US regional allies that he would not hesitate to go where his predecessors have not gone — targeting individuals however high they maybe in the Iranian system, if they cross his red-lines.

After the Ayatollah Khomeini-led Iranian Revolution of 1979, the country’s political and security system became dedicated to protect revolutionary gains against domestic and foreign enemies. While an elected governmental system under a President was established, ultimate power, superseding those of all authorities — executive, legislative and judicial — vested in the Supreme Leader, initially Khomeini himself, and after his death in 1989, in Khamenei. The Supreme Leader chosen by the country’s top Shia clergy for life intervenes on issues he wishes to, and significantly, the Revolutionary Guards who holds the reins of the state’s coercive apparatus work for the Supreme Leader.

The Guards’ external force — al-Quds — is responsible to protect the country’s revolutionary system against foreign forces and spread its influence abroad by all means. It especially focuses on West and Central Asia, and has developed formidable Shia militias in the region which assist Iran in pursuing its agenda. Soleimani led the al-Quds for over two decades, during which he became Khamenei’s favourite and a formidable power-wielder in Iran, and, through Iranian networks, in the region. Dour and taciturn, utterly devoted to the revolutionary Islamic cause, he led the force from the front with courage. All this turned him into a hero for large sections of Iranians. Equally, it earned the al-Quds, and he himself, US ire (both were formally declared terrorists) even though there were no doubt contacts between him and the US in the shadowy terrain of intelligence and subterranean warfare. Certainly, Soleimani had connections with the intelligence services of the region, including India. These ebbed and flowed with circumstance and time.

The US has justified his killing on the claim that he was planning imminent action against US interests and personnel in the region. It has also blamed him for the death of over 600 US defence personnel in the fighting in Iraq. The immediate chain of events which led to the US action began on December 27, when an Iran-backed Shia militia launched rockets against a US base in Kirkuk, in which a US contractor died. Two days later, the US attacked the militia base, killing 25 of its members. In response, the militia breached the security perimeter of the US embassy in Baghdad and destroyed its reception area on December 31. The standoff continued for a full day with US personnel within the embassy building. The US blamed Soleimani for orchestrating the incident and his alleged involvement evoked parallels, within the US system, of the attack on the country’s embassy in Tehran in 1979, and of US diplomats held hostage for 400 days. That cost President Jimmy Carter his second term. Clearly, Trump wanted to demonstrate to the faithful, as the election season begins, that unlike that Democratic Party President, he is no ‘softy’ and is willing to cut off the head of the snake.

Soleimani’s killing is a major step in Trump’s anti-Iran agenda which began with the jettisoning of the Obama nuclear deal. During the campaign, Trump asserted that the deal was harmful to US interests and that Iran had made a fool of the Obama administration in the negotiation. To rub the Democrats even more, Trump tweeted, inter-alia, after the announcement of Soleimani’s death, ‘Iran never won a war but never lost a negotiation.’ Trump has virtually shut the diplomatic door on Iran and has piled on pressure through sanctions and in shoring up the US’s traditional Sunni Arab allies. At this difficult time, it was Soleimani who was keeping Iran very much in the regional game through his actions in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestine and through Shia minorities in other regional states.

Iran has reacted with fury and Khamenei has vowed revenge. In a virtually unprecedented step, he has personally chaired a meeting of Iran’s National Security Council to take stock of the situation. Despite the rhetoric, he knows that Iran is in a very difficult situation. Its economy is weak as the sanctions are biting and it cannot risk all-out hostilities with the US. The question therefore before Khamenei is what he can do to assuage anger on the streets and show the region, and the wider world, that Iran can extract a price. On its part, the region and the major powers are anxious that West Asia does not descend into outright turbulence which would impact the energy market and dislocate life on the Arab peninsula. Hence, most countries have had reservations about Trump’s order to kill Soleimani and have urged restraint. Despite this, the risk to US nationals in the region and of attacks against the US and its allies has certainly increased. Also, Iran may take action to upset US-Taliban negotiations, and cause major difficulties for it in Iraq.

Interestingly, in his remarks to the media, Trump indirectly dragged India in the Soleimani matter when he said, ‘Soleimani made the death of innocent people his sick passion, contributing to terrorist plots as far away as New Delhi and London’. For India, this remark was unnecessary.