Why did the US kill Qasem Soleimani?

The killing of Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, by being targeted by the US is an important sign that the new year is pregnant with very new developments. The information that appeared quickly throughout the world's media from the hour Qasem Soleimani was killed shows how well known a figure he was.

His being well known stems from his being Iran's greatest trump card in the Middle Eastern chess game. He was the brain and organizer of all the operations carried out in Iran's name, and of Iran's influence, particularly in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, that is, in the countries holding the 4 Sunni capitals that Iranians boast of dominating.

That a name with the influence and effectiveness of a sort of Iranian governor of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen was targeted by the US shows that the cold war between Iran and the US has arrived at a new stage.

It is an obvious truth that the Iranian presence and influence in Iraq in particular is, to a great extent, a situation the US has gifted to Iran. It is hard to think that the US deliberately opened a space to an Iran it had regarded as an enemy from the start, and just as hard to defend that. If we skip the "deliberately" part, the reality before us is that the space that enabled Iran to treat Iraq almost like one of its own provinces was opened entirely by the US.

Indeed, the context of Qasem Soleimani's killing is likewise about Iraq, and the place where he was killed is Baghdad. For he, as an enemy of the US, entering through the US occupation and the doors that this occupation opened, was able to exercise, in the Iraq where he had settled, the privilege and power of moving with full authority across all Iraqi territory like a veritable provincial governor. With years of field experience, strategic mind and enormously strong charisma, he could organize all the human elements and institutions of the countries in which he served and set them in motion toward the goals he had determined.

Meanwhile, the Hashd al-Shaabi forces, the Quds Force and so on that Qasem Soleimani organized were tied directly to him rather than to the Iraqi administration, and in fact, if you look at it, they had not until now come face to face directly with US forces. The US, like everyone else, saw that these forces had made Iraq unlivable through the sectarian activities they carried out in Iraq, but until now it had said nothing.

What happened that a name like Qasem Soleimani could now become a deadly target?

For some time, not only the Sunnis, who are the primary victims, but Iraq's Shiites in particular had begun to object to Iran's influence in Iraq with violent protests. We have written a few pieces on this before. Iran's presence in Iraq had increasingly become a source of greater discomfort than the US occupation. Iraqi Shiite youths in their protests, in a way reminiscent of the Arab Spring slogans, were chanting "the people want the homeland" (al-sha'b yurid al-watan), demanding independence from Iran just as from the US. For Iran's interest in Iraq brought Iraq nothing; on the contrary it cost very dearly, causing Iraq to grow poorer every day amid its wealth and to become dependent on the outside (particularly on Iran). It was being said that in suppressing these protests, rather than Iraq's legitimate security forces, some militias organized by Iran, and thus by Qasem Soleimani, played a role. Indeed, close to 800 of the protesters, the majority of them Shiite, were killed, which further increased the anger toward both Iran and the US.

Just at this moment, the US's targeting of the Hashd al-Shaabi, and their occupation of the US embassy in response, suddenly took the matter out of the Iraqi people's protest against both and carried it back to the appearance of a contest between Iran and the US. In truth, it would not be right to say that this was only an appearance. For quite some time there had been dimensions in the Iraqi arena that made the coexistence of the US and Iran, which they had found functional for themselves, unworkable, unsustainable and intolerable. Opening the way for Shiism against Sunnism had been a long-term strategy adopted by the US, but, as far as can be seen, Iran's nationally based effort at influence was drawing it away from the capacity to rally Shiism as well.

Meanwhile, one must not overlook that the Trump factor nevertheless played an important role in the US reaching such a breaking point in its relationship with Iran in Iraqi politics. With his side that breaks the set patterns and tears down the conventions, Trump raised the bar to an unexpected level in the customary politics with Iran in the Iraqi arena as well, and cut off Iran's hands and feet in Iraq, indeed in the whole Middle East. It is certain that this will have consequences forcing a new order that radically changes the entire form of relationship up to now.

That is precisely why the risks pointed out by US officials and members of Congress who objected to his decision to kill Soleimani also reveal the nature of the unspoken, unpronounced order in Iraq from which both US and Iranian policies benefited together. The Americans who objected to Soleimani's killing begin by questioning with what guarantee their soldiers can stay in Iraq from now on. This sufficiently shows with whom, and what kind of guarantee, they had established until now.

By the way, if a reminder is needed, the US killed Iran or Soleimani not because of the massacres they have caused in Iraq up to now, the sectarian strife they have kindled, and the conflictual politics they have kept constantly alive through the management of it, but only because they dared in recent days to attack its Embassy and its own soldiers. From now on, no one expects the US to have a good order or a future agenda for Iraqis in Iraq.