The dust has settled for the time being in the US-Iran duel. Retreating from the conflict, US President Donald Trump tweeted “all is well” in response to Iran’s retaliatory strikes on airbases in Iraq hosting US troops on January 8. Shortly after, he went back to his “go-to” deterrent of choice: sanctions. Faced with the possibility of a full-scale war with Iran, Trump chose to deescalate the situation. However, he announced that he would impose additional sanctions on Iran — a move of limited impact given the multiple, strict sanctions already in place.

Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was seen as the main pillar of the regional resistance bulwark, having merged Shia ideology, anti-imperialist political thought and nationalist sentiment with geostrategic and military acumen. In life, he was revered by many Iranians as a brave defender of the nation and a mastermind of asymmetrical warfare — the cornerstone of Iran’s security doctrine. Polls taken during the fight against the so-called Islamic State (IS) group in Syria and Iraq found that 73% of Iranians had a favorable opinion of the general. In death, Soleimani has become an even more colossal figure, elevated to the status of shahid — a “martyr.” The question is: Why did this man’s passing have such an impact on Iranians?

Was Qassem Soleimani a Bad Guy or a Martyr?

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On that fateful night on January 3 at Baghdad International Airport, the Iranian general was allegedly on his way to deliver Iran’s response to an Iraqi-brokered initiative to reduce tensions with Saudi Arabia. As these details slowly emerged in the news cycle, Trump’s move was decried as deplorable and cowardly — not just an assassination but a humiliating slaying. This was not a covert operation, an accident or collateral damage. Soleimani did not perish on a battlefield. He was killed unceremoniously at a distance, in a US drone strike at an airport in a third (and sovereign) country having disembarked from a commercial flight.

Clearly, Soleimani was no fugitive. He was no Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi or Osama bin Laden. Nor was he even necessarily an enemy combatant, as the CIA considered Hezbollah’s Imad Mughniyeh. Soleimani had actually fought alongside the US for several years, having been instrumental in dismantling the IS caliphate. CNN acknowledged that while the US and local allies fought IS in Syria, as well as in Iraq, Iranian-backed militias had also pushed the terrorist group back in Iraq. Soleimani was reported to have often led that fight from the front line. This is why his assassination sent such seismic shock waves throughout the Shia world.

The outpouring of grief and the rage were a curious mix of emotions that reverberated not only throughout Iran and Iraq, but all the way to Canada. A Canadian Islamic organization called Mahdi Youth Society promoted a vigil in Toronto for the slain “heroes of Islam.” Transversal in nature, this particular blend of emotions had to be “managed” with both tact and solidarity. Not only did Tehran carry the weight of the Iranian people’s demands for retribution on its shoulders, but it had to somehow honor the legacy of the now-shahid Soleimani, all the while keeping Iran out of an unwanted war. What was clear was that the Iranian government had to react — it had to appease the grief-stricken masses and to ensure that it would not precipitate war.

And it did so, through “Operation Shahid Soleimani”: Iran’s 9/11 moment, with the country seeking justice for what it saw as an act of terror, or an act of war that took place without the declaration of war. Vowing to retaliate, Tehran launched a barrage of missiles on two airbases in Iraq hosting US troops.

This was not the approach that the late general would have taken. Iran has always hovered in the haze of “plausible deniability,” where officials were able to deny knowledge of, or responsibility for, any damnable actions committed by others because of a lack of evidence that could confirm their participation. Other than Iran’s admission that it shot down a US drone aircraft in the Strait of Hormuz in June 2019, Tehran has vehemently denied any involvement in other attacks in the Middle East. This includes, for example, the attack on the Saudi oil processing plants in Abqaiq and Khurais in September last year. This time, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for the attacks and widely publicized each wave of strikes, giving the US advance warning.

The Take Away

What we can take away from the series of events following Soleimani’s assassination is that even with all the bitterness and resentment, Iranian retribution — while bold — was, at the same time, confined and circumscribed. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif had promised in a tweet that Iranian retaliation would be “proportionate” and aimed at “legitimate targets.” In practical terms, this meant that the missiles were dropped on American military sites that were seen as a threat, and with no American casualties.

Trump’s counterintuitive “anti-politics” has yielded opposite results. Soleimani is now assured of his place in the pantheon of the country’s national heroes. In his death, he has united the Shia world — something that Trump had not been counting on, and another indication of the paucity of knowledge of Shia culture in Washington.

Ordering the raid without congressional approval and without consultation with his European partners, Trump faces questions over the legality of the assassination. While the timing suggests that it was designed to deflect attention from impeachment discussions, in the middle of an electoral year, Trump has made America less safe — a diagnosis of these events that 55% of Americans share. Meanwhile, the US is being pushed out of Iraq, rather than pulling out on its own terms, and instead, Trump has pushed Iraq into Iran’s arms.

Iran is in shock and awe. The assassination of Soleimani will forevermore mark Iran-US relations. Trump’s subsequent threats to strike 52 Iranian sites, including those of cultural significance, was another attack, this time on the populace itself. After all, culture is people. The assassination and this tweet were two more nails in the coffin of Trump–Iran relations. However, diplomacy (like the 2015 nuclear deal) is not dead, it is in a coma. The entire debacle has shown that even during the worst crises, both Tehran and Washington remain concerned with preventing an all-out war, and this is the bright light at the end of a dark and dangerous tunnel.

*[This article was originally published by the LSE Middle East Centre Blog.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.