McConnell: Qassem Soleimani’s Terrorist Leadership in Iran Is Over

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei threatened “severe retaliation” against the U.S. for the assassination of the country’s most prominent military commander, but he may be limited in what he can do.

U.S. sanctions have hobbled the Iranian economy and any action that triggered a conventional war with the U.S. would put the Shiite Muslim power at a severe disadvantage. Anti-government protests have also challenged the regime’s dominance in Iraq, Lebanon and at home. Now, in Al Quds commander Qassem Soleimani, Iranians have lost the very man they would have relied upon to craft an effective response.

Tehran’s strategy since President Donald Trump pulled out of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal that had promised rapprochement between Iran and the West suggests any retaliation will likely be measured. It needs to be significant enough to reflect Soleimani’s stature, though not enough to invite an unbridled conflict with the world’s military superpower. Such controlled reprisals could include a strike at diplomatic staff or cyberattacks.

“I don’t think either the U.S. or Iran want all-out war,” said Sir Tom Beckett, a former lieutenant-general who until recently served as the British government’s senior defense adviser for the Middle East and North Africa. “The U.S. needed to assert its willingness to take military action alongside its campaign of exerting maximum economic pressure.”

That has now been done. The bigger question is whether the removal of Suleimani, a national hero to many Iranians, proves to have been part of a wider strategy.

Indeed, the U.S. and Iran are effectively already at war. Since at least the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Soleimani’s approach to challenging American power was to assemble and strengthen proxy Shiite militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. He then used these to prosecute a hybrid war against the U.S. and its regional allies at arm’s length, without triggering a direct response from Washington.

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