Qassem Soleimani is a proxy General, or a “terrorist”, according to the US official classification, or you can think of him as an “Iranian official”, according to customary considerations at best, and this is the most neutral description of the man, who is realistically considered a warlord, or a leader of a sectarian militia; he is the commander of the Corps of “Jerusalem”, the spearhead of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and in charge of the functions of the Iranian military interventions abroad, and the official coordinating with the leaders of the militias of the agents of terrorism who are loyal to Tehran in the region, or you can say he is the official in charge of the export of “malignant Iranian activities” to the Middle East, in the words of US Gen. Ray Odierno.
It seems to observers that Qassem Soleimani’s name is recurrent in any discussion about the Iranian situation more than any other name among Iran’s politicians and leaders, except the Guardian of the Islamic Jurist, who is the highest ideological reference of the system, of course, which reflects the size of the overlap between the “military” and the “political” in Iran’s issued papers for trading on the Stock Exchange of regional and international politics, especially if we know that Soleimani is presented in the official Iranian media as a “national hero”.
Soleimani appeared in the media scene intensively over the last months, particularly since last June, on the background of his presence in Iraq, where his pictures are traded amid the sectarian Shiite mobilization troops he led there in the fight against “Daesh”. Then Soleimani returned to the front of the media once again on the background of media leaks, talking about his secret visit to Moscow at the end of last month and his meeting with President Putin in the Kremlin, which is a violation to the international embargo imposed by the UN Security Council on his travel on the one hand, and a serious and negative message to the White House on the other hand.
The news about Soleimani’s visit spread like wildfire after a report on the web site of “Fox News” revealed information about this visit on the basis of what it described as Western intelligence sources. And soon, Russian sources denied the news of the visit after the White House announced its concern about the news.
In such cases, observers and specialists have been used to the fact that denial in many cases is only a confirmation of another kind, especially in such “skirmishes”, where political affairs are mixed with military and intelligence affairs, as denial is issued to raise embarrassment from a party, which, here, is the US, of course, after the “message” has reached its limits and has achieved its goal.
Because I’m trying to observe objectivity as much as possible, the visit, if proven to be true, is not a breach of the rules of the UN embargo only, but a breach of the Iranian-American “nuclear” understanding, whose ink has not dried yet, and which implies an Iranian commitment to the rules of the game and the laws and customs and the international system, as the supposed visit of Soleimani represents a clear violation of this whole system and a clear disregard to the resolutions of the UN Security Council, which is supposed to lift the international sanctions imposed on Iran in previous years !.
Personally, I am not convinced a lot, but I feel pity, towards the analyses that say that Qassem Soleimani and the Revolutionary Guards are trying to thwart Iran’s nuclear deal with the West, and seek to impede it and show challenge whether by visiting Russia or otherwise. It is true that Soleimani does not follow Iranian President Hassan Rowhani, but he is completely under the authority of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and submits reports to him and implements his instructions, and therefore it is politically naive to believe that Soleimani seeks to derail an agreement that was not to be officially passed or signed in the knowing of Iran’s representative and official delegate in negotiations Javad Zarif without official approval and a clear support of Khamenei himself, by virtue of the pyramidal structure of the system and its ideological faith and its very strict authoritarian hierarchy.
Those who follow the Iranian arena realize that Tehran is good at the game of role distribution in negotiations and politics and in the media, in a very precise and professional way, and employs this game shrewdly in the negotiation rounds, it even uses it as an objective equivalent of popular pressure and measurements of Western public opinion, which are sometimes thrown at the negotiating table to extract some concessions from the opponents. Hence, it is necessary to distinguish between attitudes and constants on the one hand, and variables and negotiating tactics on the other hand. The file of Iran’s negotiations with the West is not yet closed, and the marathon of mutual concessions did not reach the finish line, and there is still a lot of manoeuvers for each party to reach its goals and interests, and on the way, there are players and conflict areas and pressure cards, and among these the Iranian Revolutionary Guard seems an Iranian profitable and powerful card among Tehran’s attempts to harmonize between the line of conduct of the nuclear deal and its regional expansionist ambitions.
Soleimani’s movements are like a “scarecrow” that arouses the concerns of Iran’s regional and international adversaries alike. The man’s movements reflect the compass of the Iranian official concern, or an indicator of trends of conspiracy in the near term.
Let Washington check the authenticity of the news about the visit, while it claims to know every nook and cranny on the planet, and let us leave an appropriate movement margin for it to save face. Minister Kerry was not awaiting this embarrassing offensive move from his friends in Tehran, especially that the Iranians were not content with the leaking of the news via the America site of “Fox News”, but an Iranian official came out last Friday to confirm the news of the visit and to put everyone in a big political embarrassment, and to force the US ambassador to the United Nations United, Samantha Power, to break her silence and say that all states are obliged to implement the decision of the travel ban imposed on Qassem Soleimani.
In any case, let the official pronouncements aside. Washington and Tehran are coordinating at the security level in fighting Daesh in Iraq, and this is no secret, and therefore it is difficult for Russia to be absent from any efforts in Iraq and Syria during the current phase, as Moscow has recently called for the formation of a regional broad coalition in the Middle East to fight the militant group, in addition to its attempts to settle the Syrian crisis so as to ensure its interests and achieve its objectives there. So it is not surprising that Soleimani is visiting Moscow with the knowledge of the American side, even though everyone pretended amazement and wonder and uttered condemnation and denunciation. What is important in the story is this: What did Soleimani have in store when he visited Moscow? Have undeclared understandings about the Iranian nuclear deal with the “5 + 1” started to emerge gradually? We will see and monitor and seek to understand and dismantle the puzzles, and there is no alternative to an observer like me except that.
