Iran Is Still Scrambling To Recover From General Suleimani's Death

Iranian General Qassem Soleimani

Martin Chulov and Dan Sabbagh, The Guardian: After Suleimani: Iran's scramble to recover from general's death

Loss of revered Quds Force commander and his aides has derailed country’s momentum in region.

In the early hours of 3 January, Iraq’s prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, frantically phoned his advisers. “Something big has happened,” he said, summoning them to a meeting in his office. “You need to come now.”

Like their boss, the advisers had heard the boom of the explosions that crunched into the airport road just after 1am, and their phones had been ringing incessantly. Each call had brought the unthinkable closer to shocking reality: Qassem Suleimani, the revered commander of Iran’s Quds Force and the most powerful man in Iraq, had been killed, and so had nearly all of his closest aides. Throughout 17 years of post-Saddam Hussein bedlam across the Middle East, there had been little to rival this moment.

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WNU Editor: Everyone is replaceable. But some take a bit longer to be replaced. Qassem Soleimani is one of those men.

Guardian Exclusive: Iran's Top General Qassem Suleimani Told Iraqi Militias Three Weeks Ago To 'Prepare For Proxy War'

Iranian General Qassem Soleimani

The Guardian: Iran tells Middle East militias: prepare for proxy war

Exclusive: Top military leader delivers message at Baghdad meeting as tensions rise.

Iran’s most prominent military leader has recently met Iraqi militias in Baghdad and told them to “prepare for proxy war”, the Guardian has learned.

Two senior intelligence sources said that Qassem Suleimani, leader of Iran’s powerful Quds force, summoned the militias under Tehran’s influence three weeks ago, amid a heightened state of tension in the region. The move to mobilise Iran’s regional allies is understood to have triggered fears in the US that Washington’s interests in the Middle East are facing a pressing threat. The UK raised its threat levels for British troops in Iraq on Thursday.

While Suleimani has met regularly with leaders of Iraq’s myriad Shia groups over the past five years, the nature and tone of this gathering was different. “It wasn’t quite a call to arms, but it wasn’t far off,” one source said.

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WNU Editor: Wherever Qassem Suleimani goes conflicts follow. But he is also a secretive man, who does not publicize where he goes and what he says. Someone fed the Guardian this scoop. Your guess on who leaked this is as good as mine.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal (Ret.) Explains Exactly Why Iranian General Qassem Suleimani Is So Dangerous

Iranian General Qassem Soleimani

Stanley McChrystal, Foreign Policy: Iran’s Deadly Puppet Master

Gen. Stanley McChrystal explains exactly why Qassem Suleimani is so dangerous.

The decision not to act is often the hardest one to make—and it isn’t always right. In 2007, I watched a string of vehicles pass from Iran into northern Iraq. I had been serving as the head of the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) for four years, working to stem the terrorism that had devastated the region, and I had become accustomed to making tough choices. But on that January night, the choice was particularly tricky: whether or not to attack a convoy that included Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force—an organization roughly analogous to a combination of the CIA and JSOC in the United States.

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WNU Editor: This is the first time that I am learning that the U.S. did have a chance to take him out, but Gen. Stanley McChrystal made the decision not to.

Is This Iranian General The Real Leader Of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, And Yemen?

Qassem Suleimani celebrating with Hade Amre, chief of Shia militias, during the liberation of Jawlala in Iraq from the Islamic State.

Iran's Military Mastermind Is 'The Leader Of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, And Yemen' -- Michael B Kelley, Business Insider

As the US provides air coverfor Iranian-backed militias fighting ISIS (aka the Islamic State, ISIL, and/or Daesh) in Iraq, the longest continuously serving American official in the country has strong opinions about who is in control.

Ali Khedery, who served as a special assistant to five US ambassadors and a senior adviser to three heads of US Central Command between 2003 and 2009, told The New York Times: “For the Iranians, really, the gloves are off.”

He highlighted the role of Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Qods Force, the foreign arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps. Qods is directing sectarian militias in both Iraq and Syria. At the same time, Suleimani is nurturing the guerilla proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis rebel group in Yemen — in other words, he is controlling powerful Shia proxies all across the Middle East.

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My Comment: To me .... the head of the Islamic State (Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi) and Iranian Qods commander (Qassem Suleimani) are the same ..... but on opposite sides of the coin. And if there is a difference, it is that Qassem Suleimani has the backing of a nation state (Iran), while Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi support comes from volunteers and sympathetic Sunni communities in Syria and Iraq, and from supporters in a few Gulf States. But of the two ..... Iranian General Qassem Suleimani is the most dangerous .... his resources and backing is enormous, and it is his support (and implementation) of policies that has helped in producing this Shiite - Sunni divide. But what makes him particular dangerous right now .... is his push for a military solution to this Sunni - Shiite conflict .... a push that I predict is only going to radicalize the Sunni communities throughout the Middle East, and possibly bring a major religious conflict of a type that we have not seen in centuries in this part of the world

Meet The Iranian General Who Will Be In Charge If War Breaks Out Against Iran

Gen. Qasem Soleimani is the commander of Iran’s Quds Force and reports directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (File photo)

Iran’s Master of Iraq Chaos Still Vexes U.S. -- New York Times

WASHINGTON — When a senior Iraqi intelligence official traveled to Tehran in the summer of 2007 to meet with the Iranian leadership, he quickly figured out who was in charge of Iran’s policy toward its neighbor to the west.

It was not the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It was Qassim Suleimani, the shadowy commander of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force, who calmly explained that he was the “sole authority for Iranian actions in Iraq,” according to an account the Iraqi official later provided to American officials in Baghdad.

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Previous Post: Meet The U.S. General Who Will Be In Charge If Iran Decides To Start A War

My Comment: This is one very dangerous and lethal foe.

Is Iran's Qassem Suleimani The World's Most Dangerous Terrorist?

Blood on his hands: Qassem Suleimani, head of the Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard

Europe’s A Soft Touch For The World’s Most Dangerous Terrorist -- The Telegraph

The EU must respond to the deadly threat posed by Iran and Hizbollah.

Now that Osama bin Laden is at the bottom of the ocean, a new man has emerged as the world’s most dangerous terrorist: Qassem Suleimani. Although unfamiliar to most in the West, he is responsible for killing many thousands in cold blood – and masterminding the murder of more Americans than any other person on earth.

Suleimani heads the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard – the nerve centre of its global terrorist network. Working with Hizbollah in Lebanon, he has plotted, attempted and executed mass murder in dozens of countries.

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My Comment: My experience with Europe is that it takes forever for them to change their policies. But more news reports like this one will probably help to change it.

Meet The Man Who Is 'Secretly Running' Iraq

Qassem Suleimani: The Iranian General 'Secretly Running' Iraq -- The Guardian

Martin Chulov reports on the elusive Iranian with so much Iraqi influence that Baghdadis believe he is controlling the country

There's a story that the new CIA director, David Petraeus, likes to tell which harks back to his days as a four-star general in Iraq.

Early in 2008, during a series of battles between the US and Iraqi army on one side and the Shia militias on the other, Petraeus was handed a phone with a text message from the Iranian general who had by then become his nemesis.

The message came from the head of Iran's elite al-Quds Force, Qassem Suleimani, and was conveyed by a senior Iraqi leader. It read: "General Petraeus, you should know that I, Qassem Suleimani, control the policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, and Afghanistan. And indeed, the ambassador in Baghdad is a Quds Force member. The individual who's going to replace him is a Quds Force member."

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My Comment: Another story that underlines how silly and naive many in the West were in believing that President Obama's Presidential victory would herald a new and positive change in U.S. - Iran relations. A point that I have been making non-stop for as long as I can remember.

Bottom line .... Iran is ruled by a fanatical religious group that has only one interest, which is the expansion of Shiite Persian power and dominance (through diplomacy, bribes, murder, terrorism) of the Middle East. Many Sunni (and Shiite) Arabs understand this, but we in the West .... we cling (I guess) to a policy of hope that things will change.

Speaking of things not changing, here is a post from McClatchy from three years ago that is saying the same thing that the above Guardian article is saying today.