Qassem Suleimani's death is far more significant than the raids that killed Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
PERHAPS HE CAME to believe his own myth, the aura of invincibility he worked so hard to cultivate. Early on January 3rd General Qassem Suleimani, Iran’s most storied and feared commander, stepped off a plane from Syria or Lebanon at Baghdad’s international airport. He climbed into a waiting convoy alongside the leader of an allied militia—a seeming lapse in security, the two men travelling together, that suggests the general felt safe in Iraq.
Then came the strike that killed General Suleimani and seven others, including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the founder of Kataib Hizbullah and the head of an umbrella group of pro-Iranian militias. The long conflict between America and Iran has mostly been fought through proxies, spies and sanctions. This was tantamount to an act of war—a rare overt strike with profound consequences for the region.
The question now is how General Suleimani’s successors will respond. Many American analysts fret that Mr Trump is blundering into a war. But Iran will not seek an open confrontation it would surely lose: its antiquated military is no match for America’s. Instead it will rely on the asymmetric tactics that General Suleimani perfected. It could hit vulnerable infrastructure in Gulf states, or fire rockets at Israel.
In the short term the Iranian regime may bide its time and use the killing to whip up nationalist fervour at home. General Suleimani was a popular figure in an otherwise unloved regime. Only Mr Khamenei appeared on more of Tehran’s billboards. The feeling of admiration was not universal: General Suleimani was part of a security apparatus that ruthlessly crushes dissent. “It’s good to see there really are some checks and balances,” says an academic in Tehran.
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