A perfect storm seems to be brewing in the region after the American targeting in Baghdad of Iran’s most revered military commander Gen Qassem Soleimani. What does it mean for the region and particularly Pakistan?
Soon after news broke of the assassination of Iranian Gen Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in American strikes in Baghdad, Donald Trump told the media that he had taken the action “to stop a war”. However, as events following the killing have shown, it very much appears that the US president — by taking this questionable decision — has in fact declared war, putting his country on a collision course with Iran. And if saner counsel does not prevail, a new, incredibly destructive conflict is very much on the horizon of an already shattered Middle East.
The fury and outrage in Iran is palpable; Soleimani was no ordinary general and the fact that hundreds of thousands of people — if not millions — have taken to the streets of Iranian cities to pay their last respects to the Quds Force commander shows that the killing has struck a raw nerve with Iran’s people across political divides. In fact, the footage and pictures of the funeral processions and mourning assemblies are reminiscent of the massive funeral for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, in 1989. Such a comparison is strengthened because, by hitting Soleimani, the Americans have struck at a strong symbol of the nezam, as the Iranian establishment is known.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has promised “harsh revenge” for the American hit, and the Iranian missile strikes on US bases in Iraq early last Wednesday morning may just be the beginning of a long, bloody exchange. However, regardless of the scope of the reaction, it is quite apparent that any ratcheting up of tension in the Gulf, Iraq or Afghanistan — where American military assets are based in the region and can be targeted by Iran or its allied groups — will have a destabilising impact on the global economy, particularly on the countries of the region, including Pakistan.
But how did we get here? How did the situation develop where once upon a time, Iran, under the Pahlavi regime, was a loyal American client and today Washington and Tehran are eyeball to eyeball in a deadly game of geopolitical chicken? The key turning point in this highly tortured relationship came, of course, in 1979, when Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled Iran and, with the overthrow of the imperial order, an Islamic Republic was proclaimed by Ayatollah Khomeini.
FROM EMPIRE TO ISLAMIC REPUBLIC
Under the Pahlavi regime, Iran was considered part of a troika of principal American clients in the Middle East, with Israel and Saudi Arabia being the other two members of this triad. However, following the events of 1979, which witnessed a 180-degree change in Iran’s ideological and political orientation, the ties of the past were mostly severed, as the ayatollahs broke away from the orbit of what they termed shaytan-i-buzurg (the great Satan) to plot an independent course based on a mix of democracy, theology and revolutionary fervour.
The new reorientation of Iran sent shockwaves across the world, particularly in the US — which had just lost a valuable outpost in the Mideast — and the Gulf, as the Arab potentates feared that Iran’s new religious dispensation would aim to ‘export’ its revolution, sparking uprisings particularly among Shia Arab populations as well as across the greater Muslim world. For example, Pakistan’s Maulana Abul Al’a Maududi and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood had both welcomed Iran’s revolution. Hence, where Washington felt a threat to the Pax Americana in an energy-rich region, the Arab kings and shaikhs felt a challenge to their authority from a set-up that claimed to be both democratic and Islamic. Israel, which enjoyed warm relations with the Shah’s Iran, now had different ideas, as Islamic Iran called for the liberation of Al Quds, considered Israel’s ‘eternal capital’ by Zionists. This collective rivalry, with minor ups and downs, would set the trajectory for the next 40 years and, therefore, the current turmoil can be traced back to the events of 1979.
DECADES OF DISTRUST