Page 55 - BNE_magazine_02_2020

bne February 2020
Opinion 55
“The shock factor isn’t so much that Soleimani has died
– he was after all in many battles – but the way the US president has taken ownership of this will create that type of zeal and drive and commitment across the Middle East,” Ellie Geranmayeh, from the European Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP.
The so-called Iranian “axis of resistance”, stretching from Iran to the Mediterranean Sea, will now be “galvanised to focus more on their ultimate goal, which is the US withdrawal from as much of the Middle East as possible,” she added.
"Blood of the martyrs"
Remarking on Soleimani’s role defending Shi’ite Muslims from Sunni Muslim aggression, a Huthi official in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital held by the Iran-backed militia, told the news agency: “The blood of the martyrs... is not just Iranian or Iraqi but belongs to the Muslim community and to free men around the world.”
At a mourning ceremony in the Gaza Strip Soleimani was eulogised by the militant Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad.
The general has even been hailed as the “Che Guevara of the Middle East” in some quarters.
“They’re packaging Soleimani as this foreign policy guru, martyr, strategist... away from the narrative that he was a terrorist and responsible for loss of life,” added Vakil.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has described the missile strikes on the bases as “a slap in the face” for the US. But he also warned that Tehran still had a wider goal of expelling its enemy from the region. He told an audience in the city of Qom on January 8: “We just gave [the US] a slap in the face last night. But that is not equivalent to what they did.”
Subservience of Johnson
Interesting to watch will be the expected subservience British PM Boris Johnson shows to Trump as he keeps one eye on the US trade deal he is desperate for to steady the UK as it leaves the EU. He is choosing his words carefully. “Clearly the strict issue of legality is not for the UK to determine since it was not our operation,” said Johnson in the UK parliament on January 8 when challenged over whether the assassination breached international law.
He also raised the accusation that Soleimani had supplied “improvised explosive devices to terrorists, which I’m afraid killed and maimed British troops”. Johnson added: “That man had the blood of British troops on his hands.”
Clearly scathing of the UK as a US lapdog, Iran's defence minister Amir Hatami responded to a UK statement on the killing of Soleimani by observing: "Some countries unfortunately because of the situation they are having after WW2 they are having and following a policy of brown nosing."
If a Democrat is elected US president in November it will be interesting to observe Johnson changing his foreign policy tune.
Perhaps nostalgic for the pre-Trump era when the American president played by some semblance of the established rules, Democrat hopeful Joe Biden in New York City on January 7 criticised the “haphazard decision” to kill Soleimani, calling Trump “dangerously incompetent” and a man who provides “tweets... tantrums... evasive answers”.
“If there was an imminent threat that required this extraordinary action, we’re owed an explanation – and facts to back it up,” he said.
If Trump gets his second term such worthy remarks will just have to remain quaint for the foreseeable future.
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