Iran mourns
● After the US assassinates Qassem Soleimani, protesters burn Israeli flags on the streets of Tehran
THEY TRIED to lay Qassem Soleimani to rest, and the death just continued. Just four days after an American drone strike killed Iran’s Quds Force commander in Baghdad, his body was taken to the town of Kerman in south-eastern Iran to be buried. Huge crowds thronged the streets. Tears poured forth from Iranians, many of whom wore t-shirts bearing Soleimani’s image. Banners flew; flags were waved. Aerial TV shots revealed an undulating sea of humanity wedged together in mourning.
And then, more tragedy: a stampede left 50 people dead. Grief piled upon grief. The authorities abandoned the interment, postponing it to a later, as yet unannounced, date. Iranian media reported that the tragedy had occurred “because of overcrowding at the funeral procession.” According to witnesses, the streets of central Kerman were insufficiently wide to accommodate the huge numbers of people and with the various side roads closed off there was no escape from the crush.
Of all the incidents that have followed Soleimani’s assassination, his (attempted) funeral has arguably been the most instructive. Everything was there to see.
First was Soleimani’s — genuine — popularity. As the engine of
Iran’s presence in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, he was reviled by most across the region, and by many in Iran.
But it is also true that the regime’s concerted attempts to glorify him through sophisticated media campaigns based around his military prowess (all tethered to that striking visage) were effective.
Since his death, Iranians have poured into the streets in the millions in locations across Iran. As New York Times journalist Farnaz Fassihi tweeted: “I have also covered plenty of state sponsored rallies in Iran where crowd is bused in. It never gets bigger than tens of thousands. This is millions. This is not coerced.”
Soleimani had, to many, achieved an almost metaphysical status. Video footage of the funeral showed people throwing items of clothing at his coffin as it snaked through the crowds, which officials would gather, touch to the casket and throw back. It was striking.
But this has a wider political significance for the regime far beyond popular sympathy for Soleimani.
For the past year Iran has seen people pour into the streets almost daily to demonstrate against the regime. Sanctions and a perennially mismanaged economy have seen living standards plummet and inflation rise. The people are getting desperate and the regime has been getting violent.
To see Iranians out in numbers while at one with the authorities is little short of a political godsend. While they mourn Soleimani they can’t protest over petrol prices. And the regime is taking full advantage. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, leading the prayers, wept during the funeral ceremony. “Oh Allah, they are in need of your mercy, and you are exalted above punishing your servants,” he lamented as he stood over the flag-draped casket.
Meanwhile, every attempt was made to link Soleimani’s death to the power of the regime. “The martyr Qassem Soleimani is more powerful... now that he is dead,” said the Revolutionary Guards’ ranking general, Major General Hossein Salami, to the gathered crowds.
In this endeavour the Iranians received a gift from President Trump. As the verbal back and forth continued in the days following Soleimani’s death, and as Iranian calls for vengeance grew louder, Mr Trump took to Twitter, as he always does.
“Iran has been nothing but problems for many years,” he tweeted. “Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!”
In threatening Iranian cultural
Mourners carry Qassem Soleimani’s coffin inside the Shrine of Imam Hussein in the holy Iranian city of Karbala on Saturday
While they mourn him they can’t protest petrol prices’
sites Mr Trump both crossed a normative line and hit the Iranians where it hurts.
Iran takes great pride in its ancient civilisation and long history; critically, so does its populace. Leaving aside the fact that Trump in threatening such sites specifically promised to attack avowedly non-military targets, the comment served only to bring down international condemnation on the White House.
Even UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab weighed in, saying that cultural sites were protected by international law and Britain expected that to be respected.
The director general of the UN’s cultural organisation, Unesco, Audrey Azoulay, reaffirmed that both Iran and the US had signed a convention to protect the world’s natural and cultural heritage.
Mr Trump also faced pushback from US Defence Secretary Mark Esper who told journalists that in any conflict with Iran the US would “follow the laws of armed conflict” — which prohibit targeting such sites.
But most of all, the comments served only to anger and terrify ordinary Iranians, even those who would otherwise hate the regime.
This is what Iran is banking on. Even if those most against the regime did not care about Soleimani’s death, no Iranian can sit easy in the face of any US president (let alone Donald Trump) threatening to strike at the fundament of national pride.
Late on Tuesday, Iran made good on its threats and struck two US bases in Iraq with ballistic missiles.
No American casualties were reported. Iran had achieved what it was always going to try to do: a retaliation that was significant enough to maintain credibility in the eyes of its own people, while doing nothing so extreme that it would bring the full wrath of Washington down on its head.
Now the world waits to see what more Donald Trump will do.
On the ground reports reach me that the people are scared. Fighter jets are strafing the skies over Kirkuk. Iraqis — and indeed Iranians — fear what comes next. And no one thinks that what is happening now is any
thing other than the start of a long and drawn out saga between Iran and the US in which it is the region that will suffer the most.
Tehran is once more goading Washington. “To the Great Satan...we warn that if you repeat your wickedness or take any additional movements or make additional aggression, we will respond with more painful and crushing responses,” an Iranian statement to the US read, shortly after the strike.
Donald Trump is in belligerent mood and the Iranians are defiant — and, critically, more united than they have been in a long time.
The future remains unknown but it would be a fool who would bet against further escalation. Above all one thing is clear: as the new decade dawns the Middle East in the 2020s looks like it will be depressingly similar to the Middle East in the 2010s.
And as always it is not Iran or the United States that will suffer the most, but all of those caught in the battle between the two.