Five things you need to know to understand the Iran-US crisis
CNN :
President Donald Trump’s decision to kill Qasem Soleimani has left the international community reeling.
As diplomatic crises go, this ticks a lot of boxes. The US killed an Iranian general in Iraq-a country where it has kept a constant military presence since the 2003 invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
However bad relations between the US and Iran had become under Trump, the killing of a military official by drone strike caught everyone, including America’s closest allies, off guard.
Iran’s decision to retaliate by firing missiles at US targets in Iraq has left those with an interest in the region holding their breath. Iran may claim it doesn’t want war, but also says that any retaliation from Trump would be considered an escalation and responded to as such. Here’s what you need to know to help understand this developing story. What’s the background to this crisis? The weeks leading to Soleimani’s death had been rocky in Iraq. “Since the start of October, there’d been a tense standoff between Iraqi protestors [and the Iraqi government], opposing the Iran-backed Iraqi establishment,” says Chris Doyle, director of the Council for British-Arab Understanding, an independent think tank promoting conflict resolution, civil society and human rights in the Middle East. For months, thousands of Iraqi citizens have protested against government corruption and growing Iranian interference in Iraq’s political
establishment. Security forces have cracked down on protesters, killing hundreds and injuring thousands. Read more on how those protests unfolded
Days before Trump ordered the drone strike which killed Soleimani, Hundreds of pro-Iranian protestors attempted to storm the US embassy in Baghdad, scaling the walls and forcing the gates of the compound. They were protesting US airstrikes on facilities in Iraq and Syria which the Pentagon claims were linked to pro-Iranian militias responsible for attacking US service personnel in Iraq. Iran’s supreme leader: US got slap in the face Doyle believes that the storming of the US embassy was part of a wider Iranian strategy to distract Iraqis from the months of protests, starting in October, against Iranian interference in Iraq. “The protests had obviously worried the Iranians,” says Doyle. “I think, many of activities including, the embassy assault was to distract from the protests.”
Why wasn’t Soleimani targeted before? Trump was not the first US president to consider what to do about Soleimani. Dr. Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the US and Americas program at Chatham House, explains that “previous administrations had considered the possibility of killing Soleimani, and they made a very clear choice not to. While he’s clearly threatening to America’s interests and reprehensible, they didn’t think that the cost would be worth it.” Soleimani was in charge of managing Iran’s militias abroad, which in the case of Iraq, meant acting as a direct challenger to the US for being the most significant foreign power in the country.
Doyle explains that “the attraction of Iraq is that it is the only country in the Arab world with oil, water and human resources. But since the 2003 war, external powers have been feasting on the carcass of the Iraqi state.”
Huge crowds turn out for Soleimani’s funeral in hometown For some time, Iran has handled its priorities in Iraq better than the Americans, whose influence is deemed to be on the decline. “This assassination has merely accelerated the demise of US influence in this region and beyond to the benefit of Iran itself, Russia and China,” says Professor Arshin Adib-Moghaddam at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
One of the reasons Iran has so often wrong footed the US is that the two nations have had no diplomatic relations at all since 1979. And as Vinjamuri says, this has created “an absolute absence of knowledge and understanding” of the Iranian view.
President Donald Trump’s decision to kill Qasem Soleimani has left the international community reeling.
As diplomatic crises go, this ticks a lot of boxes. The US killed an Iranian general in Iraq-a country where it has kept a constant military presence since the 2003 invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
However bad relations between the US and Iran had become under Trump, the killing of a military official by drone strike caught everyone, including America’s closest allies, off guard.
Iran’s decision to retaliate by firing missiles at US targets in Iraq has left those with an interest in the region holding their breath. Iran may claim it doesn’t want war, but also says that any retaliation from Trump would be considered an escalation and responded to as such. Here’s what you need to know to help understand this developing story. What’s the background to this crisis? The weeks leading to Soleimani’s death had been rocky in Iraq. “Since the start of October, there’d been a tense standoff between Iraqi protestors [and the Iraqi government], opposing the Iran-backed Iraqi establishment,” says Chris Doyle, director of the Council for British-Arab Understanding, an independent think tank promoting conflict resolution, civil society and human rights in the Middle East. For months, thousands of Iraqi citizens have protested against government corruption and growing Iranian interference in Iraq’s political
establishment. Security forces have cracked down on protesters, killing hundreds and injuring thousands. Read more on how those protests unfolded
Days before Trump ordered the drone strike which killed Soleimani, Hundreds of pro-Iranian protestors attempted to storm the US embassy in Baghdad, scaling the walls and forcing the gates of the compound. They were protesting US airstrikes on facilities in Iraq and Syria which the Pentagon claims were linked to pro-Iranian militias responsible for attacking US service personnel in Iraq. Iran’s supreme leader: US got slap in the face Doyle believes that the storming of the US embassy was part of a wider Iranian strategy to distract Iraqis from the months of protests, starting in October, against Iranian interference in Iraq. “The protests had obviously worried the Iranians,” says Doyle. “I think, many of activities including, the embassy assault was to distract from the protests.”
Why wasn’t Soleimani targeted before? Trump was not the first US president to consider what to do about Soleimani. Dr. Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the US and Americas program at Chatham House, explains that “previous administrations had considered the possibility of killing Soleimani, and they made a very clear choice not to. While he’s clearly threatening to America’s interests and reprehensible, they didn’t think that the cost would be worth it.” Soleimani was in charge of managing Iran’s militias abroad, which in the case of Iraq, meant acting as a direct challenger to the US for being the most significant foreign power in the country.
Doyle explains that “the attraction of Iraq is that it is the only country in the Arab world with oil, water and human resources. But since the 2003 war, external powers have been feasting on the carcass of the Iraqi state.”
Huge crowds turn out for Soleimani’s funeral in hometown For some time, Iran has handled its priorities in Iraq better than the Americans, whose influence is deemed to be on the decline. “This assassination has merely accelerated the demise of US influence in this region and beyond to the benefit of Iran itself, Russia and China,” says Professor Arshin Adib-Moghaddam at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
One of the reasons Iran has so often wrong footed the US is that the two nations have had no diplomatic relations at all since 1979. And as Vinjamuri says, this has created “an absolute absence of knowledge and understanding” of the Iranian view.
