Since its creation, the Islamic Republic has systematically cultivated proxy forces and terrorist groups in other countries, of which Hizballah is the oldest and most prominent. This strategy allows Tehran not only to conserve its manpower but also to deny responsibility for its violent and repressive policies—a fiction the American foreign-policy establishment has been more than happy to play along with. By killing Qassem Suleimani, the Iranian officer responsible for supervising these proxies, alongside the leader of the most important such militia in Iraq, Washington sent a clear message that it would no longer abide by the distinction between the Iranian regime and its regional proxies. So argues Jonathan Schanzer:
Suleimani’s most effective and deadliest aggressions against the United States are memorialized in the U.S. Army’s comprehensive two-volume study The U.S. Army in the Iraq War. After the end of the first phase of the 2003 war, Suleimani’s Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) infiltrated the neighboring country, assassinated former leaders of Saddam Hussein’s regime, and established safe houses for future operations. IRGC teams then deployed to organize, train, and equip Iran-backed militias. American personnel were increasingly targeted and killed by the deadly bombs known as explosively formed projectiles.
Knowingly or not, with his targeted strike on Qassem Suleimani, President Trump upended [longstanding American policy]. In holding the terror master responsible for attacks carried out by his Iraqi proxies, the U.S. president torched the thin firewall that long hindered American decisionmakers from holding Iran accountable. And in so doing, he appears to have pushed Iran’s proxies to dispense with the fiction as well.
On January 9, [a few days after Suleimani’s death], the head of the IRGC’s aerospace command, Amir Hajizadeh, gave a press conference in front of the flags of the IRGC, Hizballah, the Houthis of Yemen, and the Fatemiyoun and Zaynabiyoun militias. [The last two, composed respectively of Afghans and Pakistanis, have been terrorizing Syrians for years.] The message was clear: Iran commands all of them, and they all form an axis pitted against America in the aftermath of Suleimani’s killing.
Donald Trump is still unsure if he wants to leave Iraq. If he does, he’ll validate Suleimani’s strategy and breathe new life into his shadow armies. If he denies Iran that territory and holds the regime accountable for the actions of its proxies, he will have done something that no other president has done since the rise of the Islamic Republic in 1979. He’ll have changed the rules of the game.
Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/ending-irans-fictions/