Soleimani’s heavy-handed approach to bolstering Iran’s influence in Iraq ultimately catalyzed a chain of events that led the Trump administration to decide to assassinate him on January 3, 2020, in a drone strike outside Baghdad’s international airport. Beginning in October 2019, an Iraqi protest movement emerged whose grievances largely centered on Iran’s continued meddling in the country’s political affairs and the unchecked influence of Iran-backed militias. Notably, the protesters were predominantly Shia, showing that Soleimani’s efforts in Iraq had actually alienated the core constituency that Iran purports to defend in order to justify its meddling.
While Soleimani had cultivated relationships with the leaders of Iran’s political, ethnic, and sectarian factions and was adept at strong-arming them into doing Iran’s bidding, Iraqis themselves rejected Soleimani’s explicit sectarian approach in favor of Iraqi nationalism and more inclusive politics. The failure of Iran’s revolutionary ideology to take root in Iraq points to a wider failing of the Islamic Republic: It is bad at governance and providing for the welfare of its constituencies and therefore is increasingly reliant on repression for retaining an iron grip on power, whether within Iran or in the surrounding countries where Soleimani helped carve out spheres of influence.
The outbreak of the protests in October 2019 triggered panic in Tehran, which quickly dispatched Soleimani to Baghdad to advise Iraqi politicians and security officials on his best practices for quelling unrest. Soleimani reportedly ominously warned, “We in Iran know how to deal with protests. This happened in Iran, and we got it under control.” Soleimani set about orchestrating the Iraqi Security Forces and the PMF’s brutal suppression of the protests, demonstrating that Iran was truly calling the shots in Baghdad.
In parallel with Soleimani’s efforts to quell the nascent Iraqi protest movement, Iran-backed militias under his control undertook a concerted campaign of rocket attacks targeting U.S. military targets in the country. With Iran backed into a corner due to economic sanctions and mounting protests domestically, it returned to a familiar playbook of external aggression to shift focus from its own shortcomings. According to a U.S. military official, forensic analysis of the rockets and launchers used during the spate of attacks in Iraq indicated the involvement of Shia militias, most notably Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kata’ib Hezbollah. The attacks placed the U.S. on a collision course with the Iran-backed militias and Soleimani himself.
The situation boiled in late December 2019 and early January 2020. On December 27, 2019, more than 30 missiles were fired at an Iraqi military base near Kirkuk, killing a U.S. contractor and wounding four U.S. troops as well as two members of the Iraqi security forces. The U.S. accused KH of being responsible for the attack and retaliated by launching strikes against 5 KH targets in Iraq and Syria, including weapons depots and command and control centers. The U.S. strikes reportedly killed at least 25 KH militants.
On December 31, 2019, protesters, including members and supporters of KH, attempted to storm the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Demonstrators threw stones and torched a security post, prompting embassy guards to respond with stun grenades and tear gas. The militia supporters withdrew from the embassy after prominent commanders reportedly spoke to them. On January 1, 2020, following orders from Mohammed Mohyee, KH’s political spokesman, thousands of protestors dispersed from the American Embassy in Baghdad.
The KH rocket attack that killed a U.S. contractor and subsequent embassy attack proved to be a fatal miscalculation by Soleimani, who had progressively pushed the envelope without engendering significant U.S. reprisals to that point. In the early morning hours of January 3, 2020, President Trump greenlit a drone strike targeting Soleimani’s convoy shortly after his arrival in Baghdad.
Soleimani’s death at the hands of a U.S. drone strike came just weeks after Iran quelled massive demonstrations against the regime, killing an estimated 1,500 citizens in the process. Despite his alignment with the regime, Iranians thronged the streets in cities around the country to honor Soleimani, including in underserved regions such as Ahvaz, which faces an Arab separatist movement. While it is difficult to gauge the true sentiment of the populace in a repressive, authoritarian society such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, Soleimani did seem to be regarded as a nationalistic defender of Iran’s citizenry by a segment of Iran’s population.
The Iranian regime has sought to use Soleimani’s death to distract from its shortcomings and galvanize the public about anti-U.S. sentiment. Iranian officials, including the Supreme Leader, have frequently pointed to Soleimani’s assassination as evidence of the U.S.’s perfidy and untrustworthiness. The regime frequently refers to Soleimani as a “great martyr” and has called his assassination “the gravest crime committed by the Americans against Iran after the Revolution.” In August 2020, as the U.S. tried to galvanize support for extending the arms embargo against Iran contained in U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, Iran unveiled a new ballistic missile named the “Martyr Hajj Qassem” with a range of 1,400 km. The regime has sought to turn to Soleimani into an enduring symbol of resistance to the U.S.
His killing has hardened resolve among Iran’s leadership against resuming negotiations with the U.S. on its nuclear program and malign regional activities. In December 2020 remarks ahead of planned commemorations for the first anniversary of Soleimani’s death, Supreme Leader Khamenei warned that Iran’s enmity toward the U.S. will continue despite America’s transition to the Biden administration. He clarified that his preferred path for Iran to gain sanctions relief is not through a negotiated process, but by forcing the U.S. and Europe’s hand by continuing to advance its nuclear program and destabilizing the region.
Soleimani’s killing sparked fears of a massive retaliation which could spiral to a full-blown conflict between the U.S. and Iran with no offramp of diplomacy or negotiations in sight. In the immediate aftermath of Soleimani’s killing, Iran’s leadership pledged the U.S. would face “harsh retaliation.” Iran followed up on this threat by firing a salvo of over a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi airbases housing U.S. troops in the early morning hours of January 8, 2020, causing over 100 soldiers to suffer traumatic brain injuries. Supreme Leader Khamenei intoned that while the ballistic missile attack represented a “slap on the face” for the U.S., “military action like this (ballistic missile) attack is not sufficient,” indicating that Iran remained determined to carry out a decisive retaliation for Soleimani’s killing targeting U.S. interests at a time of its choosing. Former and current U.S. government officials, particularly those who were involved in the decision to assassinate Soleimani, remain under active threat from the Iranian regime, which is targeting them on U.S. soil in assassination plots.
In the months following Iran’s ballistic missile attack, however, Iran refrained from major attacks against the U.S. Iran-backed militias carried out sporadic rocket attacks against U.S. troops and interests in Iraq throughout 2020. In September 2020, U.S. intelligence officials revealed a plot to assassinate the American ambassador to South Africa, but caution has thus far prevailed. Still, in December 2020, Khamenei promised “yet more severe slaps to come” with the ultimate goal of avenging Soleimani by completing his project of expelling the U.S. from the region.
A confluence of factors explain Iran’s blustery, yet cautious approach. Facing twin economic and public health crises due to sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic, the regime can ill afford a regime-destabilizing response to an act of retaliation if it pushes the envelope too far. More significantly, however, Soleimani’s death has caused material setbacks to Iran’s project of regional dominance. Iran feels it needs to regain its footing in the region before it can manage a confrontation with the U.S.
Following Soleimani’s death, Khamenei appointed his principal deputy, Brigadier General Esmail Qaani as his successor as Quds Force commander. Under their division of leadership, Qaani was primarily responsible for the Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia portfolios, relative backwaters in terms of Iran’s regional strategy. Replacing Soleimani has been a monumental, uphill undertaking for Qaani. Soleimani was a charismatic figure who had Khamenei’s full trust, which ensured he was universally feared if not respected. Soleimani operated with an unprecedented degree of independence, forging relationships across the region with political and militia leaders in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon that could not easily be replicated.
As such, Hezbollah has had to fill the void created by Soleimani’s death, taking over the coordination of militia operations in Syria and Iraq. In April 2020, the U.S. State Department announced a $10 million reward for information on Hezbollah operative Sheikh Mohammad al-Kawtharani, alleging he had “taken over some of the political coordination of Iran-aligned paramilitary groups” that had previously been Soleimani’s purview. Tehran’s command and control of the various militia groups it backs have been degraded as a result. Its ability to dictate outcomes in its neighbor’s political affairs has been set back as well.
These trends have been evident in Iraq, which has served as the primary flash-point for confrontation between Iran and the U.S. in recent years. In late March 2020, Qaani visited Baghdad, seeking to establish continuity with his predecessor and reassert the Quds Force’s influence. His visit was widely seen as a failure. He sought to unite Iraqi militia and political factions in supporting an anti-American, pro-Iranian prime minister, but Iraq ultimately selected former intelligence chief Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who is viewed as supportive of U.S. interests. Qaani was snubbed on his visit by Moqtada al-Sadr, who refused to meet with him. Such a snub would have been unheard of for Soleimani, demonstrating that Tehran no longer commanded the fear and respect it had previously engendered.
In the final months of the Trump administration, Iran sought to restrain the Iraqi militias it backs from attacking the U.S., seeking to wait out the clock and avoid any escalations. In November 2020, Qaani reportedly visited Beirut to meet with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to secure his assistance in reining in Iran-backed Iraqi militias. Qaani then went to Baghdad to meet the Iraqi prime minister and several militia leaders to urge restraint. While some militias have followed Tehran’s orders, most notably Kata’ib Hezbollah, others have openly defied Tehran. Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) leader Qais al-Khazali gave a TV interview after Qaani’s visit in which he vowed to continue confronting the U.S., declaring, “The Americans occupy our country, not yours. We will not listen to you anymore because our motives are 100 percent nationalist. The truce with the Americans has ended due to its conditions not being met.”
Following Qaani’s visit to Baghdad in November 2020, Iraqi militias carried out at least three attacks on U.S. interests. On November 17, militants targeted the U.S. embassy with a volley of rockets. On December 10, two convoys carrying logistical equipment to the U.S.-led coalition were attacked by roadside bombs. On December 20, the embassy was targeted with another salvo of eight rockets. The repeat violations of the tenuous cease-fire have been condemned by Kata’ib Hezbollah and other factions close to Iran, but show that the Iran-backed militias remain divided in their approach to confronting the U.S. and that under Qaani, the Quds Force can no longer enforce discipline among their ranks. With Soleimani’s departure from the scene, the networks of militias and terrorist organizations that he stood up, trained, and armed pose an enduring threat that will keep the region on the precipice of conflict for the foreseeable future.
Two years after Qassem Soleimani’s departure from the scene on January 3, 2020, it is clear that the Trump administration’s decision to assassinate him via a drone strike has stymied Iran’s regional management. No singular figure could replicate Soleimani’s blend of charisma and intimidation, as well as his stature as a trusted representative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, which enabled him to forge relationships and enforce discipline among the leaders of the web of Iran-backed militias and terrorist groups comprising the ‘Axis of Resistance.’
According to a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment from April 2021, Soleimani’s death “degraded Iran’s relations with its array of partners and proxies in the region because he was the primary interlocutor with many regional groups.” It also predicted that Esmail Qaani “is more likely than Soleimani to delegate responsibilities, including to his deputy Mohammad Hejazi.” Numerous reports circulated in 2021 about Qaani’s lack of skill—compared with Soleimani—in managing Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance,’ comprised of increasingly aggressive and defiant militias and off-shoot terrorist groups. Such reports made waves particularly after the drone attack on then-Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s residence in November 2021—an attack which Iraqi security officials blamed on Kata’ib Hezbollah and AAH militants. However, that does not necessarily mean Tehran has lost influence. Reuters reported “Tehran had knowledge about the attack [on the home of Iraq’s prime minister] before it was carried out, but that Iranian authorities had not ordered it.”
Qaani also no longer has Hejazi as a deputy, who died under somewhat questionable circumstances in April 2021. The Quds Force thus lost another senior officer—particularly someone with Hejazi’s seniority as he was a former deputy commander-in-chief of the IRGC in its entirety. Qaani now has to rely on a less seasoned deputy, Mohammad Reza Fallahzadeh. At the same time, the profile of IRGC Aerospace Force commander, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, has been rising, with some speculation that he would be the “new Soleimani.” After all, it was the IRGC’s Aerospace Force’s drone unit which launched an attack on the Mercer Street commercial vessel in July 2021, killing two Europeans. It is this more open and aggressive posture of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force, coupled with Hajizadeh’s rising visibility, that has led to such speculations.
However, the current U.S. strategy may further embolden Iran. The U.S. has failed to pursue a coherent strategy of its own to contain Iran’s malign regional meddling, responding instead in a piecemeal fashion to individual provocations by Iran and its allies, which have stepped up destabilizing drone and rocket attacks in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. With the Biden administration intent on restoring the 2015 nuclear deal, which would rescue the Iranian regime from an economic precipice, and militarily disengaging from the region, it risks providing Iran with an unintentional lifeline in its efforts to fulfill Soleimani’s lifelong ambition to spread Iran’s revolutionary ideology and supplant U.S. influence in the Middle East.
The region is currently at a crossroads, and it remains to be seen which of two competing visions will win out. The first vision is that of moderation, peace, and stability represented by the Abraham Accords, the landmark deals to normalize relations between Israel and several major Arab nations (the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan). The other vision, which is espoused by Tehran and its network of terrorist and militia partners, is the extremist vision of “resistance” to Western influence, economic integration, and political liberalization. Qassem Soleimani embodied this vision like no other figure.
The impetus for the Abraham Accords was a shared recognition that the greatest impediment to regional security comes from Iran, whose regional destabilization and overt sectarianism made it politically palatable for Arab leaders to codify the quiet cooperation with Israel that has been ongoing for several years. A secondary factor behind the Abraham Accords was a recognition of the U.S. desire to play a more hands-off role in the region, which led the Arab states and Israel to take a more proactive role in shouldering the burden for their collective defense.
The Abraham Accords have paid dividends for its signatories in terms of arms sales from the U.S., economic benefits and innovation, cultural and touristic exchanges, and military and intelligence cooperation. While Arab-Israeli unity poses a setback for Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions in immediate terms, the most important and possibly overlooked facet is that normalization of Israel’s role in the region provides a sustainable blueprint for peace, coexistence, and improved standards of living that are truly the antidote for the Iranian regime’s “resistance” vision, which can only thrive in conditions of hopelessness and immiseration.
The regional dialogues ongoing between Saudi Arabia and Iran—and sponsored by Iraq—show little chance of resulting in meaningful détente between the two sectarian and geopolitical rivals. Throughout the negotiations, Iran made demanding gestures, like the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Riyadh, in exchange for no concessions of its own. Despite the two regional powers reaching a Chinese-brokered normalization agreement in March 2023, Tehran has not moderated its regional aggression; it has merely shifted resources and attention to other theaters, including the Palestinian territories in the lead up to the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has also engaged in de-escalation with Iran since 2019. The U.S. failure to respond to Iranian attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure earlier that year added motivation to the UAE’s outreach to Tehran, as the UAE sought to protect against a similar attack on its soil. But the posture of the IRGC Quds Force remains unchanged in the region and beyond. In fact, in early 2021, reports emerged of Iranian agents casing Emirati embassies in Africa, specifically Ethiopia, for targets to attack.
Washington has applauded the dialogue between Iran and its traditional foes under the cover of regional integration, while Iran’s desire to destabilize and dominate the region remains to this day. Endless diplomacy with Tehran—which results in no movement on the ground—without more robust U.S. support for its allies and partners in the Middle East plays into Iran’s hands as it can use the talks to buy time and space for the IRGC in the region. Sanctions relief via U.S. reentry to the Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) from 2015 would provide the regime a windfall to continue the very malign activities about which U.S. allies and partners, including those situated in the region, are concerned. The Biden administration, because of its lax sanctions enforcement which has allowed Tehran to rake in over $80 billion in oil sales (mostly to China) between January 2021 and September 2023, has significantly diminished U.S. leverage. A reentry into the JCPOA—many of the provisions of which have already or will soon expire—would further undermine leverage in negotiations with the Islamic Republic.
Iran has also been helped on its course by the changing U.S. posture toward the region. The haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan and subsequent rapid reconquest by the Taliban have called into question America’s commitment to its allies and upholding the mantle of global leadership.
America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was an important objective of Iranian foreign policy, which Soleimani pursued by playing a double game of backing all sides, including providing arms and training to Iran’s former foe, the Taliban. The U.S. withdrawal, helped along by Tehran’s minor supporting role in backing the Taliban, marked a major victory for Iran’s low-investment proxy warfare strategy that was Soleimani’s hallmark. The marriage of convenience between Tehran and the Taliban to repel the U.S. has won Iran some influence with the group that it hopes will endure, although tensions are likely to resurface over concerns due to drug trafficking, terrorism, refugees spilling over into Iran from Afghanistan, and disputes over shared access to water from the Helmand River.
Against the backdrop of U.S. disengagement from the region, Iran’s hardline leadership has been emboldened and gone on the offensive, pushing the envelope on the nuclear and regional files. Iran pursued a strategy of phased, escalatory violations of the JCPOA in order to gain leverage before and during the resumption of negotiations with the P5+1, shrinking the amount of time needed to amass enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon from 12 months down to one or two. Since negotiations resumed in late November 2021, Iran has sidelined the U.S. negotiating team, hewed to maximalist demands, and refused to countenance negotiating any issues outside the scope of the original nuclear deal, milking the process for additional time to advance its illicit nuclear program.
The abandonment of Afghanistan also emboldened Tehran in the region. Seeking to bleed America and sap it of its will, Iran and its proxies and partners have stepped up drone and missile attacks against U.S. interests, personnel, and allies in the region from Iraq and Syria to Yemen. The U.S., for its part, has consistently failed to meaningfully push back against Tehran’s provocations. The Biden administration launched a mere two airstrikes in 2021, as it sought to keep prospects for a revived JCPOA intact and to change from a combat posture to a training and advisory mission in Iraq.
While these developments paint a picture of an ascendant Iran, the regime faces problems on other fronts. Since Soleimani’s death, Iran’s leadership has had to operate in permanent crisis mode, careening from setback to setback as a result of its ineptitude and endemic corruption. Iran faces simultaneous economic, public health, environmental, and demographic crises, all of which it has responded to with further repression. Despite its failures to materially improve the lives of its citizens, Iran’s revolutionary regime’s survival through brutality seems assured.
Domestically, Iranians have largely checked out of politics, dissatisfied by the failures of ostensibly pragmatic leaders to enact needed reforms. Iran’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, and his fellow hardliners in the clergy, political echelon, and IRGC now effectively control all the major power centers in Iran. They are poised to maintain their control well after Khamenei and his cohort, who have dominated the Iranian political scene since the Islamic Revolution, exit the picture, ensuring that the anti-Americanism and harsh Islamic governance that are the hallmarks of the Iranian regime will outlive the first generation of revolutionaries.
Iran has proven adept at sowing terror and chaos, but less so at governing and currying influence with populations in the Middle East subject to its destabilizing meddling. This was evident in the October 2021 elections in Iraq, when the Fatah coalition of the political wings of Iran-backed militias lost seats while the Sadrist bloc, which stressed independence from Tehran and the West, came out on top.
The election loss underscored the Iraqi pushback to Iran’s quest for hegemony. Any U.S. drawdown from Iraq risks the U.S. snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, as Iran will have a freer hand to reassert its primacy in Iraq, likely through increased repression and heavy-handedness on the part of its militia allies that it retains full control over.
If the U.S. is to prevent Iran, whose back is against the wall, from retaking the offensive and realizing Soleimani’s lifelong ambitions of spreading Iran’s revolutionary ideology and evicting the U.S. from the region, it must recommit to a comprehensive strategy designed to contain Iran’s malign nuclear and regional ambitions. This is why leaving the Middle East to pivot to Asia is such a shortsighted strategy. The U.S. must work in concert with allies, who have fundamental interests in countering Iran that supersede their differences, to make clear that Iran will pay a price for its regional destabilization and will not receive a pass for its meddling in order to keep nuclear diplomacy alive. Doing so will ensure that the path of the Abraham Accords, characterized by stability and prosperity, will prevail over Soleimani’s dark vision predicated on “resistance.”
Three years after Soleimani's assassination, Iran has nearly recovered the level of influence it had around the region, with Qaani spearheading the integration of Tehran’s regional proxies and partners under the banner of the ‘Axis of Resistance.’ The proxy militia network formerly helmed by Soleimani had grown increasingly independent immediately after Soleimani’s death. But a closer look into more recent developments reveals that the network continues to serve Iran's interests in each of the Quds Force’s major theaters of operation: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, and Yemen. This penultimate section briefly overviews the broad trendlines in IRGC-related activities in those countries as of January 2023, the three year anniversary of Soleimani’s death.
The above-mentioned 2019 protests in Iraq and the Iran-aligned parties’ poor performance in the 2021 parliamentary elections indicated the large extent of Iraqi people who are not on the side of continued Iranian meddling in Iraqi affairs. Therefore, the militias that engage in Iraqi politics—particularly Kataib Hezbollah (KH), Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), and the Badr Organization—have to strike a balance between Tehran’s demands, their constituency’s demands, which often include violence against the U.S. and Israel, and the popular demands of the Iraqi people, trending towards nationalism.
In January 2022, AAH’s leader Qais Khazali attempted to distance himself from Iran, saying that his group’s “decisions in Iraq aren’t subjected to Iran’s decisions,” echoing his speech from late 2020 when he swore to defy Qaani’s attempts to rein in the militias. AAH is a violent group whose ideology aligns with Iran’s. Most of AAH’s members are radicalized—partly because of the IRGC’s recruitment and training programs—so they are committed to evicting the U.S. military from the region and severing ties between the U.S. and the Iraqi government.
In April 2022, Ashab al-Kahf—a group linked to AAH—claimed responsibility for over thirteen strikes against coalition forces. The prevalence of attacks by this group could be indicative of an effort by Iran-backed militias in Iraq to form shadowy militias under their control, intending for them to carry out and claim responsibility for attacks to preserve a modicum of their own plausible deniability. This potentially allows the terrorist groups to remain on good terms with their benefactor and fuel the radical ideology instilled in its armed followers, while protecting its political interests increasingly swayed by popular opposition to Iranian meddling and Iran-directed violence.
Further, reports indicate that Tehran has had a hand in forming new militias, as it aims to tighten its control over the actors it trains and arms in the absence of Soleimani. These reports suggest that, contrary to a commonly-held belief that front groups are responsible for many of the growing number of attacks on Western interests, the attacks are carried out by newly-formed, independent entities that answer directly to the Quds Force. Still, other reports are convinced that those who claim responsibility for attacks are often façade groups linked to KH, AAH, and other Iran-backed militias.
The Iran-backed Iraqi militias’ political arms—which as a coalition, comprise the Fatah Alliance—are poised to increase their influence in the new Iraqi government and, in turn, further empower the militias. The will to impose costs on the PMF militias will likely diminish under the current Iran-aligned government, which came to power due to the Iran-aligned parties dominating the parliamentary selection process of a prime minister after Moqtada al-Sadr withdrew from parliament. Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad al-Sudani’s administration could expand the resources available to the PMF groups and allow them greater freedom of operation—each of which is in Tehran’s interests.
The IRGC has increased its aggressiveness in the aftermath of the Mahsa Amini protest movement. The Iranian people have been burning posters and banners featuring Soleimani throughout the country. However, this dynamic also risks making the Iranian system more aggressive abroad as the IRGC has launched multiple operations targeting Iranian dissident groups in Iraqi Kurdistan, and there was intelligence about an imminent attack on Saudi Arabia. Tehran contends Riyadh is funding Iranian diaspora media networks like Iran International TV and therefore blames it for having a role in the ongoing revolutionary sentiment in Iran.
In Syria, the IRGC’s modus operandi that Soleimani had initiated continued in 2022. Iranian arms continue to flow into Syria via ground convoys that first travel through Iraq and often cross into Syria at the Abu Kamal border crossing. On November 9, 2022, Israel carried out air strikes against a convoy of tankers as it passed into Syria from Iraq, ostensibly shipping oil, but likely concealing weaponry, or weapon components. The IRGC has used transport convoys to hide rocket and missile engines, bodies, and warheads to be assembled at their destination. Quds Force engineers work with terrorist proxies to reassemble these munitions, some of which end up being precision-guided munitions. The IRGC also reportedly operates pilgrim transport convoys to smuggle weapons into Syria, underscoring the nefarious purposes for which Iran builds religious settlements and shrines in Syria.
Israel has taken a proactive approach to preventing the proliferation of precision-guided munitions. In August 2022, Israel bombed Institute 4000—a facility in Masyaf, Syria, 25 meters below ground and fortified with a thick layer of concrete and steel where Iran and North Korea had in the past cooperated on Scud missiles. A few months prior to this attack, the Saudi news agency Al-Hadath alleged that Hezbollah and the IRGC had begun to develop ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, and UAVs under the “Project 99” program at this facility. But as Defense Minister Benny Gantz pointed out after these airstrikes, at least ten other locations are suspected of producing precision missiles.
Another threat to Israel’s national security is the installation of air defense systems in Syria, which occurs under the direction of both the Quds Force and the Aerospace Force. These systems are geared to prevent Israel from carrying out airstrikes on its weapons shipments, and its storage and production facilities in the country. In July 2022, reports emerged contending that Brigadier General Fereydoun Mohammadi Saghaei—deputy coordinator of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force—was identified as the IRGC official in charge of deploying advanced Iranian air defense systems in Syria and Lebanon. Because of the effectiveness of Israeli operations in Syria, IRGC-linked Meraj Airlines has started flights to Beirut in recent weeks instead of using Damascus as a transshipment point.
Iran-backed militias also launched attacks against U.S. military personnel stationed in Syria. On August 15, 2022, Iran-linked militias launched drone attacks near the al-Tanf garrison, a base housing U.S. troops and sitting on a vital roadway that runs from Tehran to Lebanon. President Biden authorized airstrikes in Syria targeting Iran-backed militias’ infrastructure after these attacks and rocket fire near Green Village.
The Quds Force has a smaller footprint in Lebanon than it does in Syria. Though there have been reports of Quds Force operatives in Lebanon in the past, Iran does not need to deploy large numbers of Quds Force operatives in Lebanon or establish its own logistical infrastructure there, as it can rely on its proxy, Hezbollah, whose leaders are ideologically-committed to the Iranian regime, dominated by the IRGC.
Another factor decreasing the need for an on-the-ground presence in Lebanon is that Hezbollah is not in competition with other Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, as the Iraqi militias are within the PMF. In Iraq, by contrast, Iran-backed Iraqi militias engage in internecine violence and assassinations. Moreover, Iran-backed proxies compete with each other in Syria for control of the drug trade; that competition also sometimes devolves into violence.
By relying on its proxy in Lebanon, Iran can free up resources for other theaters, but Quds Force operatives likely remain present in the country to this day, especially in an advisory capacity or to provide technical expertise in the construction of missile facilities, reassembly of missile components, or the equipping of unguided munitions with precision-guided technologies. Hezbollah also works with IRGC operatives in Lebanon to help train Iran-backed proxies in UAVs, rockets, bombings, and other core capabilities, such as information warfare. A November 2022 report alleged that Hezbollah was storing chemical weapons in al-Qusayr, Syria, in route from Masyaf to Lebanon.
Hezbollah takes the lead on weapons smuggling to Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Weapons smuggling into the Palestinian territories drastically increased throughout 2022, likely at the direction of the IRGC Quds Force. In August 2022, PIJ leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah met with several senior Iranian officials in Tehran, including the supreme leader's adviser Ali Akbar Velayati, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and the head of Iran's Strategic Council on Foreign Relations Kamal Kharrazi, as well as President Ebrahim Raisi. Iran has been using PIJ in forming battalions in the West Bank—for example, in Jenin and Nablus.
The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen have shown throughout 2022 that they are willing and capable of striking targets in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen with weapons they acquired from Iran. In July 2022, a U.N. fact-finding mission determined that the weapons—including ballistic missiles, rockets, and UAVs—that the Houthis used in various attacks against Saudi Arabia and the UAE had originated in Iran. In November 2022, the Houthis launched a projectile from a drone at the al-Dhabba oil terminal in Yemen. Reports suggested that the Houthis had increased the frequency of attacks on oil ports in government-held areas to extract concessions in U.N.-led talks for an extended truce between the internationally-recognized government and the Houthis. That month, the U.S. Navy foiled an attempt to ship explosive materials from Iran to Yemen. Throughout 2022, the Houthis carried out multiple sophisticated attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE, including a strike on Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil installation and on Abu Dhabi.
Most of Iran’s proxies are violent groups whose ideology aligns with Iran’s, creating a self-sustaining momentum behind Soleimani’s project. Their relationship with Iran was not merely borne out of motives to acquire funding and arms; they are willing to do Iran’s bidding out of allegiance to Iran’s supreme leader, who, according to the Iranian doctrine of velayat-e faqih, is the preeminent religious authority. Certain elements within these groups do act on materialistic incentives and political necessities, but Iran’s operational control over its proxies is retained through religion and ideology.
Eye on Iran is a news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a section 501(c)(3) organization. Eye on Iran is available to subscribers on a daily basis or weekly basis.
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