Rare Interview with Qassem Soleimani

Al-Alam, Iran’s Arabic-language news outlet, released an interview that it conducted this week with Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force (IRGC-QF). In the interview, Soleimani revealed for the first time his participation in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, saying he was present in Lebanon from the first day of the conflict until it ended on August 14, 2006.

Aside from Soleimani’s revelation of his participation in Hezbollah’s military planning during the war – he says he was present in the group’s operations room in Beirut’s southern outskirts – the interview is pure propaganda and contains very little in the way of valuable facts or information. In fact, it is a part of Iran and its proxies’ ongoing historical revisionism to craft a larger narrative of a “Resistance History.”

It also attempted to create certain myths about the broader Resistance Axis, suggesting that Iran and its proxies had divine favor and support in their military activities.

In substance, Soleimani’s interview resembled a recent five-part conversation between Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s website, and an earlier interview Nasrallah gave to Al-Manar.

Creating a “Resistance History” Narrative

In Soleimani’s and Nasrallah’s retellings of history, the forces of “Resistance” – meaning post-1979 Iran and its proxies – have been confronting a decades-long American-led project to dominate the region. Each instance of conflict in the region – starting with the 1981-1989 Iran-Iraq War, Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Israel’s 1996 Operations Grapes of Wrath, and the Syrian Civil War – is not a localized conflagration with its own particular reasons and causes. Rather they are all local manifestations of this overarching American-led project to dominate the region and crush the Resistance Axis – as that is the only force willing or able to confront the United States – and the latter’s attempts to confront the United States and its allies.

This revisionism attempts to link Iran’s current regional interventions – namely in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen – to earlier clashes, presenting them not as new wars or expansions of Iran’s regional influence, but a single, ongoing fight against the same enemies, namely Israel, Saudi Arabia, and aligned Arab countries, all led by the United States.

Soleimani and Nasrallah’s retelling of the Second Lebanon War, then, places it on a continuum with the Syrian Civil War. As with that latter conflict, the 2006 War was merely a prior failed attempt by the United States and its proxy Israel – politically backed by Riyadh, Egypt, and other Arab countries – to destroy Iran’s Revolution and the Resistance Axis. In what is now familiar propaganda from Hezbollah, Soleimani claims Israel, on American orders, had pre-planned to carry out a surprise war against the group-- in essence Israel used the kidnapping two of its soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, as a pretext to go to war rather than engaging in a prisoner exchange as it had in the past.

Soleimani and Nasrallah then place the 2006 war within Iran’s narrative regarding the Syrian Civil War, which Tehran claims was not merely another manifestation of the Arab Spring, but rather an American-instigated attempt to destroy Syria – which, according to Hassan Nasrallah, is the central pillar holding up the Resistance Axis – by use of terrorist proxies like ISIS and Nusra Front. Soleimani thus claims the goals of the 2006 war were part of a larger American plot to destroy Hezbollah and demographically alter south Lebanon by exiling its Shiites, even alleging that Israel – assigned to carry out this task – had prepared large refugee camps inside its territory to absorb and then redistribute displaced Lebanese Shiites across the region.

Nasrallah’s recent interview with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s website told an identical tale, that Israel’s 2006 war was part of an American plot to attack the Resistance Axis in the region, foiled through “divine providence,” when Hezbollah kidnapped the two soldiers. Soleimani’s interview, much like Hezbollah’s own recent propaganda, also presents Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah as an active military planner and commander, rather than merely a spiritual and political leader.

Mythology Creation

Both Nasrallah and Soleimani also used their interviews to create certain myths regarding the 2006 war and the Resistance Axis more broadly. Both attributed near-divine foresight to Ali Khamenei, claiming the Iranian Supreme Leader predicted Hezbollah’s victory over Israel from the outset of the 2006 war.

Both also used the opportunity to further the myth that Hezbollah has been building up of its military invincibility in the face of Israel and the broader alleged American-led regional project. Nasrallah claims Khamenei told him the war would end with Hezbollah becoming an undefeatable regional power, “and this is what happened.” Soleimani similarly calls the 2006 war, “not only a victory but an [irreversible] inflection point,” in Hezbollah’s broader conflict with Israel.

Thus, Soleimani’s recent interview is yet another Iranian attempt at historical revisionism and mythmaking.

Link to PDF of Full Translated Text of Qassem Soleimani’s Interview Here