Five Years Since the U.S. Assassinated the Middle East’s Most Influential General: Has Soleimani’s Vision Been Shattered?

<p >January 3, 2025 marks five years since the United States launched a drone strike to <a href=" target="_blank">assassinate</a> Iran’s most senior and decorated military official, Major General Qasem Soleimani, destroying his sizeable convoy near Baghdad International Airport. The U.S. Department of Defence reported at the time that the attack was carried out “at the directly of the [U.S.] President,” with the U.S. Congress having been notified before the strike. The attack launched using MQ-9 Reaper drones, was overseen by the CIA, and was claimed by Israeli sources to have received a degree of support from Israeli intelligence. Alongside the Iranian general, the attack killed four leaders of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, and led the Iraqi parliament to resolve to evict American forces from the country – a resolution which officials in Washington made clear they would not act on. Widespread protests in towns and cities across Iran, including calls for revenge, were mirrored on smaller scales across Iraq and Pakistan. The <a href=" >fallout from the strike </a>would continue to grow in the coming weeks, culminating in Iranian missile attacks on U.S. military facilities in Iraq which were confirmed to have caused<a href=" > over 100 American casualties</a>.</p><p ><img src=" title="Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah and General Qasem Soleimani"></p><p >In retrospect the death of Qasem Soleimani may come to be seen as a turning point in the regional balance of power, as while the general had personally overseen the formation and strengthening of a vast network of Iranian-aligned forces across the Middle East, five years later his network is widely assessed to be unravelling. Soleimani’s envisioned ‘Axis of Resistance’ had built up the <a href=" target="_blank">Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah</a> into by far the world’s most powerful non-state fighting force, had begun the buildup of the Yemeni <a href=" target="_blank">Ansurullah Coalition’s arsenals</a>, had strengthened a network of Shiite militias in Iraq, and had worked closely alongside the Arab Nationalist government of Syria despite ideological differences. This network had thus unified all major forces outside the Western sphere of influence in the region, while also calling on Shiite paramilitary groups from Afghanistan to play limited combat roles. Soleimani’s central role as the architect of this axis was widely attested to, and he had personally consistently commanded on the frontlines when its power was challenged, whether helping to organise Hezbollah’s war effort against Israel in 2006 from a bunker in Southern Lebanon, or combating Turkish-backed Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria throughout the 2010s.</p><p ><img src=" title="Qasen Soleimani with Iraqi Paramilitaries During Campaign Against Turkish Backed Islamist State Forces"></p><p >Soleimani was widely assessed to be one of the two most powerful men in Iran, alongside Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and by far its most influential foreign policy strategist. Sources have widely reported that after fighting a four year campaign against Western, Turkish and Israeli backed jihadist groups in Syria and Iran from 2011-2015, the Iranian general played a key role in persuading the Russian leadership, and President Vladimir Putin in particular, to launch a military intervention to support Syria, Iran and Hezbollah’s counterinsurgency efforts. After his visit to Moscow, Russia proceeded to do so in August 2015. The regional events of 2024 have highlighted the limitations which the self proclaimed Axis of Resistance has faced after Soleimani’s death. While Hezbollah, Ansurullah, and Iran have gained notable military victories, Soleimani’s close confidant Hezbollah General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah was <a href=" target="_blank">killed in an Israeli strike</a> in September, with assassinations of other key Hezbollah and Iranian military leaders having been <a href=" target="_blank">carried out</a> throughout the year. </p><p ><img src=" title="Mourners of Qasem Soleimani in Azadi Square, Tehran"></p><p >Victories for Western Bloc, Turkish and Israeli interests have continued to mount, culminating in the successful <a href=" target="_blank">overthrow of the Syrian government</a> as Turkish backed jihadist groups marched into Damascus on December 8. Syria’s fall was an outcome which Soleimani had dedicated himself to throughout the 2010s, and with its territory divided between Turkish, Israeli and American spheres of influence, the Axis of Resistance’s land bridges to Israel and the Hezbollah have been cut. The key role played by Soleimani in masterminding the pushback against Western Bloc, Turkish and Israeli advances in the 2010s has fuelled considerable speculation that had he lived, the ‘Axis of Resistance’ could have operated far more effectively as it did in the previous decade, potentially leaving the regional balance of power looking entirely different. Thus although the general’s assassination was highly controversial, and widely assessed by legal experts to be a serious violation of international law and crime of aggression, it retrospect it may have been planned in recognition of Soleimani’s importance, and seen to be precisely what the Western Bloc and its regional partners needed to turn the tide in their favour.</p>