Trump's Serious Miscalculation a Defining Moment

Reprinted from Left Horizons UK

By John Pickard

In ordering the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite al-Quds force, Donald Trump has made the most serious foreign policy miscalculation of this three years in office. The fall-out from this attack, the most significant event in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, will be felt militarily, diplomatically and, not least economically, far beyond the immediate region.

Soleimani was the most important military leader in Iran and the second-most important figure in Iran after the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini. Given his prominence in the Syrian war and in Iraq, his assassination has as much significance as it would have been if the US had killed the Iranian Prime Minister himself.

The United States is not formally at war with either Iran or Iraq, but by assassinating Soleimani with missiles from a Reaper drone at Baghdad airport, Trump has signalled that the USA is not bound by any ‘rules’. Appeals by European politicians for ‘restraint’ have no relevance or weight whatsoever. The United Nations and others might bleat as much as they like about ‘legality’ and ‘morality’ but Trump’s action has demonstrated perfectly that where big power geo-politics is concerned, legality and morality have no meaning. While railing against Iranian ‘terrorism’, Trump has shown concretely the power and reach of US state-terrorism.

Tory ministers have responded to the crisis as if it were an unfortunate natural disaster and they, too, have appealed for restraint. What are worse, are the mealy-mouthed statements by Labour’s Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry – both leadership contenders – whose comments are virtually indistinguishable from the Tories. “All sides need to de-escalate tensions and prevent further conflict”, Starmer tweeted, as if “all sides” were assassinating each others leading political figures.

Iranian retaliation will come at some point

Jeremy Corbyn has at least called this an “assassination” and has condemned it as an unwarranted escalation, accusing Donald Trump of being "belligerent". Corbyn is right: whatever one thinks of the regime in Tehran – and socialists do not support any authoritarian regime, much a less a theocratic one like that in Tehran – he is right to condemn this act of state-sponsored terrorism.

The US having shown the world that there are no ‘rules’, Iran will respond in kind. Retaliation, when it comes – and it will – could be against any US military personnel or civilian target anywhere in the world. Any oil tankers plying the Straits of Hormuz, only a dozen or so miles from the Iranian coast, could be a target. Even the US embassy in Baghdad will not be immune from attack.

Serious economic consequences feared

It was not surprising that within hours of the attack, the price of crude oil on world markets rose by 4 per cent, a huge rise in a matter of hours. Bigger increases will follow and they will have a damaging effect on world trade and the world economy. The leaders of European capitalism have called for restraint only because they fear the possibility of serious economic consequences. Much good that appeals will do, now that the stable door is smashed wide open and the horse has bolted.

Soleimani was the head of the al-Quds force that was a prominent player in the civil war in Syria. Indeed, it could be argued, notwithstanding the role played by Kurdish forces against ISIS, that al-Quds played a decisive part, not only in giving backbone to Syrian forces, but in drawing into the fray the Hezbollah militia from Lebanon, who are Shia co-religionists of Iran.

In the last eight years Iran has been able to extend its political and military reach into Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. Apart from sending troops and equipment to support the Assad regime, Iran has  supplied arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon and to the Houthi militia now controlling of most of Yemen (and subject to attacks from Saudi Arabia).

Where Israel has carried out air strikes in Syria – and there have been many in the last few years – they have been aimed at Iranian and Hezbollah units. Israel fought a bloody conflict with the Lebanese Hezbollah in 2006 and there have been other conflicts since. Israel is unwilling to allow Hezbollah to become even better armed, thanks to Iran, than they already are. After the bombing of Soleimani’s car in Baghdad, Israel put its armed forces on high alert, expecting retaliatory strikes from Hezbollah or al-Quds in Syria.

Sectarianism embedded into Iraqi government

The influence of Soleimani and al-Quds has extended to Iraq and that was most likely the reason for the general’s visit to Baghdad in the first place. In Iraq, a majority Shia country, Iran has sponsored the formation of Shia militias. After the US-UK invasion in 2003, a new government was imposed that reflected the sectarian and ethnic divisions of that country. There may be no written rules to say so, but an informal arrangement sponsored by the invading powers allowed for the President to be always a Kurd, the Prime Minister a Shia Arab and the Speaker of the parliament a Sunni Arab.

Sectarianism thus became entrenched in the new Iraq. But this was not only true at the top; it was reflected right throughout Iraqi government and civil society. This sectarian arrangement was a deliberate policy of ‘divide-and-rule’ imposed by western powers, all the better, it was hoped, to keep western hands on the considerable Iraqi oil reserves.

It was also a recipe for rampant corruption. In an interview in The Guardian, in February 2016, we saw just how deeply the corruption ran. The Guardian correspondent was interviewing an Iraqi government ‘anti-corruption’ leader: “There is no solution,” he said, waving his hands in exasperation. “Everybody is corrupt, from the top of society to the bottom. Everyone. Including me.”

The legacy of the Blair/Bush invasion of Iraq, therefore, is not a country where we see the flowering of democracy and economic development. The trillions of dollars spent and the tens of thousands of lives blown away have created a stinking cess-pit of corruption, sectarianism and economic stagnation. 

When faced with of the advancing forces of the ISIS ‘caliphate’ in 2014, the Iraqi army, equipped and financed with billions of US dollars, simply collapsed and melted away. It was the organisation of Shia militias that saved the day in the south and it was the Kurdish militias that threw back ISIS in the north. Bolstered by Iranian arms and money, the Shia militias have now become an integral part of the Iraqi armed forces and their political representatives form part of Iraq’s coalition government.

Revocation of international agreement with Iran

Since his election in 2016, and especially since the defeat of ISIS, Trump’s main policy drive in the Middle East has been to rein in Iranian influence in Syria, Yemen and not least in Iraq, where the USA still has thousands of troops stationed and US oil companies still pump Iraqi oil.

Trump has aggressively set about isolating Iran. The USA revoked the 2015 agreement that had been negotiated between Iran, Russia, USA and European states to limit Iranian nuclear development, in return for trade agreements. Along with the cancellation of this agreement, Trump imposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran and has imposed them internationally. Any company, bank or organisation breaking the US-led embargo is threatened itself with sanctions and by this means the USA has throttled Iran economically.

The IMF has estimated that the Iranian economy has declined by around 10 per cent as a result of sanctions and Iranian oil exports have dwindled to nearly zero. The European states that were signatories to the 2015 agreement – France, the UK and Germany – have signalled their opposition to US sanctions and have tried to cobble together a Euro/Sterling-based trading mechanism to get around US sanctions. But their attempts have failed and it is clear that the European states do not have the necessary economic clout to avoid sanctions.

Biggest upheavals since the 1979 revolution

In Iran, the sanctions have had a huge effect on the economy and on living standards and as a result, opposition to the theocratic regime of the mullahs – in power since the 1979 revolution – has grown. Last November saw the biggest opposition movements to the regime in forty years, as workers, youth and women took part in strikes and demonstrations. Towns and cities up and down Iran were rocked by spontaneous outbursts of protest against a government decision to increase fuel prices. Some of the demonstrations were bigger and more violent than any movements since 1979. The overwhelming majority of participants would have been born since that revolution and will have little fear of the mullahs.

“Many of the protesters were under 18,” the Financial Times correspondent wrote. “In Sabashahr, a suburb south-west of Tehran, a teenage boy went up a steel pole ‘like a cat’ and brought down two banners of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, and threw them onto a fire…” (December 7). Across the country, “they set hundreds of banks, petrol stations, chain stores and seminaries alight.”

The Middle East is in turmoil

These demonstrations last year in Iran are but one facet of a Middle East region already in turmoil. From Algeria in the west to Iran in the east there are mass movements of unprecedented proportions. In Algeria for months on end there were demonstrations against the corruption of the old regime and the imposition of election candidates who were all in one way or another associated with the corrupt former president. The new president-elect, 74-year old Abdelmadjid Tebboune – elected in December, despite a massive boycott of the poll – is seen as too close to the powerful military leadership who are the real power in Algeria. Tebboune will find that he is having to ride a tiger of anger and opposition to austerity and even as he was being sworn in there were new groups of demonstrators hitting the streets and calling him an "illegitimate" leader.

In next door Libya, there has been no effective national government since the US-UK-French overthrow of Gadaffi in 2011. A proxy war is gathering momentum, between a government based in the old capital of Tripoli, backed by Turkey and European states and another based in Bengazi, to the east, backed by Egypt, China and Russia. The Bengazi government has been stiffened by hundreds of Russian ‘mercenaries’ as it has advanced and now threatens to take Tripoli. On the other side, the Turkish government has now agreed in principle to send troops to support the Tripoli government. Libya is threatening, therefore, to become another intractable and bloody war like that in Syria, with all the inevitable consequences that would flow from it, including massive refugee movements to nearby Arab states and to European states across the Mediterranean.

Further west, Lebanon has seen its biggest mass demonstrations in decades. Lebanon is a patchwork of religious and ethnic affiliations: Shia and Sunni Muslim, Maronite Christians and Druze, and each has its own militia and political fiefdoms to feed off a rotten and corrupt political system.

As it is in Iraq, the delicate balance between ethnic and religious groups is managed by each group taking a proportion of the economic and political spoils. The Lebanese President is always a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni and the parliamentary Speaker a Shia.

Jobs, financial patronage and resources are divided accordingly to the benefit of religious and political elites, but at a cost to the majority of workers and youth. As it is in Iraq, Lebanon suffers from severe infrastructural problems as utilities are starved of investment. Everyday life, whether in Beirut or Baghdad, is characterised by a shortage of jobs and  housing and by chronic breakdowns in the water, electricity and waste management systems.

Last November, thousands of overwhelmingly young people demonstrated, week after week, in the capital, Beirut, calling for an end to the system of religious ‘mafias’ that control the funds of the state and the economy. Little of Lebanon’s wealth trickles down to ordinary workers and youth. Lebanon has 35 per cent youth unemployment.

Networks of patronage and corruption

While demonstrations rocked Lebanon, even more violent upheavals were taking place in Iraq. Demonstrations and protest strikes went on continuously in Baghdad and Iraq’s second city, Basra, for several weeks on end.

“…for many involved in the protests, merely bringing down the governments of the day is not enough. They want to topple the system that put them there.” (Financial Times, November 5). “I hope to get rid of all the parties that participated in the political process from 2003 to today,” one 21-year old in Baghdad declared.

These demonstrations in Iraq, like those in Lebanon, were met by a brutal government crack-down, assisted by the semi-official Shia militias. In a display of extreme ferocity, over 400 Iraqis were killed during several weeks of demonstrations. As the Iraqi government has become less popular, it naturally followed that one of its main sponsors, Iran, came to share the unpopularity. Resentment at the growing influence of the Iranian government, not least through its support for the powerful Shia militias, has grown.

It was because of this association that during protests in the holy city of Kerbala in November there was even an attempt by protesters to storm the Iranian consulate. When Soleimani was killed, there were even some (albeit brief) celebrations in parts of Iraq.

Top Iraqi militia commander killed with Soleimani

The US action will probably have the directly opposite affect to that expected by Trump in Iraq. As well as Soleimani and several others, the air strike killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a top commander in Iraq’s Shia militia, and a government minister. There have now been calls by Iraqi politicians for all US troops to be removed from Iraq, so the closure of local US bases may be an unforeseen consequence of the attack. The assassination of Soleimani, therefore, will be seen by future  historians as one of a series of convulsions that punctuated a protracted decline in American prestige, influence and power in the Middle East.

Iran in its own back yard is a formidable power

Trump’s sanctions policy against Tehran might have been aimed at promoting regime change, but the effect of the assassination of Soleimani will be the opposite. It will strengthen the regime, at least in the short term. The al-Quds forces were special units of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which forms the backbone of the state and is so powerful that it has its own factories and armaments manufacturing.

In the demonstrations against the government in Iran last year, the Revolutionary Guard was seen as the brutal backbone of a corrupt government. But, now thanks to Trump, for the foreseeable future the opposition is likely to be cowed and the mullah’s regime empowered. The Revolutionary Guards will be ‘heroes’ once again, as the forces of the Iranian nation are geared up for war.

Giving a flavour of the swing of opinion in Tehran, The Financial Times correspondent quoted an Iranian computer engineer’s reaction to the killing of Soleimani. “I feel extremely saddened and lost,” he said. “Regardless of my [pro-reform] political inclinations, it feels like we have lost a legendary hero similar to Persian myth, as if Iran’s saviour and the symbol of our security has been killed.” Even Iranians opposed to the regime, the correspondent added, “were shocked by the US action.” (Financial Times, January 4).

United States has unparalleled military power

The total military might of the United States is far greater than that of Iran – at least twenty times as big. But US military power is distributed all around the globe and in its own back-yard, Iran would be a formidable adversary if it came to a shooting war. A nation of sixty million, mobilised to fight a war against the ‘Great Satan’ would be more than a match for regional forces up against it.

Richard Haass, writing in the Financial Times, issued a solemn warning about the consequences of the assassination. “If it comes to war,” he wrote (Financial Times, January 4), “then we need to understand this will not be a traditional conflict fought by uniformed soldiers on clearly defined battlefields. The arena will be the entire region and possibly the world. It is unlikely to have either a clear start or a clear end…

“Iran has a wide range of targets to choose among. There are US troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and elsewhere, and American diplomats and businesses scattered throughout the Middle East. US ally Saudi Arabia was recently targeted by Iran via a strike on its oil facilities and could well be again. So, too, could Israel.” (January 4)

“Iran will level countries to the ground…”

According to Iran expert Saeed Laylaz, (quoted in The Financial Times, June 28, 2019). “Any war [by the US] against Iran would have massive consequences…Iran will level to the ground countries around the Persian Gulf”, meaning the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, close allies of the US. One fifth of the world’s oil goes through the Straits of Hormuz, and it would not be too difficult for Iran to make that waterway unnavigable. Not being able to export its own oil and facing crippling economic sanctions, what does Iran have to lose? 

Eighteen months before his death, Soleimani issued what might be a prophetic warning to the USA. “Mr Trump the gambler. I’m telling you, know that we are close to you in that place you don’t think we are…you will start the war, but we will end it.” (Guardian, January 4)

If there is a major conflict, therefore, it could have enormous repercussions on the global economy. It would have a big impact politically, not least in the United States itself, where Trump is facing an impeachment trial and a difficult re-election campaign in the same year. The nervousness about Trump’s rash action has been echoed in the comments of Democratic Party politicians. With a large-scale military conflict, Trump may bask in a patriotic glow, but that would only be for a while. Once it became clear that his short-sightedness is costing American lives and an incalculable loss of influence and prestige, then the issue will blow up in  his face. In terms of world developments in both politics and economics all bets are off.

Labour leaders should not tamely echo the Tories

Here in the UK, the Labour leadership must not simply echo the hypocrisy of the Tory leadership and appeal for ‘restraint’. Normally, when Trump says “jump”, we expect Boris Johnson to ask, “how high?”, but that cannot be Labour’s policy. There is no ‘equivalence’ between Iran and the USA in this assassination. Labour must unequivocally condemn extra-judicial assassination by the USA. Labour must demand that UK military forces in the region play no part in support of American adventures and must demand the withdrawal of all UK military forces currently based in Iraq.

Socialists are opposed to the anti-democratic and theocratic state in Tehran, a reactionary government that has nothing in common with the traditions and outlook of the workers’ movement. We have no illusions about General Soleimani – he was personally instrumental in using Shia proxy militias in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran to brutally suppress the recent popular demonstrations that threatened his political influence in all three states.

Neither to we have any illusions in the monstrous theocracy that rules in Tehran. But all the combined iniquities and crimes of the Iranian government pale alongside those of the USA, a global super-power with dozens of military bases, tens of thousands of military personnel, and powerful naval fleets permanently stationed in the Middle East alone. The US is the main exporter of state-sponsored terror to the Middle East and the rest of the world and the assassination of Soleimani is but one example of that.

Taken as a whole, the Middle East is a powder-keg and Donald Trump has now thrown a lighted match to it. There will be a conflagration. It only remains to be seen how extensive it becomes.

Today’s Guardian cites the words of an “unnamed British ex-intelligence official” whose summary is well worth quoting here: “Qassem Soleimani was a messianic Shia supremacist – the most important to the supreme leader. His death will be avenged, that is for certain. We don’t know what’s being unleashed here. This is a defining moment in the Middle East.”

January 4, 2020