By Arash Azizi
Iran's covert military power abroad
Subject
Themes
Qassem Soleimani was born in 1956 in the tiny village of Qanat Molk in Iran's Kerman province, the son of a debt-ridden peasant farmer whose family had been devastated by the Shah's botched land reforms. Bright but poor, he worked construction as a teenager before securing a modest civil service job in 1975 and moving to the provincial capital. There he discovered karate and, more consequentially, the revolutionary clerical movement that would sweep the Shah from power in February 1979.
Qassem Soleimani was born in 1956 in the tiny village of Qanat Molk in Iran's Kerman province, the son of a debt-ridden peasant farmer whose family had been devastated by the Shah's botched land reforms. Bright but poor, he worked construction as a teenager before securing a modest civil service job…
Arash Azizi's biography of Qassem Soleimani occupies a distinctive position within the growing literature on Iran's foreign policy and the Islamic Republic's projection of power. Published in 2020, immediately after Soleimani's assassination, it draws on Persian-language sources, oral histories, and…
Iran's most consequential innovation in projecting power abroad was its development of a proxy warfare model that allowed a mid-sized, internationally isolated state to punch far above its weight. The template was established with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1982 and refined over four decades until it…
The Islamic Republic of Iran was founded on universalist promises that transcended sectarian boundaries. Its constitution spoke of defending "the Dispossessed against the Arrogant" everywhere. The IRGC's founding statement invoked Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad. The revolution claimed to stand…
The relationship between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran unfolds as a recurring pattern of missed opportunities, mutual miscalculation, and ideological rigidity on both sides. At multiple points across four decades, the two nations came close to rapprochement, only for domestic…
The Middle East's sectarian conflicts are often presented as ancient hatreds between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Soleimani's career reveals a more complex reality: sectarianism as a deliberately cultivated political instrument, deployed by state actors when it serves their interests and discarded when…
Soleimani's life traces a recurring pattern in revolutionary politics: the periphery producing the centre's most formidable champions. Born in a village so remote it lacked electricity, educated only to high school level, speaking no foreign languages, he rose to command a global military network…
In the small village of Qanat Molk, nestled in Iran's Kerman province, a boy named Qassem Soleimani was born in 1956 into a world of walnut trees and modest farming. His family, like nearly everyone in the village, shared the surname Soleimani, claiming descent from warriors who had fought under the…
The Iranian revolution reached Kerman bloodlessly on February 11, 1979. Pro-revolutionary crowds marched to the Sarasiab barracks carrying flowers and Kermani pastries; the commander came out to congratulate them on their victory. Even the city's Jews and Zoroastrians declared solidarity. Yet for…
In February 1982, young IRGC commanders gathered at a former American golf station near Ahvaz, now renamed "The Base for Those Awaiting Martyrdom," to plan Operation Manifest Victory. Among them was Soleimani, who had risen from simple soldier to battalion commander of the Blood of Allah Battalion…
July 20, 1988, was perhaps the worst day in Ayatollah Khomeini's life. He accepted the UN-mandated ceasefire ending the Iran-Iraq War, comparing the decision to "drinking a chalice full of poison." For eight years he had promised to overthrow Saddam, liberate Karbala, and march to Jerusalem. None of…
After the US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in March 2003, Soleimani moved swiftly to fill the vacuum. The Quds Force staffed Iranian diplomatic missions in Iraq with soldier-diplomats who answered not to the foreign ministry but directly to Soleimani. He founded the Committee for the…
When the Arab Spring erupted in 2011, Khamenei branded it an "Islamic Awakening," claiming the Arab masses were following Iran's 1979 example. Soleimani echoed his leader, telling 50,000 Basijis in Kerman: "Today, Egypt is Iran, whether you like it or not." The Quds Force contacted the Muslim…
By Arash Azizi
Subject
Themes
Qassem Soleimani was born in 1956 in the tiny village of Qanat Molk in Iran's Kerman province, the son of a debt-ridden peasant farmer whose family had been devastated by the Shah's botched land reforms. Bright but poor, he worked construction as a teenager before securing a modest civil service job in 1975 and moving to the provincial capital. There he discovered karate and, more consequentially, the revolutionary clerical movement that would sweep the Shah from power in February 1979.