Tags
Afghanistan, America, Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq, Qassem Suleimani, Qods Force, Quds Force, Revolutionary Guards, Ryan Crocker
Photo: Jihad Mughniyeh (Son of former Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh) behind Qassem Suleimani in a recent public event (funeral of Suleimani’s mother).
Follow @TheZakoA recent outstanding piece in The New Yorker by the respected Dexter Filkins, which I have just managed to read due to its length, has focused the attention again on Qassem Suleimani the Head of the Iranian Quds Force.
Suleimani is described as the most powerful operative in the Middle East. With his lead of the Quds Force, he is responsible for the “special operations” of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In other words, shaping, if not leading the Iranian foreign policy on the ground.
In our immediate regional vicinity, that means he is the architect of Hezbollah in Lebanon (and beyond), the maestro of the post-war Iraqi chaos with the US and more recently the implementer of the Iranian backup to Syria’s Assad regime in crushing the 2011 peaceful protests, then their involvement in the follow-on civil war.
What is fascinating in “The Shadow Commander” among other tips is its reveal of the American contacts with hardliner Qassem Suleimani on many occasions mainly on Afghanistan and Iraq: