Iran is Tightening Its Grip from Iraq to Lebanon, and Syria to Yemen in an All-out Sectarian War Between Sunnis and Shi'ites
March 23, 2015
Reuters - With Iran moving
closer to a deal with world powers to constrain its nuclear program in
return for an end to sanctions, Arab analysts and leaders are focused
more on how
Tehran is working unconstrained to tighten its grip on Arab
states, from Iraq to Lebanon, and Syria to Yemen.
The man behind what some see as an attempt to create a new Persian and
Shi'ite "empire" on Arab land is Major General Qassem Soleimani,
commander of the al-Quds brigade of the elite Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC).
Since he emerged from the
shadows last autumn, Soleimani seems to be omnipresent on the
battlefields of the Middle East.
Photos of
Soleimani, 60, almost an invisible man until the Sunni jihadis of
Islamic State (IS) overran cities in northern and central Iraq last
year, are now everywhere.
He is seen directing
operations in the battle to recapture from IS the Sunni city of Tikrit,
birthplace of Saddam Hussein. He is snapped in Syria offering
condolences on the killing of a relative of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian
president he has helped cling to power during four years of war.
In Beirut he is photographed praying at the grave of Jihad
Mughniyeh, son of the late commander of the IRGC-backed Hezbollah
paramilitary group. Jihad was killed in Syria in January.
Meanwhile, the heterodox Shi'ite Houthi movement in Yemen has
seized power in the capital, Sanaa, to Iranian acclaim and the alarm of
Sunni Arab states such as neighboring Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional
rival.
