The Myth of Iran’s Military Mastermind

He’s been called the “single most powerful operative in the Middle East today” and nicknamed “Supermani,” but is Qasem Suleimani, the suddenly omnipresent commander of Iran's expeditionary Quds Force, suddenly coming down to earth?

After Suleimani reportedly visited Damascus last weekend to discuss military strategy, the Iranian press agency IRNA quoted him saying, “in the coming days the world will be surprised by what we are preparing, in cooperation with Syrian military leaders.” On Wednesday, a Syrian security source told AFP, “around 7,000 Iranian and Iraqi fighters have arrived in Syria over the past few weeks.” Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the source said the incoming fighters were mostly Iraqi, “and their first priority is the defense of the capital… [t]he goal is to reach 10,000 men to support the Syrian army and pro-government militias, firstly in Damascus, and then to retake Jisr al-Shughur [a city in Idlib province recently fallen to an Islamist-driven rebel faction] because it is key to the Mediterranean coast and the Hama region.”

The propaganda is meant to capitalize on Suleimani’s heroic stature among Shia as the only man who can save a losing struggle, but the bravado, analysts say, betrays a more defensive reality. Namely, Iran’s master spy has been losing ground lately.

Since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011, when President Bashar al-Assad’s forces attacked opposition groups, Iran has served as the Assad government’s primary backer and last line of on-the-ground defense. In addition to extending billions of dollars of aid, Tehran has also dispatched the Quds Force to guide or even direct military efforts in Syria. Suleimani has personally overseen the creation of Assad’s National Defense Force, a Basiji-like super-militia designed to shore up the regime against an increasingly powerful, Sunni-led insurgency. He has imported militias loyal to Iran from Iraq and Lebanon, and fighters from as far away as Afghanistan, to keep a Baathist ally alive.

At the same time, Suleimani has acted as the actual general and architect of Iraq’s ground war against ISIS, using a similar approach, embedding Iranian “advisers” into the structures of the Iraqi Security Forces and Hashd al-Shaabi, the umbrella organization for a host of Shia militias. He has coordinated offensives against ISIS from a rumored command center well within Baghdad’s Green Zone, often with the help of American-led airpower.

And for a while, he was riding high: retaking towns and villages, such as Amerli and Jurf al-Sakher, from the terror group. Lately, however, with Assad losing ground to ISIS in Syria, and Baghdad suffering losses in Iraq, the limits of Suleimani’s counterinsurgency doctrine are beginning to show.

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“Leaving the exact numbers aside, this comes in the context of a major Iranian messaging campaign,” Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, told The Daily Beast.

“It’s not just Suleimani that had this attributed to him,” Badran said. “[Iranian President Hassan] Rouhani said that we will be with the regime until the very end, and this all followed [the leader of Lebanese Hezbollah] Hassan Nasrallah’s recent speech where he said that we’re going to mobilize all the Shia and help defend Syria. So clearly this is a concerted messaging campaign from the Iranians on this issue.”

The subtext of the Iranian message, according to Badran, “only underscores the problem. You’re advertising the fact that Assad doesn’t have manpower.”

Given the Assad’s regime’s losses, and the strengthened position of Islamist groups in Syria like ISIS and the Nusra Front, an al Qaeda affiliate, there are limits to the reassurance that Iran can provide, even to a key ally like Syria. “Beyond the messaging campaign, that actual objective is a lot more limited than the rhetoric would suggest,” Badran said. “The bottom line is these guys are there not to help the regime reverse losses so much as to help the regime retrench, contract, and consolidate in western Syria, stretching from Damascus all the way to the coastal mountains.”

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