'He enjoys popularity in Iran as a nationalist symbol.'
While U.S. lawmakers have branded Qassem Soleimani a terrorist, the late Iranian general’s significance to the Iranian people was on full display on state TV and in the streets of Tehran. Many Iranians reacted with anger to the killing of Soleimani, the leader of the foreign wing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps , by a U.S. airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport Friday.
Arang Keshavarzian, a professor in New York University’s department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, put the reaction of Iranian media, government and people in context: “He has no religious authority or social standing,” he said. “He, however, has had a central position in the IRGC for over 20 years and is trusted by the Ali Khamenei and other leaders of the Islamic republic.”
Commuters in the subway in Tehran chanting death to America, death to Israel pic.twitter.com/BP7kJA6tWH “To many who lost loved ones in peaceful demonstrations two months, two years and 10 years ago he was a blunt instrument of oppression,” he said. “To a final group he was that rare IRGC commander not tainted with financial corruption. His official title was a commander of the Qods Brigade, a branch of the IRGC. In reality, he was in charge of regime’s policies in the Middle East.”
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