Gen. Soleimani: A new brand of Iranian hero for nationalist times

Not a Shiite religious figure and not a martyr, Qassem Soleimani, the living commander of Iran's elite Qods Force, has been elevated to hero status.

|
Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters
Demonstrators displayed a photo of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani at a rally in Baghdad in March 2015. He has led Iranian forces opposing Islamic State insurgents in Iraq.

For years the commander of Iran’s elite Qods Force worked from the shadows, conducting the nation’s battles from Afghanistan to Lebanon.

But today Qassem Soleimani is Iran’s celebrity general, a man elevated to hero status by a social media machine that has at least 10 Instagram accounts and spreads photographs and selfies of him at the front lines in Syria and Iraq.

The Islamic Republic long ago turned hero worship into an art form, with its devotion to Shiite religious figures and war martyrs. But the growing personality cult that halos Maj. Gen. Soleimani is different: The gray-haired servant of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is very much alive, and his ascent to stardom coincides with a growing nationalist trend in Iran.

“Propaganda in Iran is changing, and every nation needs a live hero,” says a conservative analyst in Qom, who asked not to be named.

“The dead heroes now are not useful; we need a live hero now. Iranian people like great commanders, military heroes in history,” he says, ticking off a string of names. “I think Qassem Soleimani is the right person for our new propaganda policy – the right person at the right time.”

Soleimani’s face surged into public view after the self-described Islamic State (IS) swept from Syria into Iraq in June 2014. Frontline photographs of the general mingling with Iranian fighters went viral.

Iranians cite many reasons for his rise, from “saving” Baghdad from IS jihadists and reactivating Shiite militias in Iraq to preserving the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during nearly six years of war.

Never mind that some analysts suggest that earlier failures to prevent internal upheaval in Iraq and Syria – for years those countries were part of Soleimani’s responsibility – are the reason for Iran’s deep involvement today.

For his part, Soleimani attributes the “collapse of American power in the region” to Iran’s “spiritual influence” in bolstering resistance against the United States, Israel, and their allies.

“It is very extraordinary. Who else can come close?” says a veteran observer in Tehran, Iran, who asked not to be named. “I don’t know how intentional this is; you see people in all walks of life respect him. It shows we can have a very popular hero who is not a cleric.”

“There is no stain on his image,” says the observer.

Indeed, Soleimani has become a source of pride and a symbol for Iranians of all stripes of their nation’s power abroad. At a pro-regime rally, even young Westernized women in makeup pledge to be “soldiers” of Soleimani. At a bodybuilding championship held in his honor, bare-chested men flaunted their muscles beside a huge portrait of him.

Among the Islamic Revolution’s true believers, Soleimani’s exploits are sung by religious storytellers and posted online. His writings about the Iran-Iraq War are steeped in religious language.

In a video from the Syrian front line broadcast on state TV last month, he addressed fighters, saying, of an Iranian volunteer who was killed, “God loves the person who makes holy war his path.”

When erroneous reports of Soleimani’s death recently emerged (Iran has lost dozens of senior IRGC commanders in Syria and Iraq and hundreds of “advisers”), he laughed and said, “This [martyrdom] is something that I have climbed mountains and crossed plains to find.”

Some say the hero worship has gone too far; months ago the IRGC ordered Iranian media not to publish frontline selfies. When a young director wanted to make a film inspired by his hero, the general said he was against it and was embarrassed.

Yet Soleimani appears to have relented for Ebrahim Hatamikia, a renowned director of war films.

“Bodyguard” is now premièring at a festival in Tehran. “I made this film for the love of Haj Qassem Soleimani,” the director told an Iranian website, adding that he is “the earth beneath Soleimani’s feet.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Gen. Soleimani: A new brand of Iranian hero for nationalist times
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2016/0215/Gen.-Soleimani-A-new-brand-of-Iranian-hero-for-nationalist-times
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe