Reasonable people will debate the likeliest ramifications of President Donald Trump’s decision to order the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the Revolutionary Guard commander whose power in Iran was second only to that of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — and whose power in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq was arguably second to none.
By far the best account of Soleimani’s life was written by Dexter Filkins for The New Yorker in 2013. It’s worth reprising some of the details.
In 1998, Soleimani assumed command of the Quds Force — the Guard’s extraterritorial terrorist wing — whose prior exploits included a role in the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.