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{
  "authors": [
    "Karim Sadjadpour"
  ],
  "type": "commentary",
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  "centers": [
    "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
    "Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center",
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Source: Getty

Commentary

Why the U.S. Assassination of Soleimani Is a Windfall for Iran’s Mullahs

Inside the Islamic Republic, the impact of Soleimani’s death will take years to appreciate. But its immediate effect was to throw the regime a lifeline.

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By Karim Sadjadpour
Published on Jan 9, 2020
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Middle East

The Middle East Program in Washington combines in-depth regional knowledge with incisive comparative analysis to provide deeply informed recommendations. With expertise in the Gulf, North Africa, Iran, and Israel/Palestine, we examine crosscutting themes of political, economic, and social change in both English and Arabic.

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Source: TIME

Major General Qasem Soleimani was born in 1957 to a self-described “peasant” family in Kerman, the sunbaked province in southeastern Iran famed for its pistachios, rose water and hospitable inhabitants. Family debts forced him to leave school and earn a living as a construction worker at age 13. By his late teens, Soleimani was swept up in the country’s growing political fervor that culminated in one of the greatest geopolitical earthquakes of the past half-century: the 1979 revolution that replaced a U.S.-allied monarchy, led by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, with a viscerally anti-American theocracy, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...

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This article was originally published in TIME.

About the Author

Karim Sadjadpour

Senior Fellow, Middle East Program

Karim Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on Iran and U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East.

    Recent Work

  • Q&A
    What’s Keeping the Iranian Regime in Power—for Now

      Aaron David Miller, Karim Sadjadpour, Robin Wright

  • Q&A
    How Washington and Tehran Are Assessing Their Next Steps

      Aaron David Miller, David Petraeus, Karim Sadjadpour

Karim Sadjadpour
Senior Fellow, Middle East Program
Karim Sadjadpour
Political ReformSecurityForeign PolicyNorth AmericaUnited StatesMiddle EastIran

Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

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