“Esmail Qaani is, unfortunately, alive,” someone joked on social media Wednesday.
I actually don’t know if it was a joke. I thought it was funny. In a deadpan kind of way.
Qaani — Iran’s top general and Qassem Soleimani’s successor as head of the Quds Force — was missing for quite a while. The Quds would tell you he was never missing. Earlier this week, one of Qaani’s deputies said he was “in good health” and carrying out his “activities” in Lebanon. But according to a pair of senior Iranian security officials who spoke to Reuters, Qaani disappeared from the radar following the massive Israeli strike which killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s heir, Hashem Safieddine, on or around October 4.
Qaani was last seen in public on September 29, when he was photographed chatting with Safieddine’s brother Abdullah at Hezbollah’s Tehran offices.
It’d be too much to say Qaani was “presumed dead,” but the Guards’ protestations notwithstanding, he was missing. Or at least as far as Iranian media was concerned. At least one outlet politely requested proof of life from the regime late last week.
Maybe the Quds were just playing along with rumors of Qaani’s demise — i.e., “Let everyone think he’s dead. It’ll be easier to get him home safe that way.” But if you’re trying to fool Mossad, you’re going to need to do better than that. And besides, Israeli media, citing unnamed government officials, said that if the IDF did kill Qaani, they didn’t mean to. (Or, put differently, if the IDF wanted to kill Qaani, they would’ve.)
On Wednesday, in an effort to put the rumors to bed, the Guards’ Ebrahim Jabbari said Khamenei will present Qaani with a medal “in the coming days.” He’s “in perfect health,” Jabbari insisted.
Tasnim blamed Israel for perpetuating rumors about Qaani’s fate. That’s not true. Yes, Israeli media reported on Qaani’s apparent disappearance, but so did a lot of other media outlets including, as noted above, at least two Iranian news portals.
If you’re interested, the medal Qaani’s set receive is the Fath, an award that dates to 1989, following the Iran-Iraq war. Soleimani received the honor in 1990. Khamenei bestowed the medal on Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of Iran’s aerospace unit, last week following the IRGC’s ineffectual missile attack on Israel.
There was gallows humor aplenty. “Didn’t know they did posthumous medals in Iran too,” someone quipped. That netizen plainly didn’t do the research. The first Fath recipient was 13-year-old Mohammad Hossein Fahmideh, who famously blew himself up in 1980 to impede an Iraqi tank column. “On his grave in Dahiya?” someone else wondered, about the placement of Qaani’s hardware.
Suffice to say Iran watchers are keen to see Qaani, not just hear about him. If he isn’t physically present for his medal ceremony, the regime will have some additional explaining to do.
All of that said, it’s important to note that in addition to commanding Iran’s extraterritorial military activities, Qaani’s the country’s de facto intelligence chief. He’s a general, yes, but he’s also a spy. His predecessor was the spy. Military-intelligence operatives aren’t the type of people who are supposed to be seen. In fact, it’s imperative you know how to not be seen, lest your spy rivals should kill you.
Anyway, Qaani’s now presumed alive. “Unfortunately.”
It seems like Israel will go after the Houthis next (thus eliminating all of Iran’s significant tentacles) before turning towards IRGC and Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The myth that the US can use its USDs/economic might and military power to keep peace on a global scale has been shattered, yet again. Switzerland’s approach continues to look like the way to go.
I think the Houthis will stop eventually. This isn’t their fight, and they know that. Plus, if they’re smart, they need to focus on the long-term. They’ve been in de facto power in Yemen for ~eight years. If they hang on — and tone it down — they have an outside shot at limited international recognition. Not to suggest they’re going to be welcomed with open arms as a full-fledged member of the global community, but eventually, and assuming they don’t commit a bunch of atrocities on the populace, the facts on the ground will pretty much demand that they be “accepted” (with scare quotes) as the government. That humanitarian crisis can’t go on forever. They need help to manage it, and if they’d just cease and desist from acting in ways that perpetuate the (distasteful) “crazy goat herder” memes, they might just get some. Help, I mean.
Seems pretty hopeless. Don’t forget that not long ago Yemen was divided. I think I still have a Democratic Republic of Yemen lapel pin I wore when flying on commercial flights.
I’m not all that sure they give a shit about international recognition in light of the attrocities they suffered from relentless Saudi airstrikes over the.past ten years. Long before Gaza. Sad to say, it seems that people in that region care more about getting revenge in the spirit of an eye for an eye.
Big US cannot be tiny Switzerland. In this changed world, arguably Switzerland cannot be Switzerland without NATO/US.
Careful, that almost sounds like an “America First” advocacy position.
Is he getting the medal for surviving the airstrike? Or for not being present at the airstrike? Or just for getting back to Iran in one piece?
Now I’m reading that Qaani is alive and under interrogation for the security breaches that led to Nasrallah’s death. I also read he had a heart attack during said interrogations.
Yeah, I’m typically cautious on Middle East Eye reporting. That’s not to disparage it, it’s just to say that I’m not going to blast out a new article to my folks based solely on a Middle East Eye “sources” report. Maybe it’s accurate, maybe it’s not — and God knows I’ll be more than willing to write it up if it is accurate — but I need a little more than MEE before I float it.
I’ve never read that site. A bit different perspective from most.
No doubt the Mossad has been monitoring all the staff there, hoping to find compromising personal details they’d rather not have revealed. Without any facts to back this up, I’d wager that’s how they often gain the “cooperation” of many targets. “Do you want everyone to learn that you have a couple of boyfriends?”
An unusual sort of medal . . .
Hey H, any updates on this? I keep hearing about this medal, but Qaani is nowhere to be found.
I don’t know where tf he is. And it makes me chuckle. This is just so stereotypical for these types of regimes. Something’s plainly going on here — i.e., he’s dead or he’s injured or he’s a traitor or they’ve just plain old lost him — and they don’t want to tell anybody about it because they’re embarrassed. It’s so juvenile but, again, also very typical of these sorts of governments
He has been spotted! I would agree that something is going on. Probably was interrogated and now they are trying to save face.
Did you see the video where that cheesy military music is playing in the background? It’s such a tinpot regime. And it’s hilarious. Also: Something happened to him. We’ll never know what, but something.
I have not seen that but will look it up. Something for sure happened to him. His face looked like a prison inmate after a bad shower incident.
Seems like the IDF stumbled upon Yahya Sinwar this morning. I wonder what is next for the “Axis of Resistance”?