U.S. killing of Iranian general could lead to 'snowballing' of events in the region: expert
Qassem Soleimani was a hero to many hardliners in Iran, says Bessma Momani
The U.S. killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani could lead to a "snowballing" of events, warns a professor of political science.
"This is really going to just, I think, unleash the very worst of many actors in the entire region," said Bessma Momani, a University of Waterloo professor, and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.
"I think we are looking at a potential snowballing of a number of events throughout the region that you just can't dial back," she told The Current's Laura Lynch.
"It's hard to know what's to come."
On early Friday morning, a U.S. airstrike killed Soleimani and others as they travelled from Baghdad's international airport. The Pentagon said U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military to take "decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad."
Momani said that Soleimani — who was head of Iran's elite Quds Force and the architect of its interventions across the Middle East — had "a lot of blood on his hands."
"[He] has been involved in much of, I think, the destruction that we see throughout the region," she said.
But she warned that "to many hardliners inside Iran and even outside the country … [Soleimani] is a hero, you know, a very important figure, almost at a spiritual level, that has been assassinated."
Kaveh Shahrooz, a senior fellow with the Macdonald Laurier Institute's Centre for Advancing Canada's Interests Abroad, said that if Iran decides to retaliate, it could use "proxy forces throughout the region" to "carry out some violent acts."
"It could attack Americans or foreigners, not necessarily even Americans, throughout the region or elsewhere in the world," he said.
But Shahrooz said that while he believed Iran "will probably retaliate," he stressed that the regime is "first and foremost ... interested in self-preservation."
"They've realized now that Trump and his administration mean business, and that ... the Iranians cannot cross certain lines, because they will meet a rather swift and vicious response."
Written by Padraig Moran. Produced by Karin Marley and Samira Mohyeddin.