U.S. vs. Iran: A guide to the story since Qassem Soleimani’s death

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The latest

• European troops could be “in danger” in the Middle East, Iran’s President warned Wednesday as Britain, France and Germany triggered a dispute-settling mechanism in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, whose limits on uranium enrichment are being abandoned by Tehran.
• A week earlier, Washington announced new sanctions designed to hobble Iran’s textile, mining and steel industries, part of a long-running dispute about the Iranian nuclear program and the U.S. assassination of a top Iranian commander, General Qassem Soleimani, on Jan. 3.
• President Donald Trump has defended the Soleimani killing by claiming he was planning an imminent attack on U.S. embassies. But this past Sunday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper contradicted him, saying he did not see any specific intelligence that showed such plans.
• In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blamed the U.S.-Iranian tensions for the deaths of dozens of Canadians in a missile strike on a Ukrainian airliner, and said if not for those tensions, they’d still be alive. “This is something that happens when you have conflict and war. Innocents bear the brunt of it," Mr. Trudeau said Monday, drawing a rebuke from the top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Who was Qassem Soleimani and why was he killed?

Tehran and Washington’s relationship has been frosty ever since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, but things have gotten more tense since 2018, when U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from a nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on the country. But the recent conflict between the countries is the result of one man’s death: Major-General Qassem Soleimani.

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Who was he? Gen. Soleimani was head of the Quds Force, the special-operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and arguably Iran’s second-most powerful person after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He expanded and deepened Iran’s influence across the Middle East, directing everything from the initial resistance to 2003′s U.S. invasion of Iraq to Iran’s military involvement in Syria. In Tehran and among Shia Muslims across the Middle East, he was seen as a hero of anti-American resistance, but many others in the region and the West saw him as a villain whose actions in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon led to tens of thousands of deaths.

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Who killed him, and why? Acting on Mr. Trump’s orders, the U.S. military killed Gen. Soleimani in an airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport on Jan. 2, days after an attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad that the Defence Department said Gen. Soleimani masterminded. Pentagon officials suggested killing Gen. Soleimani as the most extreme of the available options to retaliate for the embassy attack, not thinking Mr. Trump would choose it, but to their surprise, he did, The New York Times reported, citing U.S. officials familiar with the planning of the airstrike.

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Why kill Soleimani now? After the killing, Mr. Trump defended it as a necessary move to stop “imminent and sinister attacks” on U.S. soldiers and diplomats, without specifying what those plans were. But congressional Democrats have said it was a poorly planned step likely to provoke a war for which the United States is unprepared, and criticized Mr. Trump for not consulting Congress before it took place. Others called it a stunt designed to shift attention away from Mr. Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate, where lawmakers will weigh allegations that he abused his power by pressing the Ukrainian President to investigate a political rival and then obstructed Congress’s efforts to find out what happened.

Iran’s actions so far

Jan. 8 missile attacks: In “Operation Martyr Soleimani," Iran launched ballistic missiles at two military bases in Iraq between 1:45 and 2:45 a.m. local time on Jan. 8. U.S. and Canadian military forces were based at the facilities in Erbil and al-Asad. There were no casualties at either base, but near Tehran, the heightened state of military alert led to a “disastrous mistake” in which a Ukrainian airliner was shot down, Iran’s government admitted on Jan. 11 after days of denying any involvement. Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752 had 176 people on board, all of whom were killed. Fifty-seven were Canadians, and many more were linked to Canada by school, work or family.

Erbil

Mosul

Kirkuk

SYRIA

IRAN

al-Asad Air Base

Baghdad

IRAQ

Basrah

SAUDI ARABIA

0

200

KUWAIT

KM

john sopinski/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

SOURCE: TILEZEN; OPENSTREETMAP

Erbil

Mosul

Kirkuk

SYRIA

IRAN

al-Asad Air Base

Baghdad

IRAQ

Basrah

SAUDI ARABIA

KUWAIT

0

200

KM

john sopinski/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

SOURCE: TILEZEN; OPENSTREETMAP

Erbil

Mosul

Kirkuk

SYRIA

IRAN

al-Asad Air Base

Baghdad

IRAQ

Basrah

SAUDI ARABIA

KUWAIT

0

200

KM

john sopinski/THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: TILEZEN; OPENSTREETMAP

Possible proxy conflicts: Gen. Soleimani’s successor, Esmail Ghaani, has a large network of proxy militaries at his disposal in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine and Yemen through which Iran could potentially strike back at the United States or its allies. But Gen. Ghani is less well-connected and beloved within the region than Gen. Soleimani was, potentially limiting his influence, The Globe and Mail’s Geoffrey York explains.

Iran’s empire of proxy fighters

A network of foreign militias built by General

Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian commander killed in

Iraq by the U.S., are likely to remain Tehran’s

primary weapon in its asymmetric fight against

Washington

Government relationships with Iran

and Tehran’s proxy forces

Aligned

Neutral/hedging

Opposed to Iran

Tilting towards

TURKEY

AFGHAN.:

Liwa al-

Fatemiyoun

SYRIA

Tehran

LEB.

IRAQ

IRAN

PAL.

KUW.

PAKISTAN:

Liwa

Zainabiyoun

BAHRAIN

QATAR

S. ARABIA

OMAN

YEMEN

0

800

KM

PALESTINIAN

TERRITORIES:

Hamas, Palestinian

Islamic Jihad,

Harakat al-Sabireen

BAHRAIN:

Al-Ashtar

Brigades

LEBANON: Shiite Hez

bollah – group formed

in 1982 following

Israel’s occupation of

south Lebanon

IRAQ: Popular Mobilization Forces,

Badr Organization,

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataib

Hezbollah,

Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba

SYRIA: 313 Force,

Liwa al-Baqir, Quwat al-

Ridha militias – all

linked to Hezbollah

YEMEN: Ansar Allah – 100,000-

strong Houthi rebel group –

has called forattacks on U.S.

bases in reprisal for

killing of Qassem Soleimani

Sources: graphic news; Bloomberg; ECFR; IISS

Iran’s empire of proxy fighters

A network of foreign militias built by General Qassem

Soleimani, the Iranian commander killed in Iraq by the

U.S., are likely to remain Tehran’s primary weapon in its

asymmetric fight against Washington

Government relationships with Iran and Tehran’s proxy forces

Aligned

Neutral/hedging

Opposed to Iran

Tilting towards

TURKEY

AFGHAN.:

Liwa al-

Fatemiyoun

SYRIA

Tehran

LEB.

IRAQ

IRAN

PAL.

KUWAIT

PAKISTAN:

Liwa

Zainabiyoun

BAHRAIN

QATAR

S. ARABIA

OMAN

YEMEN

0

800

KM

PALESTINIAN

TERRITORIES:

Hamas, Palestinian

Islamic Jihad,

Harakat al-Sabireen

BAHRAIN:

Al-Ashtar

Brigades

LEBANON: Shiite Hez

bollah – group formed

in 1982 following

Israel’s occupation of

south Lebanon

IRAQ: Popular Mobilization Forces,

Badr Organization,

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataib Hezbollah,

Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba

SYRIA: 313 Force,

Liwa al-Baqir, Quwat al-

Ridha

militias – all linked to

Hezbollah

YEMEN: Ansar Allah – 100,000-

strong Houthi rebel group –

has called forattacks on U.S.

bases in reprisal for

killing of Qassem Soleimani

Sources: graphic news; Bloomberg; ECFR; IISS

Iran’s empire of proxy fighters

A network of foreign militias built by General Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian commander

killed in Iraq by the U.S., are likely to remain Tehran’s primary weapon in its asymmetric

fight against Washington

Government relationships with Iran and Tehran’s proxy forces

Aligned

Tilting towards

Neutral/hedging

Opposed to Iran

LEBANON: Shiite Hezbollah – group formed in 1982 following Israel’s occupation of

south Lebanon

SYRIA: 313 Force, Liwa al-Baqir,

Quwat al-Ridha militias

– all linked to Hezbollah

TURKEY

Tehran

AFGHANISTAN:

Liwa al-Fatemiyoun

IRAQ

IRAN

PAKISTAN:

Liwa Zainabiyoun

KUWAIT

PALESTINIAN

TERRITORIES:

Hamas, Palestinian

Islamic Jihad,

Harakat al-Sabireen

BAHRAIN:

Al-Ashtar

Brigades

UAE

QATAR

SAUDI ARABIA

OMAN

YEMEN

0

800

KM

IRAQ: Popular Mobilization Forces,

Badr Organization umbrella group,

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataib Hezbollah,

Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba

YEMEN: Ansar Allah – 100,000-strong

Houthi rebel group – has called for

attacks on U.S. bases in reprisal for

killing of Qassem Soleimani

Sources: graphic news; Bloomberg; ECFR; IISS

Nuclear next steps: Iran announced on Jan. 5 that it would abandon any limits on nuclear fuel enrichment as laid out in a 2015 deal brokered by then U.S. President Barack Obama. It will still co-operate with the UN’s atomic-energy watchdog and is not expelling the inspectors who keep an eye on its nuclear program. But France, Germany and Britain, alarmed at the prospect of Iran potentially developing atomic weapons, have triggered a dispute-resolution mechanism in the 2015 deal to force Iran back to the bargaining table. If that doesn’t work, the European nations could reintroduce sanctions against Iran.

THE NUCLEAR DEAL'S DOWNFALL

U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran in November of 2018. Here is the backstory behind that

Uranium mines

Reactor

Uranium enrichment

Military

Fordow: Under deal, fuel enrichment halted for 15 years. Facility converted for medical isotope research only

1

Arak: Heavy water reactor redesigned to prevent production of weapons-grade plutonium

2

Centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow cut from 20,172 to 6,104. Uranium enrichment limited to 3.67%

3

0

400

Caspian Sea

KM

Ramsar

IRAN

Bonab

Tehran

1

3

Karaj

Parchin

2

Natanz

Isfahan

Saghand

IRAQ

Ardakan

IAEA* to monitor uranium mining for 25 years

Bushehr

Gachin

Persian

Gulf

SAUDI ARABIA

2013: Hassan Rouhani

(left) elected Iran’s

president, replacing

hard-line Mahmoud

Ahmadinejad

Nov. 2013: Iran agrees to

pact withU.S., Britain, China,

France,Germany and Russia

to curbnuclear work in return

for sanctions relief

Jan 2016: Iran nuclear deal – JCPOA** – enacted. Iran receives $100-billion of its assets frozen in foreign banks

2015: Congress passes Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act – INARA – which allows U.S. President to reimpose sanctions

Sep 2017: IAEA says Iran

is in compliance with JCPOA.

U.S. and EU say missile tests

violate UN resolution 2231

which is part of deal

May 8, 2018:

Trump announces

U.S. pulling

out of Iran

nuclear deal

*International Atomic Energy Agency

**Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS

THE NUCLEAR DEAL'S DOWNFALL

U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran in November of 2018. Here is the backstory behind that

Uranium mines

Reactor

Military

Uranium enrichment

Fordow: Under deal, fuel enrichment halted for 15 years. Facility converted for medical isotope research only

1

Arak: Heavy water reactor redesigned to prevent production of weapons-grade plutonium

2

Centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow cut from 20,172 to 6,104. Uranium enrichment limited to 3.67%

3

0

400

TURKEY

Caspian Sea

KM

Ramsar

IRAN

Bonab

Tehran

1

3

Karaj

Parchin

2

Natanz

Isfahan

IRAQ

Saghand

Ardakan

IAEA* to monitor uranium mining for 25 years

Bushehr

Gachin

Persian

Gulf

SAUDI ARABIA

2013: Hassan Rouhani

(left) elected Iran’s

president, replacing

hard-line Mahmoud

Ahmadinejad

Nov. 2013: Iran agrees to pact

with U.S., Britain, China, France,

Germany and Russia to curb

nuclear work in return for

sanctions relief

Jan 2016: Iran nuclear deal – JCPOA** – enacted. Iran receives $100-billion of its assets frozen in foreign banks

2015: Congress passes Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act – INARA – which allows U.S. President to reimpose sanctions

Sept. 2017: IAEA says Iran

is in compliance with JCPOA.

U.S. and EU say missile tests

violate UN resolution 2231

which is part of deal

May 8, 2018:

Trump announces

U.S. pulling

out of Iran

nuclear deal

*International Atomic Energy Agency

**Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS

THE NUCLEAR DEAL'S DOWNFALL

U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran in November of 2018. Here is the backstory behind that

Uranium mines

Uranium enrichment

Military

Reactor

TURKEY

Caspian Sea

Ramsar

Centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow cut from 20,172 to 6,104. Uranium enrichment limited to 3.67%

Fordow: Under deal, fuel enrichment halted for 15 years. Facility converted for medical isotope research only

Bonab

Tehran

Karaj

Parchin

IRAN

Natanz

IRAQ

Isfahan

Saghand

Arak: Heavy Water Reactor redesigned to prevent production of weapons-grade plutonium

Ardakan

IAEA* to monitor uranium mining for 25 years

Bushehr

Gachin

Persian

Gulf

0

400

SAUDI ARABIA

KM

2013: Hassan Rouhani

(left) elected Iran’s

president, replacing

hard-line Mahmoud

Ahmadinejad

Nov. 2013: Iran agrees to pact with

U.S., Britain, China, France,

Germany and Russia to curb

nuclear work in return for

sanctions relief

Jan 2016: Iran nuclear

deal – JCPOA** – enacted.

Iran receives $100-billion

of its assets frozen in

foreign banks

2015: Congress passes

Iran Nuclear Agreement

Review Act – INARA –

which allows U.S. President

to reimpose sanctions

Sept. 2017: IAEA says Iran

is in compliance with JCPOA.

U.S. and EU say missile tests

violate UN resolution 2231

which is part of deal

May 8, 2018:

Trump announces

U.S. pulling

out of Iran

nuclear deal

*International Atomic Energy Agency **Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS

Iraq’s next move

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Though Iraq and Iran are hardly friends – the neighbouring countries fought a brutal war in the 1980s, though they found a common cause in fighting Islamic State in the 2010s – the airstrike on Iraqi soil has created a rift between Baghdad and Washington. Parliamentarians voted unanimously in favour of a non-binding motion to end the U.S. military presence in the country, which currently consists of about 5,200 U.S. troops. It’s unclear if Iraq’s president would have the legal authority to sign such a declaration, much less have Iraq’s U.S.- and NATO-trained military enforce it. Mr. Trump has said “we’re not leaving until they pay us back” for U.S. military involvement in the country over the past two decades. “we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”

Israel’s next move

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Israel has been keeping a low profile since Gen. Soleimani’s death, and has distanced itself from Mr. Trump’s decision to kill him. “It isn’t an Israeli event but an American event,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said of the assassination at a Jan. 6 security cabinet meeting, according to Israeli media reports. “There’s no need to be dragged into it.”

But it will be hard for Israel to avoid being dragged into the escalating conflict eventually, especially if the U.S. retaliates against Iran and Iran follows through on a threat to have Hezbollah militia allies in Lebanon fire on Israeli targets. If Iran indeed abandons the 2015 nuclear deal, which Israel loudly opposed, that also puts the two nations on a collision course. Israel is widely believed to possess its own atomic weapons, though it neither confirms nor denies that.

Were Trump’s actions legal?

U.S. presidents don’t have absolute power to declare war whenever and however they feel like it, and international law limits the things they can tell U.S. soldiers to do. Here are some of the factors to consider.

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Congress and declaring war: Under the U.S. Constitution, declaring war is Congress’s job, though many American military conflicts have started without such formal declarations: the Vietnam War in the 1960s, the Gulf War of the early 1990s and the Afghanistan conflict in 2001, among others. The War Powers Resolution, a federal law dating back to 1973, is supposed to curb this by requiring the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of introducing U.S. forces into an armed conflict or a situation that could lead to war. Mr. Trump did send such a notification to Congress late on Jan. 4, but it was marked classified, which Democrats in the Senate said wasn’t good enough. A day later, Mr. Trump also claimed, falsely, that he could legally warn Congress on Twitter of his intention to strike back against possible Iranian attacks. The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives is now moving toward a resolution that would require Mr. Trump to stop all hostilities within 30 days unless Congress gives him permission to continue, but the motion’s chances of passing in the Republican-controlled Senate are slim.

Attacking cultural sites: In the days after the Soleimani killing, Mr. Trump threatened that he has a list of 52 cultural sites in Iran – one for each American held captive in the 1979-81 Iranian hostage crisis – that he would order destroyed if Tehran retaliated. That could be classified as a war crime: The UN Security Council passed a resolution in 2017, soon after Mr. Trump’s ascent to the presidency, that strengthened protection for cultural sites in war as a response to Islamic State’s destruction of archeological sites, museums and libraries.

‘Disproportionate’ response: In his Jan. 5 tweet, Mr. Trump said the United States would strike back “perhaps in a disproportionate manner” against Iran. The fourth Geneva Convention forbids “excessive and disproportionate” attacks involving civilians, though the rules limiting attacks to military targets can often be bent if the attacking nation argues that a civilian target was being used for a military purpose.

What this means for Canada

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Flight 752: Canada and its Iranian diaspora have responded with grief, horror and anger since Jan. 8′s destruction of the Ukrainian airliner. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who at one point suggested the Canadians would still be alive if not for the U.S.-Iranian tensions, has demanded that Iran give accountability and closure for the victims’ families. That’s been complicated so far: Canada and Iran have had no formal diplomatic ties since 2012, so when the plane fell there was no embassy or consular staff in the country to help families of the victims. Canadian consular officials were given permission to go to Iran, and Canadian Transportation Safety Board investigators are taking part in the probe.

The Iraq mission: About 500 Canadian troops are in Iraq leading a NATO training mission, though an unspecified number of them were moved to neighbouring Kuwait for safety reasons, Chief of the Defence Staff Jonathan Vance said on Jan. 7. Their mission in Iraq was temporarily suspended soon after Gen. Soleimani was killed, and while some were in an Erbil military base when Iran launched its Jan. 8 missile strikes. Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s office has said Canada plans to continue its work toward a “stable and united Iraq.”

Border trouble: Canadians and Americans of Iranian descent were caught up in the political tensions the weekend after the Soleimani assassination, when more than 60 people were detained at a Canada-U.S. border crossing in Blaine, Wash., and questioned for hours about their political views and family ties. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency denies that the detentions took place. A congressional Democrat, Pramila Jayapal, is looking into the matter.

Commentary and analysis

Bessma Momani: With Soleimani dead, the U.S. must brace for the wrath of Iranian hardliners

Editorial: Trump crossed a line in Iran. But it’s not the end of the world

John Ibbitson: Trudeau may face a tough decision with the U.S.-Iran quagmire

Hugh Segal: The brewing situation between Iran and the U.S. is very much Canada’s problem

Lawrence Martin: Is the Soleimani assassination meant to distract from Trump’s impeachment crisis?

Dennis Horak: U.S.-Iran tensions are at a dangerous level, but hope remains neither side wants a war

Compiled by Globe staff

With reports from Mark MacKinnon, Eric Reguly, Adrian Morrow, Kristy Kirkup, Associated Press and Reuters