Khamenei had learned about the secret relationship between Soleimani and America, he tried to physically eliminate Soleimani.
Qassem Soleimani’s cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq, coupled with his dual role in advancing Iranian influence and occasionally engaging pragmatically with American interests, exposed internal rifts in Iran’s leadership. Khamenei’s eventual move to eliminate Soleimani underscores the Supreme Leader’s paranoia and autocratic consolidation of power, highlighting both the contradictions and the volatility within the Iranian regime.
Soleimani’s cooperation with U.S. forces post-9/11 revealed a tactical, albeit limited, alignment against the Taliban. His offering of strategic maps demonstrated an operational pragmatism. However, internal dissent, particularly from Rafsanjani, criticized the Quds Force’s dominance over Iranian foreign policy and its undermining of institutional diplomacy. Khamenei’s efforts to centralize authority and maintain ideological rigidity positioned Soleimani as both a valuable agent and a potential liability. The U.S., recognizing Soleimani’s destabilizing role in Iraq and the region, issued warnings that culminated in his assassination. Khamenei’s subsequent destruction of evidence further highlights the regime’s insecurity.
Soleimani’s balancing act between operational pragmatism with U.S. forces and his commitment to advancing Iran’s revolutionary agenda illuminates a broader dynamic of Iranian foreign policy. It also exposes Khamenei’s fear of independent power bases within his regime. The Quds Force’s unchecked influence disrupted traditional diplomacy and aggravated factional tensions, demonstrating how power struggles within Iran directly shape its external aggression and regional policy.
The narrative gains significance as Iran continues to project power across the Middle East, emboldened by Soleimani’s legacy and embittered by his assassination. Khamenei’s increasing reliance on the IRGC reflects a weakening political apparatus, where loyalty is prioritized over competence. The ongoing friction between the IRGC and traditional state institutions threatens regional stability and underscores the fragility of Iranian governance under Khamenei’s autocratic rule.
Soleimani’s assassination disrupted Iran’s regional strategy temporarily but failed to dismantle the Quds Force’s influence. Internally, it revealed Khamenei’s distrust of rising figures within his regime and emphasized the centrality of ideological control. Externally, it strained U.S.-Iran relations further, yet it also exposed the limits of Iran’s ability to protect its key operatives.
Iran’s reliance on the Quds Force and its expanding influence in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen will continue to generate friction with global powers. Khamenei’s strategy to consolidate power will exacerbate internal dissent and limit Iran’s adaptability in the face of external challenges. A volatile regime driven by ideological rigidity and distrust risks deeper isolation and more strategic missteps.
Khamenei’s decision to eliminate Soleimani reveals his fear of independent leadership within the IRGC and his inability to tolerate figures capable of bridging pragmatism and ideology. His authoritarian grip has hollowed Iran’s political institutions, turning the regime into a fragile echo chamber of his own insecurities. By silencing dissent and prioritizing personal survival over national stability, Khamenei has positioned himself not as the architect of Iranian strength but as the greatest obstacle to its potential. His paranoia undermines Iran’s ability to navigate a world increasingly unified against its reckless policies, and his autocratic mismanagement sows the seeds of Iran’s eventual collapse. Below is the original text:
After the September 11 attacks on the towers of the World Trade Organization in New York and the decision of the United States to remove the Taliban from Afghanistan, the forces under the command of Soleimani met with the officials of the American government in a hotel in Geneva. According to themselves, the Islamic Emirates “was given to the United States by the Taliban.”
A member of IRGC Quds Force showed and explained the mentioned map about Afghanistan in a meeting with the American forces, and at the end of the meeting, he put the map on the table and told the Americans to keep this map, it will help you.
Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who at the time of his death was the chairman of the Expediency Council, in the last years of his life, because of the destructive role that the Quds Force created in Iran’s foreign relations.
Its establishment was not pleased. He said that the Quds Force has a real problem, the problem is that it has deprived the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from exercising its responsibility in the most sensitive areas that concern us. In Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Yemen and wherever this happens, we really have a problem. No one can send an ambassador to these countries without the approval of the Quds Force.
One of the main reasons for Rafsanjani’s assassination was his opposition to the Quds Force.
Quds Force of Ali Khamenei’s plan in 1369, about a year after the start of his rule over Iran as the Commander-in-Chief, despite the close cooperation of the Quds Force with the United States in Afghanistan and efforts for more cooperation in Iraq, Khamenei not only took responsibility for it. It does not assume that it declares cooperation with the American government as a result of the decision of the government of the time.
Soleimani, commander of Quds and Element forces for more than two decades
It was constant and determined the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic. Mohammad Javad Zarif said that he was in full cooperation with Soleimani when he was the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations.
Despite Soleimani’s cooperation with the United States in the last years of his life, government propaganda moved in the opposite direction to the point that during the administration of Donald Trump, the Iranian authorities clearly tried to show the situation between the Quds Force and Soleimani personally against American policies.
In the fall of 2017, about a year before the assassination of Soleimani on December 98, “Mike Pompeo”, the head of the US Central Intelligence Agency, who has now become the Secretary of State, announced that he had sent a warning letter to Soleimani, but he had rejected this letter.
The content of Pompeo’s warning to Soleimani was about the consequences of the behavior of the forces under his command in Iraq. Pompeo said that in his letter, he had warned that Qassem Soleimani and the Islamic Republic are responsible for any attack on American interests in Iraq by agents of the Quds Force. Sending the letter: He said that we wanted to make sure that he and the leaders of Iran understand this very clearly.
Soleimani, who once started extensive cooperation with the American in Afghanistan by sending a map and was inclined to continue this cooperation in Iraq, did not accept Pompeo’s letter.
When Qassem Soleimani was in Bokmal in Syria, “the head of the CIA sent a letter to Soleimani through one of his contacts in the region, but he said that I will not receive or read your letter and I will not talk to these people at all. Pompeo also rejected this letter from Soleimani. had confirmed
Soleimani was assassinated in an operation that was supervised by Trump and Pompeo. Since then, there is no information similar to what was published during Soleimani’s eagerness to cooperate with American forces.
Because all documents were destroyed or hidden by the Islamic Republic.
And because Khamenei had learned about the secret relationship between Soleimani and America, he tried to physically eliminate Soleimani.
