He is the new face of the Quds force. Esmaïl Qaani was appointed on Friday January 3 to head the Iranian foreign operations force by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. If the former deputy head of the Quds force has a long history as a Guardian of the Revolution and seems cut out for continuity, he is far from having the charisma of his predecessor, according to elements gathered by AFP.
"After the martyrdom of the glorious general Qassem Soleimani, I appoint Brigadier-General Esmaïl Qaani commander of the Quds force" of the Guardians of the Revolution, said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on January 3.
Esmaïl Qaani was until now deputy head of the Quds force. Ayatollah Khamenei described him as "one of the most decorated commanders" of the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian ideological army, since the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988).
If Qassem Soleimani had become for a few years a face a little familiar to the observers, that of Esmaïl Qaani, is less known.
Guardian of the revolution from the first years
Originally from the province of Khorassan, in the north-east of the country, Esmaïl Qaani was born in 1957. According to the researcher Ali Alfoneh in a note from the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, Esmaïl Qaani joined the Guardians of the revolution very shortly after the establishment of the Islamic republic of 1979, between 1979 and beginning of 1980. Its course will lead it to Iranian Kurdistan to fight the Kurdish separatists, and it will take part in the engagements of the war Iran-Iraq (1980-1988 ), during which he will befriend Qassem Soleimani.
"We are brothers in arms and it was war that made us friends," he said of him in a 2015 interview quoted by Ali Alfoneh.
He was then appointed in 1987 to head the Ansar corps, which operated in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which would mark his entry into the Quds force.
"When Soleimani was appointed head of the Quds force between September 10, 1997 and March 21, 1998, he probably appointed Qaani as his deputy," said Ali Alfoneh, adding that the chief was in charge of the Western Front (Syria , Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon ...) while the deputy took care of the East.
"On the eastern part, Iran does diplomacy but does not wage war," notes Thomas Flichy de La Neuville, professor of the history of oriental civilizations at the Rennes School of business and associate researcher at Oxford.
If "Soleimani quickly emerges as a charismatic leader (...) Qaani seems more confined to daily administrative and bureaucratic tasks", according to Ali Alfoneh.
Perpetuating the legacy of Qassem Soleimani
This is one of the key differences, according to researchers interviewed by AFP: "Qaani does not have the charisma of Soleimani, nor his understanding of the Levant," notes Annalisa Perteghella, researcher at the Italian institute ISPI.
"Soleimani was a magnetizer, with a great power of persuasion, a great psychological power, it was a little Murat in Russia [marshal of the Napoleonic empire whose actions on the battlefield were often decisive, note] in a difficult situation, we send Murat with three riders, and with his persuasive force he manages to magnetize the troops "and reverse the situation, explains Thomas Flichy de La Neuville.
However, succeeding him is not an impossible task, Soleimani "is completely replaceable (...) Iran is organized to manage its influence operations independently of personalities," said François Heisbourg, expert at the Foundation. for strategic research (FRS).
The profile of Esmaïl Qaani seems to predestine him to perpetuate the legacy of his predecessor, especially since "the orders of the Quds Force remain exactly the same as under the direction of the martyr Soleimani", according to the supreme guide.
"In the short and medium term, it will be continuity", according to Annalisa Perteghella, who believes "that there could be changes in the longer term, but we remain on familiar ground".
With AFP
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