While millions mourn Soleimani in Iran, others celebrate demise

“Today we would have loved to, like the Iraqi people, celebrate in squares of our town, but unfortunately we have been taken hostage by the Islamic Republic and couldn't express our happiness.“

By HERB KEINON
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani pray near the coffins of Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who were killed in an air strike at Baghdad airport, in Tehran, Iran, Ja (photo credit: OFFICIAL PRESIDENT WEBSITE/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani pray near the coffins of Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who were killed in an air strike at Baghdad airport, in Tehran, Iran, Ja
(photo credit: OFFICIAL PRESIDENT WEBSITE/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)
“Have you EVER seen such a sea of humanity in your life, @realdonaldtrump?,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted to the US president on Monday over four photos of the mammoth funeral procession in Tehran for slain Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani.
“Do you still want to listen to the clowns advising you on our region?,” he continued. “And do you still imagine you can break the will of this great nation & its people? End of malign US presence in West Asia has begun.”
This is the second day in a row that Iranian officials have flooded social media with pictures of masses mourning Soleimani, an arch terrorist with the blood of thousands of people on his hands. The objective is clear: Create an impression of deep sorrow in Iran – and around the region – for his death.
But as Channel 12 Arab Affairs commentator Ehud Ya’ari pointed out in a post on the Mako website, not everyone is mourning.
“The most important event of the last few days following Soleimani’s assassination is what did not happen: Baghdad’s Shi’ites did not take to the streets to participate in his funeral procession, which passed through the streets of the Iraqi capital,” he wrote. “The picture was similar in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. This is no small thing, considering the fact that millions of Shi’ites have taken to Baghdad’s squares for weeks to protest the government and burn pictures of [Iranian leader Ayatollah] Khamenei and Soleimani.”
Ya’ari said while the Iranians were trying to mobilize mass identification with the Islamic Republic, most Shi’ites in Iraq were unwilling to join in the efforts to turn Soleimani into a larger-than-life figure and “do not want to see Iraq become a battleground between Iran and the US.”
What Zarif’s “sea of humanity” tweet ignored were the multitudes of Iranians who would have liked to take to the streets – not to mourn Soleimani, but to celebrate his death – but were too afraid to do so. These are the Iranians who took to the streets en masse last month to protest against Khamenei and Soleimani, and the squandering of the country’s wealth in adventures abroad, and of whom some 1,500 were reportedly killed by the regime.
Masih Alinejad, who describes herself as an “Iranian journalist and activist” with 152,000 followers on Twitter, posted on her Twitter account what she said was an Iranian woman celebrating Soleimani’s death.
Only the bottom half of the woman’s face is seen in the one-minute clip in which, speaking in Farsi with English subtitles, she says, “Congratulations, congratulations all who seek and love freedom across the Middle East, in Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Iraq.
“Today we would have loved to, like the Iraqi people, celebrate in squares of our town, but unfortunately we have been taken hostage by the Islamic Republic and couldn’t express our happiness.”
The woman sent “congratulations” to “all freedom lovers” and her hope that all the leaders of the Islamic Republic, which she referred to as a terrorist group, and Khamenei, who “loves martyrdom,” will “as soon as possible go to where Qasem Soleimani went, and became martyrs themselves. Amen!”
Alinejad tweeted earlier this week that “for many Iranians, Qasem Soleimani was a warmonger who caused massive casualties in Syria. He was no hero to average Iranians who chanted against the country’s support for Hezbollah and Hamas. Unfortunately Western media misses the point by glorifying Soleimani – He was the common enemy for people in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria.”
Among those celebrating Soleimani’s death were Iraqis, and footage of them celebrating news of his assassination on Friday went viral, being retweeted by everyone from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s daughter, Raghad Saddam Hussein. Someone is heard in the video praising Soleimani’s killing, saying this was revenge for Iraqi protesters killed in recent demonstrations against the Iranians in Baghdad.
For the most part, the Sunni Arab countries who see Iran as a mortal enemy issued measured responses, calling for calm and against actions that could exacerbate the situation.
One notable exception came from Yemen, a country torn apart by Iran and its proxies. The official Twitter account of the country’s Foreign Ministry tweeted that Soleimani “worked to destabilize security and stability in the region and in our country in particular by his support for Houthi militias. He and the Iranian regime – the chief sponsor of terrorism in the world – are responsible for killing and displacing thousands of innocent people in Yemen and the Arab world.”
Meanwhile, a former Jordanian ambassador to Iran, Bassam al-Amoush, posted a picture showing Soleimani smiling with a large ring with a red gemstone, next to a picture of a charred hand with that same ring, and wrote, “the end of a murderer.”
And the Gulf News in the UAE reported that a video went viral online of a man in Cairo, identified as a Saudi national, cutting through the faces of Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the head of pro-Iranian paramilitary units in Iraq also killed in the attack, that decorated a 2020 New Year’s cake.
“Now this wants to come to Riyadh,” he said while slicing through a picture of Muhandis. And, cutting through the face of Soleimani, he said, “This is for the sake of our Syrian and Iraqi brothers. Bon appetit!”