Donald Trump loves a clean narrative. His assertion that the 2020 assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani was the sole catalyst forcing a fundamental shift in Middle Eastern diplomatic alignments is classic branding. It reduces decades of shifting tectonic plates, demographic pressures, and economic desperation into a single, cinematic climax. It claims that a single drone strike paved the way for the Abraham Accords and subsequent regional re-alignments.
This is a comforting lie for Washington policymakers. It suggests that complex, multi-generational regional conflicts can be untangled by simply eliminating the right bad guy at the right time.
The reality is far messier, far more dangerous, and entirely independent of a single targeted killing in Baghdad. The lazy consensus among political commentators is to debate the morality or the immediate tactical fallout of the Soleimani strike. Supporters claim it restored deterrence; critics claimed it brought the region to the brink of total war. Both sides are asking the wrong question.
The real question is why regional powers like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Israel were already moving toward each other long before Soleimani arrived at Baghdad International Airport. The answer does not lie in American muscle flexing. It lies in a shared, terrifying realization among Gulf monarchies that American reliability was dead, regardless of who sat in the Oval Office.
The Myth of the Great Man Theory of History
To understand why the "Soleimani caused the peace deals" thesis is flawed, you have to look at the timeline. The Great Man theory of history assumes that history is driven by the decisions of specific, highly influential individuals. Trump’s rhetoric leans heavily on this. He implies that by removing Iran's chief strategist, the structural calculus of the Middle East fundamentally changed overnight.
It did not.
Step away from the political spin and look at the structural drivers. For over a decade, the United States has signaled a desire to pivot away from the Middle East to focus on great power competition with China. This was not a Trump doctrine; it was an Obama doctrine continued by Trump and sustained by Biden.
When the Abqaiq–Khurais attack hit Saudi oil facilities in September 2019—knocking out 5% of the global oil supply—the Trump administration did exactly nothing.
Imagine a scenario where a foreign power strikes the core economic infrastructure of a primary US ally, and Washington responds with press releases and minor economic sanctions. For Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, that was the watershed moment. The message was clear: the American security umbrella is a historical artifact. You are on your own.
The acceleration of regional diplomacy was not birthed out of respect for American decisiveness in the Soleimani strike four months later. It was born out of raw panic over American indecisiveness during the oil field attacks. The Gulf states realized they needed a local security partner with actual skin in the game, an aggressive intelligence apparatus, and a permanent geographic stake in checking Iranian expansion. That partner was Israel.
Dismantling the Deterrence Premise
Proponents of the strike argue that killing Soleimani broke the back of Iran's regional strategy. This stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Quds Force operate.
The Quds Force is not a startup dependent on a charismatic founder. It is a highly institutionalized bureaucratic machine designed to operate via decentralized proxies.
- The Chain of Command: Soleimani was replaced within hours by his deputy, Esmail Qaani.
- The Operational Continuity: The supply lines, financial networks, and missile transfer systems flowing into Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon did not pause.
- The Proxy Integration: Groups like Hezbollah and the Houthis operate with high degrees of local autonomy. They are aligned with Tehran ideologically and logistically, but they do not require daily tactical orders from a central command post.
If the goal was to permanently degrade Iran’s regional capacity, the strategy failed. Look at the years following 2020. The Houthis managed to effectively shut down maritime traffic through the Bab al-Mandeb strait using sophisticated anti-ship ballistic missiles. Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria continued launching drone strikes against US outposts. Iran itself advanced its uranium enrichment capabilities closer to weapons-grade levels than ever before.
To call this "deterrence" requires a level of cognitive dissonance available only to politicians on the campaign trail.
The Cost of the Counter-Intuitive Approach
There is an undeniable appeal to the transactional view of foreign policy. It offers clean wins. But every action has a structural cost. By elevating targeted assassinations of state officials to standard statecraft, the United States chipped away at the thin veneer of international norms that protect its own personnel globally.
I have spoken with defense analysts who spent years tracking IRGC networks across the Levant. They will tell you that while Soleimani was an exceptionally capable operational commander, his death removed a predictable actor.
In the chaotic world of covert warfare, predictability is a currency. Soleimani, for all his malice, understood the unwritten red lines between Washington and Tehran. He knew exactly how far he could push without triggering a conventional war. His removal fragmented the command structure of Iraqi militias, leading to rogue operations by younger, more radical commanders who lacked his strategic discipline.
The downside of the contrarian view is that it forces us to accept a grim reality: there are no quick fixes in geopolitics. You cannot bomb your way to a sustainable regional architecture. The Abraham Accords happened because of shared economic interests, technological dependencies, and a mutual fear of a nuclear-armed Iran among local actors—not because Washington played action hero.
Re-Engineering the Strategic Question
People looking at this era often ask: Did the strike prevent a major war? or Did it make America look strong?
These are the wrong questions. The right question is: Did the strike structurally alter the long-term balance of power in the region to favor US interests?
The data says no. The regional realignment we see today is a post-American reality. It is an architecture built by local powers who recognize that Washington is an erratic, distracted partner. They are hedging. Saudi Arabia’s normalization of ties with Iran—brokered by China in 2023—is proof positive that Riyadh is not relying on American-enforced deterrence. They are playing a sophisticated game of balance-of-power politics.
Stop looking at foreign policy through the lens of individual political triumphs. The Middle East did not change because a drone fired a missile in January 2020. It changed because the nations living there realized that the American empire was packing its bags, and they had to figure out how to survive the night alone.
