The Legacy of an Assassination: Iran's Regional Policy under Post-Soleimani Strategic Constraints

Qasem Soleimani's assassination in January 2020 removed a central broker from Iran's regional security network at a time of intensifying economic, military, and diplomatic pressure. This article asks why Iran's regional policy has operated under increasingly severe strategic constraints in the post-Soleimani period. Drawing on Sprout and Sprout's distinction between perceptual and operational environments, it treats Soleimani not as the sole architect of Iranian regional influence, but as a mediating variable linking elite threat perceptions, institutional resources, and the management of Iran-aligned armed groups. The analysis reconstructs the evolution of Iran's regional policy before and during Soleimani's command and then examines developments after his death, including the US maximum-pressure campaign, the Abraham Accords, declining public legitimacy of the Axis of Resistance in Iraq and Lebanon, the growing leverage of China and Russia, and the regional conflict that followed 7 October 2023. The article advances four findings. First, the principal systemic pressures on Iran pre-dated the assassination. Second, Soleimani's personal authority, cross-institutional networks, and operational experience enabled Tehran to mobilise resources, coordinate allied groups, and deter adversaries more effectively than after his death. Third, his successor was unable to reproduce this personalised mode of command, contributing to greater autonomy and centrifugal behaviour among Iran-aligned groups. Fourth, the postSoleimani constraints are visible in Iran's declining capacity to protect senior partners, preserve political influence in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, and translate military presence into diplomatic leverage. The assassination was therefore not the original cause of Iran's regional difficulties; it acted as a catalyst that magnified existing vulnerabilities and accelerated Tehran's shift from assertive forward defence towards selective de-escalation and strategic patience.

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