By all accounts, major general Qasem Soleimani – commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) crack ‘Quds’ force that is responsible for foreign military and clandestine operations – is a man of the highest intellect. Instrumental in numerous effective campaigns against Iraq, the Islamic State and in Syria, to name but a few, he has also played a key role in advancing Iran’s political power across the Shia crescent of influence stretching from Syria through Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Iran itself, and Yemen. Even if the person effectively in charge of all of Iran’s key military and geopolitical decisions right now was nowhere near as clever as Soleimani, would they not already have worked out that attacking Saudi Arabia’s oil and gas infrastructure has virtually no downside for Iran – but lots of upside – and be thinking ‘what about launching some fresh attacks’? According to senior Iranian sources […]