For Iranians, Gen. Qassem Soleimani was a popular figure of national resilience in the face of four decades of U.S. pressure. For the U.S. and Israel, he was a shadowy figure in command of Iran’s proxy forces, responsible for fighters in Syria backing President Bashar Assad and for the deaths of American troops in Iraq. Soleimani was killed in a U.S. airstrike on Friday morning and was relatively unknown in Iran until the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. His popularity and mystique grew out American officials calling for his killing. He was 62 years old.
