How 9/11 Helped Create Regional Clout for Iran

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The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 paved the way for Tehran to dominate its neighbor and whetted its appetite to expand its influence across the greater Middle East.

The message was conveyed to the then-commander of all U.S. forces across the greater Middle East.

Communicated through an intermediary, it came from the shadowy general in charge of Iran’s ragtag overseas forces, yet he addressed the U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, as if he were a peer: “General Petraeus, you should know that I, Qassim Suleimani, control the policy of Iran for Iraq, and also for Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan.”

It was, General Petraeus has recounted, and confirmed in a recent email message, an Iranian attempt to signal that the solution to conflicts in the region ran through Tehran.

In hindsight, some analysts identify that message, sent during the Iraq war in 2008, as a milestone marking the start of one of the most far-reaching shifts in regional politics to emerge out of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States: the rise of Iran as a regional power.

After 9/11, Washington invaded Iraq and toppled its president, Saddam Hussein, setting the gears in motion for Iran to dominate its neighbor, previously its main nemesis. That seemed to whet Tehran’s appetite for regional supremacy in ways that continue to reverberate today in the conflict with the United States.

“The war in Iraq really changed everything because it made Iran a much bigger part of the equation,” said Stéphane Lacroix, an associate professor at Sciences Po in Paris who focuses on contemporary Islam. “It opened the way for this kind of Iranian expansionism, this much greater Iranian influence across the region.”