None other than Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, snuffed the hopes of hard-liners that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif would follow through on his Feb. 25 resignation letter.

As Sinan Toossi reports, “Soleimani backed Zarif as ‘the main official responsible for foreign policy’ and stressed that he has always had the support of senior officials, ‘especially’ Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His comments echoed President Hassan Rouhani's letter rejecting Zarif's resignation in which he stated that he agreed with his chief diplomat that the foreign minister is the ‘highest official implementing the country's foreign policy.’"

“Soleimani — who is respected across Tehran's partisan divide but especially revered by conservative forces — has great influence over the balance of power in Tehran's contentious domestic politics,” adds Toossi. “His comments diminished the political space for hard-line forces to sabotage Zarif's foreign policy approach and awkwardly positioned them on the same side as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who promptly bid Zarif ‘good riddance.’"

Netanyahu “spared no effort to show his glee,” writes Meir Javedanfar. “To make sure Iranians were aware of how delighted he was, Netanyahu's Persian-language Twitter account on the morning after Zarif’s resignation read: ‘Zarif went. We are rid of him. As long as I am here, the Iranian regime will not acquire nuclear weapons.’”