Qasem Soleimani's death is certain to escalate tensions between the US & Iran. Iran hardliners and neo-cons are celebrating, no doubt - they've been lusting for confrontation with Tehran and have just upped the ante. But you know who else is celebrating? Iraqis and Syrians.

Soleimani directed the murderous crackdown against Iraqi protesters and oversaw a genocide in Syria. He was the face of an expansionary sectarian project that pitted people against each other by fostering loyalists that would kill their own people, as Tehran carved up the region.

He was indispensable for his ability to keep Tehran's proxies united, and it has no operative to fill that role now. In Syria it might spell the end of Iran's goal to apply it's Iraqi blueprint of militias and loyalists, as it consolidates in Iraq & Lebanon in the midst of unrest