Former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was reportedly not informed of an attack on the Ain al-Asad base, at dawn on Jan. 8, 2020, five days after the killing of IRGC’s Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, in a US strike on the outskirts of Baghdad Airport, which almost ignited a war between the two countries.
In his recently published memoirs, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif revealed the circumstances of the IRGC’s attack with ballistic missiles on the Ain al-Asad base in western Iraq, and the message sent from Tehran to former Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, as well as to American leaders, hours before the strike.
Zarif wondered why he and Rouhani were not informed of the attack.
In response to Zarif’s account, Kayhan newspaper, which is close to the office of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said in its Saturday issue that Rouhani “was asleep, and the military commanders were unable to inform him of the attack on Ain al-Asad.”
Rouhani’s website strongly attacked Kayhan.
“In contrast to (Kayhan’s) lie, the root of the case is the failure to inform the president, and the evidence for this is the cancellation of an emergency meeting of military leaders with Rouhani at his home hours before the attack,” a statement on the website read.
“The last decision I heard [after Soleimani’s killing] was that there is no rush for a response, and the most efficient method was thought to be the one pursued by Hezbollah in Lebanon, creating condition to exhaust the enemy,” Zarif said in his memoirs of the eight years (2013-2021) he served as foreign minister.
He added that he received the message about the missile attack from Abbas Araghchi, another senior Iranian diplomat, hours after Iran had fired over a dozen ballistic missiles at the base. He added that he contacted the Swiss ambassador, the guardian of US interests in Iran, at the request of the Secretary-General of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani.
Hours after the Iranian strike, Zarif said in press statements that his country had taken “calculated measures” in self-defense, adding that the strikes “completed” Iran’s response to Soleimani’s killing.
He added: “We do not seek escalation or war, but we will defend ourselves against any aggression.”
Two months before Zarif confirmed the exchange of letters between Tehran and the American side, Shamkhani denied statements by former US President Donald Trump about receiving an Iranian message ahead of the ballistic missile attack on the Ain al-Asad base.
Shamkhani noted that the operation was based on a unanimous decision regarding the intense missile attack to target the largest US base in Iraq by surprise in order to achieve maximum harm.
Rouhani’s website wrote: “It is not clear what he meant by consensus, and among whom, as the head of the (Supreme National Security Council) did not know about the attack.”
