LONDON: A senior Iranian military commander dubbed a “diabolically evil human being,” and who is responsible for spearheading Tehran’s interventionist policies in Arab countries and regional conflicts, is the subject of a new BBC documentary.
“Shadow Commander: Iran’s Military Mastermind,” set to air on March 14, sheds light on the story of Al-Quds force chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani, with first-hand accounts of his secret deals and shifting alliances across Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.
The documentary features former US diplomat Ryan Crocker and former head of US forces in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus, who talk candidly about the desperate struggle in the Middle East region and Soleimani’s brutal influence, stretching from Tehran to Beirut.
“We saw Soleimani as a very capable charismatic, skilled, professionally competent, diabolically evil human being,” says Gen. Petraeus in the documentary.
Crocker says: “We can see him as the Darth Vader of contemporary Middle Eastern politics.”
For decades Soleimani has dominated the brutal struggle for power and influence across the Middle East.
With the Iranian general taking center stage in Iran’s strategic ambitions, the one-hour BBC film questions whether he is shaping up for a new conflict with the West in the region.
Soleimani joined the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 1979 following the Iranian Revolution, which saw the Shah fall and Ayatollah Khomeini return from exile to seize power. He rose steadily through the ranks of the Iranian military until 2002 when, months before the US invasion of Iraq, he was appointed to command the most elite unit of the Iranian military — the Al-Quds force.
During the Iraq War, Soleimani was responsible for the smuggling of thousands of sophisticated bombs into the country and arming the Shiite militias, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of British and US troops.
However, just a few years later, the Western coalition found itself facing the same enemy as Soleimani in the fight against Daesh extremists.
Following the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001, Crocker met with Iranian diplomats who were under the direction of Soleimani with the purpose of collaborating to destroy the Taliban, which had targeted Shiite Afghans.
This collaboration was instrumental in defining the targets of bombing operations in Afghanistan and in capturing key Al-Qaeda operatives, but abruptly ended in January 2002, when George W. Bush named Iran as part of the “axis of evil” in his State of the Union address.
‘Diabolically evil’: BBC show reveals Iranian general’s shadowy past
‘Diabolically evil’: BBC show reveals Iranian general’s shadowy past
- ‘Shadow Commander: Iran’s Military Mastermind,’ set to air on March 14, sheds light on the story of Al-Quds force chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani
- The documentary features former US diplomat Ryan Crocker and former head of US forces in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus
To infinity and beyond: Grendizer’s 50 years of inspiring Arabs
- 50 years after its creation, the Grendizer anime series continues to capture Arab imagination
- Arab News Japan speaks to creator Go Nagai, Middle Eastern fans and retells the story behind the UFO Robot tasked with protecting our planet
LONDON: Few cultural imports have crossed borders as unexpectedly, or as powerfully, as Grendizer, the Japanese giant robot that half a century ago became a childhood hero across the Arab world, nowhere more so than in Saudi Arabia.
Created in Japan in the mid-1970s by manga artist Go Nagai, Grendizer was part of the “mecha” tradition of giant robots. The genre was shaped by Japan’s experience during the Second World War, and explored themes of invasion, resistance and loss through the medium of science fiction.
But while the series enjoyed moderate success in Japan, its true legacy was established thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East.
The anime “UFO Robot Grendizer” arrived on television in the region in 1979, dubbed into Arabic and initially broadcast in Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war. The story it told of the heroic Duke Fleed, a displaced prince whose planet had been destroyed by alien invaders, struck a chord with children growing up amid regional conflict and occupation by Israel.
Its themes of defending one’s homeland, standing up to aggression and protecting the innocent were painfully relevant in the region, transforming the series from mere entertainment into a kind of emotional refuge.
Much of the show’s impact came from its successful Arabization. The powerful Arabic dubbing and emotionally charged voice-acting, especially by Lebanese actor Jihad El-Atrash as Duke Fleed, lent the show a moral gravity unmatched by other cartoons of the era.
The theme song for the series, performed by Sami Clark, became an anthem that the Lebanese singer continued to perform at concerts and festivals right up until his death in 2022.
By the early 1980s, “Grendizer” had spread across the Middle East, inspiring fandoms in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and beyond. For many, it was not only their first exposure to anime, it also delivered lessons on values such as justice and honor.
Grendizer was so influential in the region that it became the subject of scholarly research, which in addition to recognizing the ways in which the plight of the show’s characters resonated with the audience in the Middle East, also linked the show’s popularity to generational memories of displacement, particularly the Palestinian Nakba.
Half a century later, “Grendizer” remains culturally alive and relevant in the region. In Saudi Arabia, which embraced the original version of the show wholeheartedly, Manga Productions is now introducing a new generation of fans to a modernized version of the character, through a video game, The Feast of The Wolves, which is available in Arabic and eight other languages on platforms including PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch, and a new Arabic-language anime series, “Grendizer U,” which was broadcast last year.
Fifty years after the debut of the show, “Grendizer” is back — although to a generation of fans of the original series, their shelves still full of merchandise and memorabilia, it never really went away.
