Beirut: With Iran moving closer to a deal with world powers to constrain its nuclear programme in return for an end to sanctions, Arab analysts and leaders are focused more on how Tehran is working unconstrained to tighten its grip on Arab states, from Iraq to Lebanon, and Syria to Yemen.

The man behind what some see as an attempt to create a new Persian “empire” on Arab land is Major General Qasem Sulaimani, commander of the Quds brigade of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Since he emerged from the shadows last autumn, Sulaimani seems to be omnipresent on the battlefields of the Middle East.

Photos of Sulaimani, 60, almost an invisible man until the militants of Daesh overran cities in northern and central Iraq last year, are now everywhere.

He is seen directing operations in the battle to recapture from Daesh the city of Tikrit, birthplace of Saddam Hussain.

He is snapped in Syria offering condolences on the killing of a relative of Bashar Al Assad, the Syrian president he has helped cling to power during four years of war.

In Beirut he is photographed praying at the grave of Jihad Mughniyeh, son of the late commander of the IRGC-backed Hezbollah paramilitary group. Jihad was killed in Syria in January.

Meanwhile, the Al Houthi movement in Yemen has seized power in the capital, Sana’a, to Iranian acclaim and the alarm of Arab states such as neighbouring Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival.

Such is Sulaimani’s personal sway that a Syrian opposition website has put up a spoof election poster saying: “Vote for Qasem Sulaimani, President of Syria.”

Iran may be serious about a nuclear deal that ends its pariah status and the crippling sanctions. But it has been maximising its strength across the Middle East and, because Iranian forces and allied militias are spearheading the fight against Daesh in Iraq and Syria, Arab leaders believe the United States will do nothing to stop this.

This month, US Secretary of State John Kerry assured Saudi leaders there would be no “grand bargain” with Tehran attached to any deal. Yet in a news conference at which Kerry acknowledged that Sulaimani was involved in Tikrit, his host, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal, almost exploded.

“The situation in Tikrit is a prime example of what we’re worried about,” said Prince Saud. “Iran is taking over Iraq.” That is why, regional analysts say, it is not so much the prospective nuclear deal that is panicking the Gulf and its allies such as Egypt, but what a US-Iran rapprochement may bring.

Sultan Al Qassemi, a commentator in the UAE, says: “The Iranian deal is a game-changer for the region and I think it is going to encourage Iran to pursue an even more assertive foreign policy.

“This deal is the grand bargain Kerry is denying it is. It is giving Iran carte blanche in exchange for empty promises.

Iran is on the ascendant. Iran has the winning hand in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.” Riad Kahwaji, head of the Dubai-based INEGMA think tank, warned of “all-out sectarian war”.

“The events in Iraq, Syria and Yemen indicate that Iran is on a massive offensive under the cover of a US-led war on terrorism, to gain strategic depth that has extended its areas of control all the way to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.”

In Syria, when Al Assad seemed likely to succumb to the rebellion two years ago, Iran deployed its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.

Sulaimani and the Al Quds brigade, created in 1980 to export Iran’s Islamic Revolution, patched together a network of loyalist militias that is now the backbone of Syrian rule.

In Iraq, after the Daesh eruption in mid-2014, the Al Quds commander put together a similar coalition of militias, first to defend Baghdad and the south and now to carry the fight northwards into militant strongholds such as Tikrit.

His allies in Iran, meanwhile, such as Tehran MP Ali Reza Zakani — like Sulaimani, close to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — boast they have three Arab capitals in the bag, Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut, with Sana’a soon to follow.

According to Iran’s Rasa new agency, Zakani said that “had Haj Qasem Sulaimani not intervened in Iraq, Baghdad would have fallen, and the same applies to Syria; without the will of Iran, Syria would have fallen”.

Describing events in Yemen as a “natural extension” of the Iranian revolution, Zakani predicted 14 of Yemen’s 20 provinces would soon be under Al Houthi control.

“The Yemeni revolution will not be confined to Yemen alone” he said. It would extend into Saudi territories — a reference not only to the kingdom’s long, porous border with Yemen but the Eastern Province where Saudi Arabia’s richest oil deposits lie.

John Jenkins, until last year British ambassador to Saudi Arabia and now with the International Institute of Strategic Studies, suggests US inattention to the region’s concerns is worrying.

“Already we see Iranian officials saying that they control four Arab capitals, and we have seen Al Houthi delegations travel to Tehran and Baghdad. This plays into the Gulf Arab narrative that they are being sold down the river,” Jenkins says.

“The US presence in the region is as strong as its ever been, but the Gulf Arabs’ questions are about the Western will to act. They’ve seen examples in Lebanon and Syria of US inaction. And Yemen is the tip of the spear as far as the Saudis are concerned. Behind Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen stands Iran.” While the Obama administration seeks to reassure Arab allies that it remains committed to them, analysts say Washington’s priority is to stop Iran developing an atomic bomb and halt Daesh expansion.

“Obama believes that reaching a nuclear deal with Iran could be his foreign policy legacy. The Americans are not looking at the deal with Iran in terms of its regional impact,” says Fawaz Gerges, Middle East expert at the London School of Economics.

“The US deal with Iran would deeply intensify a new cold war that has been unfolding between Saudi Arabia and its allies on one hand and Iran. It would likely pour more gasoline on the raging fires in the Arab heartland.”