WWIII and IranWar hashtags trending on Twitter. Donald Trump committing more soldiers to the Middle East despite his pledges to bring more troops home. Are we about to step into a war?
The U.S. killing outside Baghdad's airport of Qassem Soleimani, a general who ran Iran's proxy operations across the Middle East, is reverberating through the region. Iraq's parliament has voted to pursue the removal of foreign troops — raising the question of whether Soleimani in death will achieve his goal of getting U.S. soldiers out of Iraq.
The sudden decision to kill Soleimani, whom the U.S. had been tracking for years, could also impact the fight to mop up what remains of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. And most immediately, it risks reprisals.
Tehran, economically weakened by sanctions, has for years run a carefully calibrated campaign of attacks via proxies in the Middle East: enough to remind everyone it's there, but not enough to provoke a full-scale retaliation.
Its leaders knew where the line is. The question is whether Soleimani's death takes them over it.
One argument for restraint from Tehran is that Trump is already facing a backlash at home and, at best, lukewarm support abroad for the killing.
There's little appetite anywhere to push this into a full-scale conflict. That could change quickly if Iran were to attack U.S. assets — and Tehran knows it. Trump, who has adopted an unpredictable foreign policy, has threatened to hit Iran "very fast and very hard." It's just possible he means it.
— Rosalind Mathieson
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