Iran Seethes, but How Will It Respond?

But the elimination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani is not just another news event that has us asking, “What’s next?” Soleimani’s killing is an event of historic proportions, something that will be studied in history books and examined in documentaries. Soleimani, Iran’s top military man, was the cornerstone of Iran’s strategy to export terrorism across the Middle East. And now he’s gone.

He was Iran’s equivalent of the head of the CIA, the secretary of defense, the Pentagon chief of staff, and a special-operations commander all rolled into one. He was a great strategist, but a bad tactician. When killed, he was traveling in the open without the slightest attempt at concealing his whereabouts. He assumed, based on conventional wisdom, that no state would dare strike such a senior member of Iran’s high command.

We have all absorbed certain axioms about the Iranian threat. One was that Soleimani was not himself a legitimate target, because if he dies, all hell breaks loose. Trump thought otherwise.

Critics have said that President Trump has a simplistic approach to the region and a superficial understanding of the players. But it’s difficult to see anyone but an outsider making this kind of dramatic decision. Anyone who read all the threat assessments over the years would have likely feared taking such a decisive step.