U.S., Iran Poised to Escalate Conflict Following Soleimani Killing

Killing the shadowy and prolific Iranian commander will likely yield bloody results, despite Trump administration assurances it can ‘de-escalate’ new tensions.

Protesters in Iran burn a U.S. flag on Friday during a demonstration over the U.S. airstrike in Iraq that killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

CONFLICT BETWEEN THE U.S. and Iran is poised to become more bloody and violent following President Donald Trump's decision Thursday to kill the prolific Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, pledged early Friday "severe revenge" against the United States for killing the elite Quds Force commander, who held a multifaceted political and strategic status roughly equivalent to the U.S. vice president and the director of the CIA.

"His efforts and his path won't be stopped by his martyrdom," Khamenei wroteon Twitter of Soleimani's death. "Rather, a severe revenge awaits the criminals who have stained their hands with his life and the other martyrs' blood last night."

In addition to serving as one of the most potent commanders of Iran's foreign military arms, Soleimani also became a symbolic figurehead of the government in Tehran with a cult following, casting himself as a pious hero forged from some of Iran's most notorious battles. He became a division commander in his 20s during the Iran-Iraq War after all of his senior officers had been killed in battle, according to a 2013 New Yorker profile – an experience that shaped his worldview of never allowing Iranian troops to endure such circumstances again.

More recently Soleimani was one of the most prominent forces fighting the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, following its sweeping rise in 2014. Many Iranian and Iraqi officials in response to his death lamented that he would no longer be able to maintain pressure on the terrorist group.

His leadership of Iranian commandos and the foreign proxy militias he helped raise were responsible for the deaths of at least hundreds of American troops and thousands of civilians in regional conflicts, including in Iraq, and he became among the most central targets of the Trump administration's "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran.

A U.S. drone reportedly targeted a ground convoy carrying Soleimani, killing him as well as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a military commander of the predominantly pro-Iranian Iraqi militias known as the Popular Mobilization Units or PMUs.

Top officials within the Trump administration insisted shortly after announcing the airstrike late Thursday that they believed they could contain the fallout of the dramatic decision – one Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama reportedly could have ordered but deemed the consequences too risky to make it worth pursuing. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during the night spoke with his counterparts in the U.K., Germany and China, stressing that the decision was in self-defense and that the U.S. remains "committed to de-escalation."

Yet that sentiment was met only with further concern from allies who did not appear to support the Trump administration's decision. The Iraqi government issued a scathing statement early Friday through its Twitter account, calling the attacks "assassinations" that "violate the conditions governing the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq." It said it would call on the Iraqi parliament to hold an emergency session weighing the future of the U.S. presence there.

A statement from the British foreign ministry acknowledged the threat posed by the Quds Force and Soleimani but added only, "We urge all parties to de-escalate." That statement markedly contrasted against Britain's celebrating the raid Trump ordered in October that killed Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – perhaps indicating that the American ally did not know or did not approve of the decision to kill Soleimani.

Top U.S. officials also touted the event markedly differently than targeting Baghdadi. Defense Secretary Mark Esper issued a straight-forward statement late Thursday first confirming the strike against "General Soleimani," calling it a "decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad." The tone of his remarks contrasted against his announcing Baghdadi's death, which he said at the time was "a great day for America and a great day for the world."

Trump appeared to respond to this criticism early Friday, writing in a series of tweets that Soleimani "was directly and indirectly responsible for the death of millions of people, including the recent large number of protesters killed in Iran itself."

"While Iran will never be able to properly admit it, Soleimani was both hated and feared within the country. They are not nearly as saddened as the leaders will let the outside world believe. He should have been taken out many years ago!" Trump wrote.

He added that Iraq has received billions of dollars in U.S. support and that its people "don't want to be dominated and controlled by Iran."

"But, ultimately, that is their choice," he wrote.

Among the most critical tasks the administration faces in the coming days is justifying why it chose this moment to kill Soleimani.

"No question [Soleimani] is a bad guy – but critical at this point is for the U.S. to come forward with a credible rationale for a strike of this consequence," former acting CIA Director John McLaughlin wrote Friday morning. "This is a moment when we need to have cultivated allies, which we have not, so the credibility bar will be higher than usual."

Thursday's strike comes days after members of Iranian-backed militias and their supporters, angered by a December U.S. airstrike in Iraq against pro-Iranian militias, stormed the so-called "Green Zone" in Baghdad and gathered outside the innermost walls protecting the U.S. Embassy there. Trump deployed new troops as a deterrent shortly before Iranian militia commanders told the protesters to back down.

Trump administration officials asserted Thursday's attack was in self-defense but did not offer any specifics about a new threat.

The Obama White House reportedly pressured Israel not to follow through on plans to kill Suleimani in 2015. Officials from that administration expressed grave concern about Trump's latest decision. Wendy Sherman, whos served as Obama's under secretary of State for Political Affairs, told MSNBC on Thursday night that the strike was "very escalatory" and will have "unbelievably horrific consequences," including "terrible reprisals."

Former Vice President Joe Biden, currently the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president, described the strike as a "huge escalatory move in an already dangerous region."

"President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox, and he owes the American people an explanation of the strategy and plan to keep safe our troops and embassy personnel, our people and interests, both here at home and abroad, and our partners throughout the region and beyond," Biden said in a statement. "We could be on the brink of a major conflict across the Middle East."

Some of the administration's staunchest allies lauded the attack, which they considered the latest evidence of Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran, including crippling sanctions against its top leaders and systematically dismantling the nuclear agreement that Obama forged.

"The price of killing and injuring Americans has just gone up dramatically," Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a statement. "Major blow to the Iranian regime that has American blood on its hands."

"To the Iranian government: If you want more, you will get more," the South Carolina Republican and member of the Armed Forces Committee said, hinting the administration may soon start targeting Iran's oil infrastructure with military strikes: "If Iranian aggression continues and I worked at an Iranian oil refinery, I would think about a new career."

Others, however, viewed Thursday's attack as an assassination that will only get more Americans killed.

"No matter how good it may feel that Qasem Soleimani is no longer alive, he likely will end up being more dangerous to the United States, our troops, and our allies, as a martyr than as a living, breathing military adversary," Sen. Chris Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, said in a statement. "There will be reprisals, and Iran will likely target American troops and even our own political and military leaders. This is why the United States does not assassinate leaders of foreign nations – in the end such action risks getting more, not less, Americans killed in the long run."

At issue also on Friday was when the administration began preparing for the operation to kill Soleimani and whether other recent activities amount to an escalation toward a potential war in the region. The strike came days after the U.S. deployed almost a thousand more Marines and Army airborne troops to Iraq following the violent protests outside the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad – an addition to the almost 14,000 new troops Trump previously deployed to the region since May in what some consider a disproportionate response to a series of Iranian provocations. Pompeo also announced he was canceling a high-profile trip to Ukraine this week to monitor the situation at the embassy.

Despite American assurances it can prevent the targeted killing from escalating into all-out war, the administration appears poised for the likelihood of new conflicts.

"The consequences for tonight's targeted strike will be felt across the Middle East and, if it spirals further, around the globe and potentially even the U.S. homeland," wrote Brian Katz, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Transnational Threats Project.

Soleimani was responsible for building a network of proxy fighters and militias that spanned Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, all with the common goal of confronting Tehran's arch-foes, the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These predominantly Shiite Muslim groups, such as Lebanese Hezbollah and the Popular Mobilization Units in Iraq, forged deep bonds fighting toward a common cause in each of those conflict zones and now will likely lash out at Americans in the region, their allies and their interests.

"The killing of Soleimani along with PMF chief Muhandes will be perceived as an attack on them all and merit a commensurate response," Katz wrote. He suggested Iran may target specific American diplomats, intelligence operatives or military troops in Lebanon akin to the violence of the 1980s, carry out missile strikes against U.S. ships near Yemen, or launch more conventional military operations against American interests nearer its shores, such as in the Strait of Hormuz or elsewhere in the Persian Gulf.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence's 2019 Threat Assessmentdocumented at least two attempts by Hezbollah and its international network to carry out terrorist attacks in the U.S. homeland from 2012-2018 – a danger that Katz believes may now escalate.