January 3, 2020

The US drone strike at Baghdad International Airport on January 2, 2020 killed Iran's top intelligence and military officer, Maj. General Qassim Suleimani, who led the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp. Iran's leadership has threatened retaliation after it has announced three days of mourning for the nation.

The international community, mainly silent on this latest clash and not offering any official endorsement of US military action, is awaiting the next level of military confrontation between the superpower and its regional nemesis, and the possibility of a regional war is mounting.

President Trump tweeted a US flag as a response to the drone strike assassination. While official and conventional warfare between the US and Iran remains a possibility, proxy war and sectarian fighting, along with occasional drone strikes, are now the main methods of military confrontation. The ongoing crisis will lead to more civilian suffering and casualties in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. The people of these countries will lose more sovereignty and more militias will rise as the means of wielding influence and power. The US will have to send more troops to protect their indefensible allies in the region and their assets.

As a result, more innocent people will die and more US soldiers will be put into harm's way without any debate in the US Congress on the merits of this latest military escapade and without articulation of American interests. This Gulf crisis in 2020 will also result in the continued suspension of civil liberties and threats of more surveillance of American Muslims, Iranian Americans, and people opposed to this decision-making of violence.