Some key points of context that we can't allow the media whose failures enabled the last catastrophic US war of choice in the Middle East to ignore as Trump plunges the region into chaos when other choices were available:
The US military presence in Iraq (on Iran's doorstep) is the legacy of an illegal invasion that began in 2003, and which resulted in the deaths of 100s of 1000s of Iraqis.
Having suffered the loss of close to 1 million people in a Saudi-funded 8-year war launched by Saddam Hussein in 1980, Iran has an understandable interest in ensuring a friendly government in Baghdad
Iraq's elected government condemned last week's US strikes on the PMF militia as a violation of its sovereignty. The US military operates against these targets and Iranian personnel in Iraq with neither the consent nor the authorization of the sovereign authority
Recent protests against Iranian influence in Iraq's government, based on that government's failure to deliver on the expectations of its citizens, doesn't change the reality that Iraqis are overwhelmingly hostile to US military action against Iran or its allies
The Trump Administration has no Congressional authorization to launch hostilities against Iran, yet that's exactly what the US has done by assassinating one of that country's most senior military decision-makers
The crisis is rooted in the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, which trashed the framework that was successfully managing and containing US-Iran conflict, and had created vital direct diplomatic channels between the longstanding rival powers
The Trump Administration – egged on by its Saudi, Emirati and Israeli allies and their hawkish partners in DC – adopted a strategy of economic strangulation against Iran that sober analysts warned had no credible end game, and raised the risk of provoking a war
Whether or not war had been its intent, the choices made by the Trump Administration -- when other choices were available and rejected -- have sent the US and Iran barreling into what promises to be a catastrophic war
