Some thoughts on #Soleimani's assassination [Thread] 
1| first, this was not a far-fetched scenario. @khamenei_ir used to call him the living martyr for a reason. Almost every US admin in the past 2 decades had him in their crosshairs but calculated that the risks outweigh the potential benefits timesofisrael.com/mossad-chief-s…
2| But the war-mongers that this isolationist US president surrounded himself with were very keen on this objective for a while, thinking mistakenly that it would neuter and neutralize Iran's regional strategy: aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/i…
3| has vowed vengeance. It now has to decide whether reprisal comes in line with Khamenei’s characteristic proportional response or not, direct or indirect, immediate or deferred, and in Iraq or elsewhere.
4| But a response will have to come as this is nothing short of a declaration of war to a cornered country that has increasingly less to lose. The risks of miscalculation are at an all-time high. Most of our Trigger List flashpoints are now blinking red: crisisgroup.org/trigger-list/i…
5| Tehran might calculate that a proportional response might not invite a U.S. counter-attack, or it might deem a disproportionate response a deterrence against further escalation by a U.S. president who says he is averse to Middle Eastern quagmires.
6| An equally grave concern is that some of Iranian partners who have looser ties to Tehran might decide to take matters into their own hands without awaiting a green light from Tehran. The Houthis were already planning an attack for their own reasons: reuters.com/article/us-yem…
7| The US might have to counter-attack depending on what Iran does, which could trigger an escalatory cycle that could easily spiral out of control as we have been warning for months now: crisisgroup.org/middle-east-no…
8| Most of this remains uncertain, but I think a few things are clear:
1) This is not just a blow to the IRGC (although Soleimani is neither indispensable nor irreplaceable - just look at Hezbollah after Moghnieh), but a severe blow to the JCPOA
en.farsnews.com/print.aspx?nn=…
1) This is not just a blow to the IRGC (although Soleimani is neither indispensable nor irreplaceable - just look at Hezbollah after Moghnieh), but a severe blow to the JCPOA
en.farsnews.com/print.aspx?nn=…
9| Time for saving the deal was already running out, but it now seems nearly impossible to do so, with Iran's 5th step in reducing JCPOA compliance just 3 days away. So Soleimani's death is also the death-knell of deescalation in the nuclear realm & region nytimes.com/2019/12/19/opi…
10| Also 2) Killing Muhandis and so blatantly undermining Iraqi sovereignty again & again have rendered defending US presence and military bases in Iraq an impossible task for Iraqi security forces. A humiliating departure for the US from Iraq now seems inevitable.
11| As for 3) it's now almost guaranteed that the Iranian parliament will fall into the hands of the most hardline and militant elements within Iran. So in the words of @valinasr, @realDonaldTrump seems to have managed to get regime change in Iran but not the kind that he wanted.
12| Finally, 4) this is an unnecessary crisis of @realDonaldTrump's own making. He and the hawks in DC own the consequences. But anyone who liked the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, would LOVE a war with Iran. Don't listen to me, listen to professionals:
13|13 In short: This one life lost will likely cost many more - Iranian, Iraqi, American and others. It is not just Soleimani’s death, but likely the death-knell of the Iran nuclear deal and any prospect of diplomacy between Iran and the US and de-escalation in the region.
