15 January 2020

Iran is not one crisis, but three, for the U.S.


The killing of Qassem Soleimani has not provoked a crisis — it has provoked three crises. The obvious one is in U.S.-Iran relations, which have been poisonous for four decades. A somewhat less obvious one is in the global counterterrorism fight in Iraq, which relies on a steady U.S. hand.

The third is in Great Power relations, where both Russia and China seek to have the United States taken down a peg. While the potential crisis of war with Iran has been averted, for now, Iran remains a stubborn challenge for the United States, and the other two crises continue unabated.

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