President Donald Trump has insisted that he seeks peace — not war — with Iran. His decision to assassinate Qasem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Forces, may have taken that choice out of his hands and given it to Tehran. It has, at the very least, allowed Iran to pick the next time and target for an attack, leaving the U.S. and its allies holding their collective breath. …
If Trump plays the high-stakes confrontation with Iran capably, he may fuse together the Republican Party’s old-guard Iran hawks and its Israel-backing evangelical Christian elites while putting Democrats in the politically risky position of opposing a president’s military decisions. But if he miscalculates — and that may have already happened — he runs the risk of exposing the U.S. and its allies to Iranian attacks, alienating voters who are wary and weary of war in the Middle East, further isolating the U.S. from important allies and lending credibility to Democrats who say he is a menace to American interests. CONT.
Jonathan Allen, NBC News