President Donald Trump ordered an attack on the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani within the first week of 2020, subsequently killing the top general in Iraq’s, a US ally, soil.

    This attack does not come as a complete shock if you have been following America and Iran’s relations for the past millennium. 

    The tensions began with the Iranian revolution and the anti-western sentiments of the revolutionaries and Ayatollah Khomeini. Things began to cool down after President Obama drafted the Iran Nuclear deal which had Iran agree to halt their uranium enrichment program. 

    This strenuous peace between the nations quickly subsided as President Trump pulled out of the Iran Nuclear Deal.

    Although tensions between Iran and the US have been rising in recent years, this comes as an unexpected move by the American government. 

   This order was executed without congressional approval or vote, and purely on the ambitions of the 45th President. At a press conference in the oval office, President Trump claimed that the killing of Iran’s top general was necessary and should have been carried out by President Obama and President Bush before him. 

   While the President deemed that the attack was necessary, the Iranian government may be willing to enact war as a result of the attack. In what seems as an act of retaliation, Iran fired many missiles at two US bases in Iraq that are said to hold American troops.

   The missile attack on the American bases were claimed to be “hard revenge” by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, an elite wing of the Iranian military. 

   The reasoning for the attack is not entirely clear, as killing another country’s general is a very provocative act.

   In a statement released by the Pentagon, the strike “was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”

    Although the tensions between the US and Iran have radically risen throughout the first two weeks of 2020, President Trump seems to have shied away from direct military encounters with Iran since the Iranian attack on US military bases in the Middle East. 

   Instead, the US is imposing new sanctions on Iran in reaction to the attacks in Iraq. 

   “We are announcing additional sanctions against the Iranian regime” said US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at a news conference at the White House. 

    The tensions between Iran and the United States may possibly lead to a World War, but will it actually come to that?

*This article will be updated as more developments occur*