Fears of all-out war grow after U.S. kills Iran Gen. Qasem Soleimani - USA TODAY

Kim Hjelmgaard USA TODAY

Published 6:35 AM EST Jan 4, 2020

Iran's ambassador to the United Nations said Saturday "the response for a military action is military action," as fears grew that a U.S. airstrike that killed the head of Tehran's elite Quds force and mastermind of its security and intelligence strategy will draw Washington and the Middle East region into a broader military conflict.

Iran has already vowed an unspecified harsh retaliation for the killing of Gen. Qasem Soleimani near the Iraqi capital's international airport. President Donald Trump said he ordered the strike to prevent a conflict with Iran because Soleimani was plotting attacks that endangered American troops and officials.

No evidence was provided.

Angry protests erupt: U.S. kills Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani

Analysts said that because Iran can't match the U.S.'s military strength its potential targets for revenge range from rocket attacks on U.S. allies such as Israel to sabotaging oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passageway for oil supplies.

It could also embark on a sustained campaign of cyber-warfare or target American citizens and troops abroad near embassies and consulates or military installations.

It "not play out on U.S. televisions as some grand campaign. It will be asymmetric and messy, playing out on shipping lanes and computer servers," said Gregory Brew, a historian of Iran and its oil industry, in a social media post.

Richard N. Haass, a former U.S. diplomat who worked for both Presidents Bush, said that the "region (and possibly the world) will be the battlefield."

But comments from Iran's New York-based envoy to the UN, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, that "we have to act and we will act" further raise the prospect of an all-out war. "The U.S. started the economic war in May 2018 and last night they started a military war by an act of terror against one of our top generals," Takht-Ravanchi said in remarks published by Iranian state media.

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Trump abandoned a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers 18 months ago, reinstating sanctions on Iran's economy and oil sector. Soleimani's killing comes after months of rising tensions and tit-for-tat hostilities between the U.S. and Iran resulting from Trump's decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear accord negotiated by President Obama. Among the hostilities: downing each other's drones in the Persian Gulf. Washington also accuses Iran of being behind a series of attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities in September, and of sabotaging and detaining allied oil tankers in the region in May and June.

The envoy's remarks come as thousands of mourners marched in a funeral procession through Baghdad for Iran's top general and Iraqi militant leaders –including Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, the leader of a pro-Iran militia group in Iraq – who were killed alongside Soleimani. The mourners chanted "Death to America, death to Israel" while carrying pictures of the two men.

Iraq's prime minister joined the procession, according to Iran Front Page, a privately-held Iranian website that publishes news about Iran in English.

Soleimani's body will later be returned to Iran for a funeral and burial.

As the head of Quds Force, a branch of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Soleimani directed pro-Iranian militias or proxies from Lebanon to Yemen. At the time of his death, he was managing and mobilizing militias across Iraq, including groups responsible for a recent siege on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

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Osamah Khalil, a Middle East expert at Syracuse University, said that the killings of Soleimani and Al-Muhandis, "were a dangerous and ill-advised escalation by the United States. Their deaths will make it more difficult to resolve the ongoing tensions between Washington and Tehran and will only destabilize Iraq further."

Khalil added: "Rather than ending the endless wars as he promised, President Trump's actions have ensured more conflict and instability."

A day after the attack on Soleimani, Iraqi television said an airstrike hit two cars carrying Iran-backed militants north of Baghdad, killing six people. The U.S. military said it was not responsible for the new strike. The Pentagon has deployed an extra 3,000 troops to the Middle East to help respond to any backlash.

Fabian Hinz, a Berlin-based expert in missile proliferation and Iran's military, said that while U.S. military technology and hardware capabilities far exceed Iran's, in the event of a full-blown conventional conflict a quagmire can be expected, and that Iran would likely restart its mothballed nuclear weapons program, undercutting the rationale for Trump's decision to pull out of the accord.

"Iran would likely rely mostly on asymmetric capabilities in any conflict," said Hinz. "This will include ballistic missiles, proxy militias, naval swarming attacks, mini-submarines, drones and cyberattacks."

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