I suspect that they never thought that the americans would be so utterly reckless as to target him in this blatant fashion,its one thing to openly target a common terrorist in this way its quite another to do this to one of the iranian military top brass and with an attack as blatant as this there is no possibility of any sort of claim of plausible deniability as to us involvement.Effectively the us has just gone and put bullseyes on the foreheads of all of its highest ranking military and political personnel in the persian gulf,thats the reason why you dont engage in this sort of behavior its little different to assassinating heads of state,you`re basically risking an escalating cycle of tit-for-tat killings that can spin out of control.Sadly tho when one is dealing with a neo fascist chump rules of any kind,be they written or unwritten,matter less than nothing.The only real question now is how and when iran will retaliate,will it be blunt and obvious as the americans have done ie an iranian drone strike on a very high value us military or political target or will it be more along the lines of a very carefully planned strike by the iraqi hezbollah with iran saying nothing as was the case in lebanon with the retaliation against israel for its assassination of an irgc general.Now I think that had it been anyone else but soliemani that might very well be the chosen option,but the public murder of such a popular figure really doesnt leave iran many options as there will no doubt be a great deal of popular outrage and demand for appropriate revenge from the populace.Ultimately I think that there will be considerable pressure not just for iran to act but to be seen to act so as to send the message to all in the region that this sort of action will have very real consequences.
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