So let me offer this general observation three days into the new year: 2020 isn’t wasting any time. Turkey may be about to send soldiers to Libya. North Korea may be planning to do something big and provocative. Southern Yemeni leaders have pulled out of their peace talks with the Yemeni government, potentially reopening that front in the Yemeni war. The Taliban may be about to declare a ceasefire in Afghanistan . . . or, then again, maybe not. Australia is rapidly becoming uninhabitable, while its climate change–denying prime minister just sort of sits there and watches.

And, now, Donald Trump may have finally started an actual war with Iran.

A story that began Thursday evening with sketchy reports about one or possibly two missile attacks outside Baghdad airport has developed into a confirmed report that the United States has killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad. In the same drone strike, the United States also reportedly killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy leader of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Committee (PMC), which is the body that oversees Iraq’s myriad militia factions. Although technically the deputy head of the PMC, al-Muhandis was also the leader of Iraq’s arguably most influential militia, Kata’ib Hezbollah, which made him arguably the most powerful figure within the Iraqi militia community. His death is a huge escalation in Iraq’s latest political crisis, which we’ll discuss presently. But obviously his death, and its repercussions, are totally overshadowed by Soleimani’s.