For a few days last month it looked like a war between the US and Iran was likely. First, on 3 January, General Qasem Soleimani, the highest ranking military figure in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, was assassinated by a US drone strike. This caused deep anger in Iran, prompting a retaliatory missile attack on an Iraqi base known to house many US troops.
The fear was of a rapid further escalation with a forceful military response from Donald Trump, but it came to nothing as he tweeted that no US troops had been affected so no further action was required. The implication was that the Iranian attack had been little more than a pinprick designed to assuage domestic public opinion. As far as Trump was concerned, the matter was over.
That was how it seemed, at least at first. Indeed, other reports from Washington spoke of the Iranians even warning the Iraqis about the impending attack and that the missiles were aimed at remote parts of the sprawling Ain al-Asad air base, itself out in the desert and a hundred miles west of Baghdad.
