Washington and Tehran have remained locked in a months-long standoff that only continues to escalate. It’s partly why the Eurasia Group, a prominent international consulting firm, now puts the chance of “a limited or major military confrontation” at 40 percent.īut the seeds of conflict weren’t planted with Thursday’s airstrikes alone.

Iran has every incentive to retaliate, experts says, using its proxies to target US commercial interests in the Middle East, American allies, or even American troops and diplomats hunkered down in regional bases and embassies. Qassem Soleimani, who led Iranian covert operations and intelligence and was one of the country’s most senior leaders, brought Washington and Tehran closer to fighting that war. Welcome to the US-Iran war, which has the potential to be one of the worst conflicts in history. And thousands - perhaps hundreds of thousands - killed in a conflict that would dwarf the war in Iraq. Nearly untraceable, ruthless proxies spreading chaos on multiple continents.

Fallout 1 fog of war