Are we ready for what comes next?

The question at the heart of the attack on Iran’s Gen. Qassem Soleimani isn’t one of legality or justification.

It’s not whether Soleimani deserved to be killed, or whether U. S. President Donald Trump had the constitutional power to order the strike, or whether White House claims of an “imminent threat” hold water, all of which have consumed extensive oxygen since the attack took place. Surely few public figures could deserve death more than the man who spent his life stoking hatred and violence across the Middle East. The issue of constitutional responsibilities is real, but was just as real when the Obama administration was the one enthusiastically picking drone targets. As for the matter of imminence: Soleimani’s very existence was a threat to innocent lives, as the corpses of so many of his victims attest.

The world is unquestionably better off without him. Whether it is safer is the key question. We’ve been in this situation before, and the outcome doesn’t bode well: In 2003 the administration of George W. Bush set out to make the world “safer” by overthrowing Saddam Hussein. The main goal was quickly accomplished; Iraq’s army was no match for American might, and Saddam, found hiding in a hole in the ground, died at the end of a rope.

Unfortunately, it soon became evident no one had made solid plans for what to do next. The bright minds in Washington assumed happy Iraqis would hail them as liberators, and democracy would quickly ensue. Seventeen years later stability remains a distant dream. Corruption is rife, foreign militias prowl the countryside and diplomats hunker down behind walls in the relative safety of the Green Zone. Soleimani’s activities in Iraq and Syria are a direct consequence of the mistakes made in 2003.

There is no evidence the current president or any of his advisers put much more thought into the likely reverberations from targeting Soleimani than Bush did when going after Saddam. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the West’s most important defence pact, received no advance notice, despite the obvious danger an aroused Iran represents for a continent well within its missile range (which the U.S. is not). There was no heads- up for European leaders, who are party to the Iranian nuclear pact originally championed by the U. S., and who are still struggling to cope with the refugee influx caused by the Iranian- backed civil war in Syria.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wasn’t told either, although Canada, like Europe, has troops in Iraq, and on Thursday Trudeau had the sad duty of announcing the unforeseen horrors that come from countries lobbing missiles at one another. A total of 138 people headed to Canada, including 57 Canadians, died in a plane crash outside Tehran, caused, Trudeau said, by an Iranian surface- to- air missile. Whether the strike was unintentional, as Trudeau suggested, is of little comfort to the families and friends of the victims.

If any of this unsettled the Trump administration, there’s no sign. There is ample evidence of confusion, however. The White House raised the issue of imminent danger, then couldn’t offer specifics. Trump suggested NATO should weigh in against Iranian retaliation, despite years of treating the alliance like an unwanted relation. “His failure to consult the allies or take their interests into consideration will make it extremely difficult to get their support,” Nicholas Burns, a former U. S. ambassador to NATO, observed dryly.

The president insisted the strike would lead to greater security, but sent thousands more troops to join the 80,000 American soldiers already in the Middle East. He got into a slanging match with the Iraqi government after it voted to demand U. S. troops go home, and threatened dozens more strikes on Iran, including cultural targets, until informed he’d be committing a war crime.

“If that’s what the law is, I will — I like to obey the law,” he said, an assertion those seeking to impeach him on charges of abuse of power no doubt found interesting.

The administration believes it has pulled off a great triumph. Iran “appears to be standing down” after firing a few missiles at U.S. air bases, the president said. “All is well!” he tweeted when it became apparent damage to the bases was limited. Tehran’s assertion it “took and concluded proportionate measures” was hailed as a sign that would be the end of it.

We can only hope. Perhaps the U. S. will get lucky, and against all precedent this will be the time Iran’s rigid rulers decide to let bygones be bygones, quietly accepting a stinging loss administered by its most hated foe. It seems unlikely, but it’s altogether more comforting than the alternative, which is the thought of the most powerful military force in the history of the world, a nuclear-armed colossus able to administer instant death from a screening room in the Nevada desert, in the hands of an erratic, unpredictable president who acts on a whim without advising allies, thinking through the implications or making preparations for the aftermath.

Soleimani deserved what he got, and maybe the Iranians will alter their abhorrent behaviour to avoid further strikes. That’s what we’ll hope for. But a hope is all it is. If this continues to escalate, it will be a major crisis for the West ... one we do not seem up to facing.

SOLEIMANI’S ACTIVITIES IN IRAQ AND SYRIA ARE A DIRECT CONSEQUENCE OF THE MISTAKES MADE IN 2003.