After several days of tense and violent interactions with Iran, the world gave a collective sigh of relief after President Donald Trump reported a de-escalation with Iran - and Iran seemed to agree. Back at home, the impeachment process has been stalled for weeks, but now a trial could occur as soon as next week.
After Trump executed an attack against one of Iran's top generals, Qasem Soleimani, the country erupted into chaos. Thousands of mourners flooded the streets of Tehran and Soleimani's birthplace for his funeral which resulted in a stampede. At least 56 people were killed and hundreds more were injured. Iran responded to the killing of Soleimani by firing more than a dozen missiles at two U.S. bases in Iraq. In an unexpected twist, thankfully, there were no casualties. The main reason why was actually Iran itself. Iran signaled the attack to American intelligence hours before it occurred. Despite this, Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard's Aerospace Force, said the attack was not meant to kill anyone "although tens of U.S. troops have likely been killed and wounded."
Not so, says the U.S. After initially flip-flopping on whether or not they thought Iran had meant for this to be a deadly attack, the Administration has announced that the attack was meant to be lethal. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters, "There's no doubt in my judgment, as I observed the Iranian activity in the region that night, they had the full intention of carrying - killing U.S. forces, whether that was our military folks or diplomatic folks who were in the region." Experts suggest that if any Americans had been killed, retaliation would have been swift and potentially brutal.
On the same night as the attack, a plane bound for Ukraine from Baghdad crashed, killing 176 people. At the time, it was unclear whether or not these two events were related, and Iran was denying any involvement. Iran has since admitted that the plane was shot down accidentally by their forces.
The citizens of Iran are now protesting the government in massive numbers. Enraged at the accidental downing of the Ukrainian plane, protesters are calling for the removal of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and for those responsible for crash to be prosecuted.
In the U.S., lawmakers are concerned over the justification and legality of the inciting attack against Soleimani. The Administration has given several reasons, primarily that Soleimani presented an imminent threat. And yet, officials say they had no knowledge of any such threat. After a briefing with administration officials over the killing, Sen. Mike Lee, Rep., said the briefers were "insulting and demeaning" the Senators when they asked them not to discuss the actions against Iran and their justification. In response to the President's actions surrounding the attack, Sen. Tim Kaine is planning to bring a resolution to the floor of the Senate to limit Trump's war powers. Currently, he's trying to get together enough Republicans, as well as all of the Democrats, needed to pass the resolution.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced she's ready to stop stalling the impeachment process. Pelosi was waiting to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate in an effort to ensure a fair trial. While that is unlikely to happen, more evidence has come out in the time that she's waited, as has an announcement from former national security advisor John Bolton that he would be willing to testify in the Senate trial. Pelosi's decision to move ahead likely came as a result of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell news that he had enough votes in the Senate to ratify a structure for the trial that will delay deciding on the question of whether or not to call witnesses.
