21 Jan 2020

How will the US-Iran crisis evolve?

From Nine To Noon, 9:05 am on 21 January 2020
Iranians take part in an anti-US rally to protest the killings during a US air strike of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis on January 4, 2020 in Tehran, Iran.

Photo: AFP

On January 3rd the US drone strike against top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad, set in motion a chain of events which are still playing out.

While debate continues about the ethics of the killing, questions keep coming about  the downing of a Ukrainian passenger aircraft near the Tehran Airport by Iranian missiles, with the loss of 176 lives.

Add to that protests on the streets of Iran, an Iran nuclear deal left in tatters, and Iranian parliamentary elections in exactly one month. So how will the tensions reverberate throughout Iranian, Middle Eastern and US politics?

Negar Mortazavi is an Iranian-American journalist and media analyst based in Washington.

Iranian Red Crescent posted images showing debris from the Ukraine International Airlines plane crash in Tehran, Iran on 08 January, 2020.

Iranian Red Crescent posted images showing debris from the Ukraine International Airlines plane crash in Tehran, Iran on 08 January, 2020. Photo: Iranian Red Crescent / Twitter