Iran crisis needs calm heads

French Deputy Foreign Minister Amelie de Montchalin had some chilling words in the wake of Friday’s assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in a drone attack outside Baghdad airport in Iraq.

“We have woken up to a more dangerous world,” she said.

And no matter which side you sympathise with, or even if you couldn’t care less because you live on the other side of the world, this latest Middle East crisis threatens to have serious global repercussions.

It doesn’t help that US President Donald Trump has threatened to lay waste to 52 sites in Iran – including important cultural and historic ones – if Tehran retaliates for the killing.

Soleimani was no paragon of virtue but, so far, Washington has offered no detailed information about why he posed such a clear and present danger to the United States and its citizens.

Again, without taking sides, it is worrying that America, which has long considered itself the global police officer, now appears ready to take on the roles of judge, jury and executioner.

This is a time for calm heads – but we fear there won’t be many of them and that war, in a very different form, lies ahead

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