Just had a lengthy chat with an ex-US intel officer who worked on Iran and Iraq. "It’s war. It was always been somewhat of a war, but when you cut his head off, that’s war. There’s no other way around it. Now you have to deal with the second and third-order effects," he said.

— Borzou Daragahi 🖊🗒 (@borzou) January 3, 2020