LONDON – Following the United States’ assassination of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Suleimani and Iran’s initial retaliation against two Iraqi bases housing US troops, financial markets moved into risk-off mode: oil prices spiked by 10 percent, US and global equities dropped by a few percentage points, and safe-haven bond yields fell. In short order, though, despite the continuing risks of a US-Iran conflict and the implications that it would have for markets, the view that both sides would eschew further escalation calmed investors and reversed these price movements, with equities even approaching new highs.

STANFORD – The assassination by the United States of Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, was certainly a major escalation in the two countries’ long-running conflict. But it need not beget World War III (as some pundits are already predicting). Moreover, while the US may have achieved a short-term tactical advantage by killing Suleimani, the Iranian regime could yet benefit from recent developments.

TEL AVIV – We no longer live in an era in which wars are officially declared. The US drone strike that killed Qassem Suleimani, the charismatic commander of Iran’s Quds Force, is but one landmark event in a multiyear, multi-front war between the US and its allies and Iran and its many proxies.