Discussing the killing of Iran’s IRGC Qods force commander Qasem Soleimani in a U.S. strike, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo remarked that Soleimani “was actively plotting in the region to take actions – a big action, as he described it – that would have put dozens if not hundreds of American lives at risk… We know it was imminent. This was an intelligence-based assessment that drove our decision-making process”. “Know that this was not just in Iraq”, Pompeo indicated. “It was throughout the region. It was using these proxy forces that he has manipulated for so long to bring so much destruction to the Shiites and Sunnis, the Muslims throughout the region”. He went on to maintain that “we have every expectation that people not only in Iraq, but in Iran will view the American action last night as giving them freedom”. “Americans in the region are much safer today after the demise of Qasem Soleimani”, he added.