So how alarming WAS the Iran-attack-plotting intelligence?

The trouble with taking preemptive action to try and stop an imminent attack is that it can then lead to a retaliatory strike which defeats the whole point. That's exactly what has happened in the current US/Iran confrontation. The US claimed to have such alarming intelligence of an imminent Iranian plot to attack American forces in the Middle East that President Trump authorised the assassination of the man doing the plotting, Major-General Qasem Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force. Kill Soleimani and eliminate the imminent threat. Four days later Iran launches more than a dozen medium-range ballistic missiles at two bases in Iraq occupied by American troops. So the assassination did not stop an attack, it provoked one. Interestingly Trump must have been warned that it looked like Iran was about to launch a missile attack - satellite imagery? - but there were no moves to take preemptive action on this occasion and hit the missile bases before they could be launched. You wonder why not. What was "intelligence" saying in the lead-up to the missile launches at 2am local Iranian time? And, most important, how spectacular was the intelligence that led to Trump's decision to hit Soleimani as soon as he had arrived at Baghdad airport last Friday? Was it really warning of a specific imminent attack? If so, Soleimani was taking a helluva risk turning up in Baghdad just when an attack inspired by him was about to take place. How specific was the intelligence? When asked about the status of the intelligence, General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave no details when asked by reporters but rather coyly implied that if they had seen what he and Mark Esper, his political boss at the Pentagon, had seen they would understand what it was all about. Ha! I've heard that one before over the years. "If only you could see the intelligence stuff I have to see every day, you would be astonished," one British defence secretary once told me in confidence. The fact is that however alarming the intelligence was, it cannot be acceptable under international law for a nation's president to kill another country's senior military commander however much blood he has on his hands. Many many many people, some of them presidents and prime ministers, have blood on their hands. So this justification is not really justifiable. However, if any case can be made under law for killing Soleimani then it must be a decision made within the context of a strategic plan and with the clearest expectation of the likely consequences. Where did the strategic thinking come from on this occasion, was it from the Pentagon, the State Department or the White House? Did Esper and Milley say to Trump: "Well there is always the option to target this monster Soleimani but we would seriously advise against it and you would need to seek the advice of the attorney general." But if that is what they thought, why did the Pentagon include the kill-Soleimani option at all? Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, is reported to have been a strong advocate for this option but then he has always hated Iran, just like his former cabinet colleague John Bolton. So hitting Soleimani had probably been on his agenda ever since he took over at the State Department. Bolton has made it clear he thoroughly approved. So we're back to the big questions: how serious and authentic was the intelligence (we may never know), did the preemptive attack actually eliminate the threat (NO), and what does Trump really want to do in the Middle East? Keep US troops in Iraq for ever? After the ballistic-missile attack on the two bases, his instinct will be to say no no no, get them out of there. So perhaps Brigadier-General William Seely's letter to the Iraqi government will come back into play after all!!