How Donald Trump planned the drone strike with a tight circle of aides

The Trump administration had recently asked France and other allies to warn Tehran against killing Americans, according to one of the people. For the president, a red line had been crossed

Iranian general Qassem Soleimani haunted the US for more than two decades, a lethal adversary blamed for the deaths of hundreds of American troops in the Middle East.
 
Yet his stature as the second most powerful person in Iran made him almost untouchable in the eyes of Donald Trump’s predecessors.
 
That longstanding U.S. restraint ended in dramatic fashion Thursday with Trump’s order to launch a nighttime airstrike in Baghdad that killed Soleimani and drove tensions with Iran to the boiling point.
 
The president’s decision to target the powerful head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force