After a few days of quiet, Iran carried out its promised “severe revenge” for the United States’ killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani last week.

On Wednesday morning in the Middle East, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched 22 missiles at two American-run bases in Iraq. The attack was symbolically significant but resulted in limited damage and no loss of life. It demonstrated Iran’s ability to hit American assets in the region, but was calculated to give President Trump an off-ramp from escalating tensions into an all-out war.

Thankfully, he seems ready to take it. But even if war was avoided this time, heightened tensions and sporadic attacks will be the new normal in the Middle East.

The killing of General Suleimani surprised Iran experts. While as the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ special operations unit, the Quds Force, the general was certainly a threat to the United States, no previous administration had wanted to risk the potentially high cost of taking him out. When President Trump did, it set off fury among Iran’s leaders — and much of the Iranian population. Tehran could not let the assassination of one of its most senior and popular officials go unpunished.