The real question to ask about the American drone attack that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani was not whether it was justified, but whether it was wise. Many pieces of the puzzle are still missing, but the killing is a big leap in an uncertain direction.

General Suleimani was indisputably an enemy of the American people, a critical instrument of the Iranian theocracy’s influence across the Middle East and an architect of international terrorism responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans and a great many others in the region, from Yemen to Syria. He no doubt had a role in the campaign of provocations by Shiite militias against American forces in Iraq that recently led to the death of an American defense contractor and a retaliatory American airstrike against the militia responsible for the attack.

It may well be that General Suleimani had come to Iraq in part to plot the next move against United States military personnel or civilians when his car was blown up by a missile from an American Reaper drone. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a senior commander of a Shiite militia in Iraq, was also killed. But then, General Suleimani and his whereabouts have long been well known to American and other intelligence services, and Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama had resisted killing him for fear of setting off a greater conflict with Iran and further destabilizing a chronically volatile region.

Assassinating General Suleimani, moreover, was not the same as hunting down Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leaders of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, both terrorists who answered to no government. General Suleimani was a senior official of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and openly targeting him was a sharp escalation in the conflict between the United States and Iran, all but taunting Iran to strike back. And that by a president who had previously demonstrated strong aversion to American involvement in the Middle East, contempt for intelligence from the region and occasional reluctance to order the use of military force.