President Trump warned Iran in recent days that it would pay a very big price for attacking our embassy in Baghdad. With his actions taken this week to authorize a strike against the top terrorist leader in the Middle East, he clearly meant it. Make no mistake, Iranian IRGC General Qassem Soleimani had it coming.

Soleimani was arguably the most powerful and dangerous actor in the Middle East. No other individual has had more influence or been directly responsible for more destabilization in the region. Wherever there has been chaos and turmoil in the region, you can bet you will find Soleimani’s fingerprints.

Iran is in the business of exporting terrorism and Soleimani was its CEO, spreading terrorism in an effort to expand Iranian influence.

IRAN VOWS 'HARSH RETALIATION' AFTER US AIRSTRIKE KILLS IRANIAN GEN. QASSEM SOLEIMANI

On top of the orchestrated attack recently on our embassy in Iraq, Soleimani was directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers during the Iraq war and wounding of thousands more.

I was nearly killed when Iranian rockets ripped through a building I operated out of near Baghdad years ago, an attack no doubt directed by Soleimani and his thugs. Other soldiers that day were not so lucky.

If Soleimani had been left to operate with impunity, he would have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds more Americans. But not any longer. His reign of terror is over.

The president just did what was necessary to protect American lives. The world is no doubt a safer place because Soleimani is dead.

For those of us who have lived through the evil that is the Iranian regime, the situation in the region had gone past the point where the U.S. government could simply sit back and do nothing. -- We already tried the do-nothing approach. It didn’t work.

Our inaction for decades, despite concrete evidence of Iran’s attacks on American interests, only emboldened the Iranian regime to conduct more attacks. And that’s just what they did.

For years, Soleimani was a man considered by many to be untouchable. No one believed that more than the man himself, that’s why he was in Baghdad.

He felt safe and surrounded by his fighters, with senior members of the Iraqi government also in his back pocket to protect his every move.

Any member of the U.S. intelligence community who has focused on Iran knows about Soleimani’s evil deeds and has wondered why he wasn’t stopped a long time ago.

I can tell you from first-hand knowledge that we have had the opportunity to capture or kill Soleimani many times before, we just never did it.

He had been tracked by the U.S. government for a long time. There were multiple opportunities to take him out before but the order from higher-ups had always been to just monitor his movements, for fear of a never-ending tit-for-tat escalation: we take out one of their officers and they take out one of ours.

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So what happens next?

Soleimani’s death is a major loss to the Iranian regime. The mullahs will use it to galvanize support internally with their own people.

Iran will feel compelled to respond to the Soleimani assassination. The country’s leaders will look weak if they don’t.

People are also worried about what Iran will do to us. Truthfully, it should really be the opposite, Iran should be worried about what we are going to do next.

If we were willing to go as far as taking out their top general, what would we do if they continued to attack us?

President Trump took a risk by approving the assassination of Soleimani but he made the right decision to give the U.S. the upper hand.

Iran will have to weigh its options at a time when their country is facing more internal struggles from its people than ever before.

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Iran’s ruling class will no doubt see the Soleimani strike as an act of war. But then, in many ways, the Iranian regime has already declared war on us. They made that very clear when they attacked our embassy in Iraq which is American soil.

I can only hope that they will think twice about their next move. It might be their last.

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