From the Heritage Foundation, I'm Michelle Cordero, and this is Heritage Explains.

Since our last episode, a lot has happened between Iran and the United States.

It started two days after Christmas when at least

30 dozen rockets were launched at a military base in Iraq. An American contractor was killed and

several service members were injured. It was this attack that started the chain of events we saw

play out this week.

In response, the U.S. ordered drone strikes on Iraq and Syria.

And then in response to that, there was a violent Iranian-backed protest on the American embassy in Baghdad.

Protesters shouted death to America as they set fires through rocks and used battering

rams to try and enter the embassy.

And what happened next was huge.

Breaking news from the Middle East where a U.S. drone strike killed one of Iran's most powerful military

leaders overnight.

The targeted killing of Major General Qasem Soleimani inside Iraq is a dramatic escalation

in the confrontation between the U.S. and Iran.

The Defense Department released a statement that said the strike was aimed at deterring

future Iranian attack plans. Americans waited for Iran's retaliation. And then on Wednesday,

Iran fired over a dozen ballistic missiles into Iraqi military bases, where U.S. military personnel

are housed and operate. Remarkably, no U.S. military personnel are housed and operate.

Remarkably, no one was injured.

Here's James Carapano, Vice President of Heritage's Catherine and Shelby Cullum Davis Institute

for National Security and Foreign Policy in an interview on Fox News that evening.

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