In the early morning hours of Jan. 3, a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper shot a missile into a car carrying Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian general who had, for more than two decades, led the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, an elite unit dedicated to the “export of revolution.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the strike on Soleimani “provocative and disproportionate.” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff snapped, “I don’t know what the president’s motivation here is, but I think it was a reckless decision.” “World War III” began trending on Twitter, and university students panicked that college loans could make them draft-eligible.