On The Warpath: An attack on a vehicle convoy outside Baghdad last night took out five or six members of an Iranian-backed paramilitary group. The militants say the dead were medics and not senior leaders. The attack bears the signature of the US, but so far the Pentagon hasn’t said anything.

 As tensions ratchet up in Iraq, President Trump ordered a brigade of the 82^nd Airborne to the Middle East and the State Department has advised Americans to get out of Iraq. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the US killed Iraq’s most prominent general to interrupt an imminent attack and President Trump claims he did it to avoid a war, but war is what he might get if Iran strikes back.

  Today, tens of thousands of pro-Iranian fighters marched in the streets of Baghdad for the funeral of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, waving flags and chanting, “Revenge is coming.” 

  The US killed Iran’s number two man, Suleimani, in a  drone strike at the Baghdad International Airport Thursday night. “Suleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him,” Trump said to reporters at his Florida resort. “We took action last night to stop a war, we did not take action to start a war.”

  Trump also tweeted that, “He should have been taken out many years ago!”

  Both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama considered killing Suleimani, but restrained themselves for fear of the repercussions. It’s a strange thing in international relations; you can get away with killing soldiers and civilians, but assassinating a leader is a big taboo. Iran, if it decides to take revenge, could be expected to avoid direct military confrontation and attack anywhere around the world.

  The contingent of 82^nd Airborne is 3,500 soldiers in addition to 750 sent a few days ago. Trump appears to be escalating one of America’s “endless wars” that he campaigned on promises to end. He once accused Barack Obama of planning to start a war in order to get re-elected. 

  The tensions with Iran began to spin up when Trump pulled out of the nuclear arms treaty in May of 2018 and tightened economic sanctions. Iran embarked on a series of provocations, including a missile attack on a Saudi oil installation.

 The latest conflict started when a rocket attack a week ago killed an American contractor at an Iraqi military base. The US then bombed Iran-backed militia bases in western Iraq and Syria. The militias responded with coordinated riots at the US embassy in Baghdad’s secure Green Zone.

  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed after the Suleimani killing that, “The world is a much safer place today. I can assure you that Americans in the region are much safer.” At the same time, the State Department issued an alert for Americans to “depart Iraq immediately.”

  And of course, they also say, don’t go to Iran.

The Money Poll: Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts raised $21.2 million for her presidential campaign in the fourth quarter of 2019. That’s less than her previous quarter and it leaves her fourth behind three top rivals for the Democratic nomination.

  The order of popularity in the fourth quarter money poll is Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, and Warren. Sen. Amy Klobuchar collected $11.4 million in the fourth quarter.

Divorce Court: The United Methodist Church is expected to split into two denominations in an attempt to end a years-long fight over same-sex marriage. The schism would divide the nation’s third-largest religious denomination.

  Church leaders said they had agreed to spin off a “traditionalist Methodist” denomination, which would continue to oppose same-sex marriage and refuse ordination to non-straight clergy. The other wing of the United Methodist Church would permit same-sex marriage and LGBT clergy for the first time in its history.

The Fires This Time: Today was expected to be the worst day yet in Australia’s continuing wildfire crisis as temperatures spike. Fifteen million acres have burned and Prime Minister Scott Morrison is sending in 3,000 military reservists to fight the fires. 

  As the fires churn toward coastal towns, thousands of residents have been evacuated by ship.

  A picture in The NY Times  shows a kangaroo leaping past a home burning to its framework. Ecologists at the University of Sydney have estimated that the fires have either killed or badly injured 480 million animals, including birds, mammals and reptiles. Some of the worst fires are in northern New South Wales, where as much as a quarter of the koala bear population may have been killed.

  Prime Minister Morrison is a climate change denier who says the fires have nothing to with man’s influence on nature. Many Australians say this is the moment to wake up.

  Australian novelist Richard Flanagan writes in The NY Times that, “Australia today is ground zero for the climate catastrophe.” He writes that, “The images of the fires are a cross between “Mad Max” and “On the Beach”: thousands driven onto beaches in a dull orange haze, crowded tableaux of people and animals almost medieval in their strange muteness — half-Bruegel, half-Bosch, ringed by fire, survivors’ faces hidden behind masks and swimming goggles. Day turns to night as smoke extinguishes all light in the horrifying minutes before the red glow announces the imminence of the inferno. Flames leaping 200 feet into the air. Fire tornadoes. Terrified children at the helm of dinghies, piloting away from the flames, refugees in their own country.”

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