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But these are high-risk gambles with much at stake.

For the moment, the United States faces a dramatic break with Iraq, a country it has deeply invested in for nearly 17 years, and hard-liners in Tehran have consolidated their domestic position by capitalizing on anger at America. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, may not immediately mount a response, but it is widely assumed that he will act at some point, whether through violence or cyber means.

“When that response occurs, and depending on what it is, the ball will be squarely back in Trump’s court, presenting him with an equally fateful decision,” said Robert Malley, the president of the International Crisis Group and a former Middle East adviser to President Barack Obama. “Does he escalate further, as he has warned, and risk a far longer, bloodier and costlier military confrontation? Or does he seek an off ramp?”

Mr. Trump has said he took out General Suleimani, whose forces have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American troops over the years, not to start a war but to stop one; his advisers asserted, without providing evidence, that the Iranian commander was plotting an “imminent” attack. At the same time, the president has ratcheted up his talk of war, vowing to respond to any Iranian provocations with overwhelming force, including strikes at Iranian cultural sites that some experts said would amount to a war crime.