The killing of Iran's top general won't stop a war. The US and Iran have already been fighting for more than 40 years

(CNN)US President Donald Trump says he ordered the assassination on Friday of Iran's top general, Qasem Soleimani, "to stop a war." But that's simply not true. Rather than stop a war, Trump just called Tehran's bluff and wagered all in with the single most daring American act in a conflict that's been raging for years. No American president has ever taken the fight to Tehran like this. It's bold. It's provocative. And it could set the Middle East aflame -- but it is most definitely not stopping a war. Why? Because the war between the United States of America and Iran has been underway for more than 40 years. None of this is a secret. It's just that most Americans don't know they've been at war with Iran. It's been out of their sight and, so, out of their minds. Friday's drone strike that took out Soleimani is but merely one more bump on a well-worn, long, and winding road of a conflict that's been killing people for generations. It is a war with an origin story that dates all the way back to 1953. That's when the Iranians believe America truly picked this fight. For, in 1953, the US staged a coup d'etat in Iran to take down a popular, secular and nationalist prime minister, only to put an indulgent monarch, known as the Shah, in charge. It's that American coup that led to the 1979 revolution that placed an ayatollah on the throne and the rule of the mullahs still in power today. The very same mullahs that the now-dead General Soleimani served.