>>508450598Realistically, Iran knows they’d be poking a bear but they’re also stuck between a rock and a hard place. They have to show some retaliation gesture. The tit-for-tat would be decimating some American installation they can spin as strategically important for us without loss of life but there aren’t any. So their choice is basically strike an American base where they purposely kill no one but spin to their people they retaliated or go full on strike, kill Americans, and we go to war.
I really don’t think Trump thought this through because from the beginning he has been demanding Iran just lie down and die, that is the ultimatum he is giving them now, and yet they have never done that at any step of the way. Besides, if somehow tensions did simmer, or they didn’t retaliate, Israel would just find new ways to drag us in or else relations with the Iranians continue to sour. They’re not going to let go of their nuclear program. Their choice is fight it out or go the way of Saddam. Trump doesn’t seem to get that. His ego is so big he thinks he can just demand submission and get it. He believes the generals in his ear telling him we’d run roughshod over Iran just like Bush had generals telling him the same about Iraq and Afghanistan.