During the past week I’ve spoken to a number of skilled and experienced observers of the region, and every one them is hard put to make sense of Iranian motives. In the absence of a rational explanation, let me offer this one: The mullahs are nuts. I don’t mean that they are nuts in the way that a power-mad tinpot dictator is nuts, but rather that they are world-historically, existentially, and metaphysically nuts. Their character and circumstances, that is to say, impel them toward actions that would be irrational for another character under other circumstances.
The treatment of Iran by the Obama administration was probably the biggest (among many) of its foreign-policy disasters.
The attacks certainly seemed impotent. Other than a lot of excitement for newspapers, there really isn’t much there. Oil prices moved up after the attacks yet are still 10% lower than a month ago. The actions by the Trump Administration to move some troops to the region only seems prudent, but I think Trump will just point out that the international community needs the safe transport of oil from the region more than the US does.
I think there are people using Iran as a puppet to influence other events. The mullahs may be nuts, but they are lazy too. Something is prompting them to action, and it isn’t US provocation.
Well they are Twelvers after all waiting for the final Mahdi to usher in the apocalypse.
You think they’re trying to immanentize the eschaton?
Things must be wrapping up in Syria if they have the resources to start fighting on other fronts. It looks like they were blocked from starting another war in Iraq. Bush and Obama both dropped the ball when it came to kicking Iran out of Iraq. They were responsible for a lot of American deaths but they were also responsible for starting the civil war there and killing a lot of Iraqis.
It could be that Kerry and the Democrat’s foreign allies are encouraging Iran to see if Trump is bluffing. It follows Democrat’s tactic of finding next best alternatives no matter what happens. If Trump doesn’t respond, then he looks weak and his military threats lose power. If he does respond, Democrats get to frame him as starting wars. He campaigned on not getting entangled in wars and many people supported him for it.
There are a lot of options short of war, even if some of those options are splodey.
The fact there was an Obama Administration was a disaster on many levels.