The personnel apparently had an advance warning and took shelter. The Iraq government was informed in advance of the attack on their soil and passed it on to the foreign military stationed in their country.
Missiles show up on radar (and people near the launch sites posted video of them taking off, too), and military bases have hardened shelters for staff and critical equipment.
As far as full military, sure. But their rudimentary guided srbm's are not the best by any measure. Their best still use infrared or standard gps for guidance. That is early 90s tech by american standards.
Edit: wiki shows even lower tech ballistic style electromechanical guidance on their page. Thats 1960s tech.
Those missiles landed dead-center on buildings. (Seriously, look at the images!) This demonstrates an impressive operational capability to select which targets to destroy.
The retired general who was Central Command leader at one point said their missile tech has become highly improved in the past few years. Here they missed on purpose.
I could not see any impact/blast marks in empty areas. If they missed, they missed wide of this photo. Every blast mark looked like it hit something. Especially the one that hit a hanger looks like it destroyed an airplane, probably a C-130?
> As far as full military, sure. But their rudimentary guided srbm's are not the best by any measure. Their best still use infrared or standard gps for guidance. That is early 90s tech by american standards.
> Edit: wiki shows even lower tech ballistic style electromechanical guidance on their page. Thats 1960s tech.
I'm not so quick to dismiss these Iranian missiles. They seem to be accurate and able to effectively perform the job they were meant to do. It's a mistake to classify military technology as lower=worse/higher=better like it's a tech tree from a videogame. Inertial navigation systems like these missiles seem to have are actually superior to GPS in many circumstances that are relevant here. Yes, they drift, but that's not a huge issue over a short flight time. More importantly, they're self-contained, jam-proof, and don't rely on a service provided by an adversary.
By the 1960s, contemporary military capabilities were such that wiping out all of humanity was possible. It's absolutely unwise to dismiss old military tech.
Iran has a very backwards military with almost no air force and no serious navy power at all.
The few planes they have are mostly ancient and their navy consists of speed boats.
They have a thousand tanks that are a mixture of ancient and more modern tanks with medium capability compared to the US.
They have a large standing army that is moderately well trained, with some large elite forces, and they have good ballistic missile capabilities. They have almost zero ability to properly defend their territory from the US when it comes to air strikes. They have almost no ability to keep up a foreign strike outside of their borders, with their ballistic missile stockpile being their sole means. Basically they have almost no ability to sustain foreign strike capability via their military. Outside their borders they have numerous proxy terrorist organizations they fund persistently for asymmetric warfare.
That's all they have. They're an impotent military after decades of sanctions and grinding poverty. In a war context that of course doesn't mean the US would find invading to be easy (it would be a disaster), it means the US strategy would properly be to sit outside of their borders and destroy everything inside of Iran and never invade; acquire air dominance (would take one or two weeks max), and continue wiping out all infrastructure and military capabilities as needed.
Iran's military has been very intelligently shaped to maximise its ability with limited resources against the threats it's most liable to face.
If Iran had focused on developing the best tank force or air force possible, would it make a difference? No, Iran's most likely enemies are either the US or a country supplied by the US and the best Iran could produce would still fall short. They would certainly lose a conventional war.
So Iran has focused on developing asymmetric warfare capabilities. Their very large infantry and special forces mean any invading force will have an extreme insurgency problem to deal with, which could keep any enemy bogged down in a bloody and expensive war for literally decades. And their ballistic missile force can target important economic, military command or political targets, adding another significant deterrence.
"Iran has a very backwards military with almost no air force and no serious navy power at all."
Iran has been developing a variety of land-based anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles. Given that their naval interests are limited to the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Sea of Oman (and the Caspian), that's probably enough naval power. Your air strikes are going to have to track down mobile launchers.
>> Once U.S. forces were within range, Van Riper’s forces unleashed a barrage of missiles from ground-based launchers, commercial ships, and planes flying low and without radio communications to reduce their radar signature. Simultaneously, swarms of speedboats loaded with explosives launched kamikaze attacks. The carrier battle group’s Aegis radar system—which tracks and attempts to intercept incoming missiles—was quickly overwhelmed, and 19 U.S. ships were sunk, including the carrier, several cruisers, and five amphibious ships. “The whole thing was over in five, maybe ten minutes,” Van Riper said.
> The problem? U.S. forces had expected Van Riper to sit back and come under attack, and then to launch a counterattack with his surviving forces, which could be easily brushed aside. Van Riper, who actually wanted to win the exercise, refused to sit on his hands and let the Americans attack first.
As you might guess, it has a slightly different view of what went down, and how representative it would be of a real conflict.
One of the most glaring issues in your quote is this:
> The carrier battle group’s Aegis radar system—which tracks and attempts to intercept incoming missiles—was quickly overwhelmed
This wasn't actually the Aegis radar that was overwhelmed, it was the system to simulate an Aegis radar for the purposes of an exercise. Actual Aegis systems don't seem to have the same problem.
Let's not speculate about intent. Fact is that structures holding equipment rather than structures holding people were struck. This explains the lack of casualties
I dont think Iran wanted to kill any Americans. They knew that this strike helped them save face. Killing soldiers would have risked an escalation. The US also did not try to stop the missiles to allow the slap in in the face to happen. The US wanted to let them save face.
We also had advanced warning, as did the Iraqis. They even knew the timing. I'm sure we moved troops out of harms way. Iran's not just going to lob some missiles into a foreign country without first telling them, because they (Iraq) weren't the target. We picked up on that chatter and/or the host country informed us after they knew.
This is a "proportional response". They pick highly-rated but abandoned targets, because they have to respond, but don't want to escalate. From the show West Wing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtrX9rZl-j4
Yes. You should ask that question of the NPR Public Editor. They may quote you, so be professional about it. I encourage citing the specific terms of CC-BY-SA that require the republished content to reference the license.
A requirement of the CC-BY-SA license is that any works which build upon the material (e.g. this NPR article) must also be distributed under the same license.
Only if the article is a derivative work, in the copyright sense. And copyright doesn't protect facts, so figuring out something about the real world from these images and independently describing it would not create a derivative work.
If it costs NPR nothing to include the mark, and doing so does not interfere with their fair use, then do they have a moral obligation to do so, regardless of whether the law permits its exclusion or not?
iron-dome shoots down bottle rockets comparatively speaking (i'm being hyperbolic). these missiles were ballistic missiles which have high arches. therefore they're hard to track (picture the difference between catching a fly ball and a line drive) and they have enormous kinetic energy coming down (tough to divert).
Iron Dome doesn't work against ballistic missiles. It's designed for much smaller, much shorter range projectiles.
One of the difficulties in ballistic missile defense is actually destroying the warhead. Because it is ballistic, hitting the missile and destroying the body during the terminal phase isn't good enough. The structure is essentially dead weight at that point; the warhead is still on track (roughly) to its target. That's why current ABM systems focus on boost-phase interception, because then a body hit completely throws off the missile trajectory.
Lockheed makes a mobile system called THAAD. I doubt there were any deployed in Iraq, and the effectiveness of these are dubious. The Russians put the S400 in Syria and it has performed well enough. These act more like a deterrent than an actual viable defensive grid.
THAAD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_De...) is a bit of a big deal in Huntsville. I'm kind of surprised it's not deployed in the Middle East, although I suppose it wouldn't be much of a deterrent if it isn't shown to work better than it did in testing.
it's wild that there are enough high resolution commercial satellites flying that these took less than a day to capture (i.e. how long it took for one of Planet's swarm to be in position).
Does the Ain al-Assad air base not have some type of anti missile/air defense? I tried to find out this information but I could not find anything off hand.
For someone who doesn't know anything about this subject matter, can you explain why? I mean, is it a technical or legal limitation? Maybe a practical, statistical or strategic decision?
I thought all US satellite companies had a strict set of rules regard where they could and could not point their satellites. E.g., Dick Cheny's house was off limits to Google Earth in the 2000's.
Iran wants this to end, which is why they didn't target areas that would cause a lot of loss of life. Iran is in no position to engage the US in protracted skirmishes, if the US hits its refineries, etc, Iran is hosed. The memes of WW3 occurring are absurd even for Twitter.
Those memes were indicative of the feelings around the seriousness of the US attacking another govt. It is very rational to feel scared that a war with another country, a UN member, with backings of two other UN security council members wouldn't extend farther than Iran given their vested interests in that country and the region.
I don't believe for a second that they would not intervene if their economies are affected by another Middle East war where this time it is one of their significant business partners.
What does UN membership have anything to do with this? Iran is a terrorist state, openly funding terrorist attacks on Israel. They have a repressive, horrible government, admittedly made worse by the US themselves through the overthrow of the Shah decades ago.
The idea this would cause an escalation from Russia and China is also absurd. Of course they are backing them now because it's politically convenient, but when push comes to shove, they won't fight. As long as the US doesn't try to expand its geopolitical aspirations in the Middle East, which has been a complete and utter disaster ever since George W., nothing will come of this skirmish.
Iran a terrorist state? You mean the country whose twice had US intervention and you expect the leadership there to embrace the US with open arms. Right, makes sense. What in your mind makes a country a terrorist state. It sure seems like the US has a pretty darn terrorist mind set when it came down to spreading fear about communism.
> The idea this would cause an escalation from Russia and China is also absurd. Of course they are backing them now because it's politically convenient, but when push comes to shove, they won't fight.
The best surprises are the ones you do not see coming. You can say what you want. You don't make the decisions. Furthermore I stated my opinion that they would intervene. It was not a prediction as you take it. I strongly dissented from your opinion.
> if the US hits its refineries, etc, Iran is hosed
This one makes me laugh! To believe that one country would be hosed from striking at oil. There's an elephant in the room that indicates it would not be in the best interest of anyone to stifle turmoil in an OPEC state given that other countries will have to deal with the offsets and refugees. Think we've all seen the effects around the world with these wars. Very funny!
I suggest you google Iran and Hezbollah. Iran is 100% a terrorist state and a horrible country ruled by evil people.
And I never said the US was pristine. The entire Middle East is fucked up because of the US. US fucked up Persians by helping overthrow the Shah. As far as I'm concerned, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld should be tried on crimes against humanity. Trump is a moron and a despot but he is only the second worst US president in my opinion.
But they are all better than the current government of Iran.
What's the difference between a "terrorist state" and a state with military that attacks civilians (or finds them to be acceptable casualties)? I don't think the term even makes sense when applied to a country. Lots of countries offer support for militia groups that work to destabilize governments and terrorize the populations of different countries.
At this point, calling someone a terrorist is a dog whistle, because it's so broad to be almost meaningless. The differentiating factor seems to come down to US-backing.
This isn't a one-sided stand down. If the US attacks Iran blatantly, sleeper cells around the world would probably be activated. At least this is what it seems they signalled.
Sorry but this is complete fiction. Sleeper cells around the world? This is Iran, a struggling government not Mission Impossible. There's nothing Iran could or would do that the US doesn't do to itself via mass shootings, wildfires, shitty government policies, etc.
If Iran did anything like a terrorist attack on US soil, it would open the door for the US to completely devastate Iran through bombings, etc, and that's not what the Iranian government wants. What they did was probably the smartest thing they could do, which is show explosions on their TVs so say they attacked back, but incur no loss of life to escalate things.
1) Why on Earth would you carpet bomb every square km of Iran? You attack their infrastructure and their economy. That's about as simplistic as it gets. Carpet bombing the entire country is absurd. If you're old enough to remember the second Iraq War, the level of bombs dropped on Iraq was insane.
2) Iran is Hezbollah. They're basically the same thing.
3) If Iran attacked the US with their fictional "sleeper cells", the world would be completely on the US side. This is why Iran didn't kill a single US soldier in their attacks yesterday.
1) Because it's not enough. See Iraq. How many trillions are you ready to pay for the privilege of another quagmire?
2) ok not sure I was implying different.
3) you missed the point. If the US attacked disproportionately, it is highly unlikely that the USA would have the support of the world. At this point it would be expected for them to retaliate through any means available. Did you see the accuracy of their rocket? It destroyed a specific building at the base. The reason there were no casualties was because Iran told Iraq (who told us) that they were going to attack. No one wants an escalation.
1) what are you talking about? The US has no desire to occupy Iran. They would devastate the economy by mass bombing of the infrastructure, and then encourage a new US-friendly leader to lead a coup over the current government. Then they would come in with US companies and have them get paid to fix the infrastructure back. Have you not been paying attention?
2) saying that Iran has connections with the Hezbollah is like saying Trump has connections to the Republicans. Iran IS Hezbollah. There's a difference.
3) I'm not sure what you're arguing at this point. I said the same thing. Iran doesn't want an escalation because they know they can't win. If they caused any US deaths, it would lead to escalating destruction of Iran. You were the one that said "sleeper cells" around the world would start conducting terrorist campaigns or something. But that's absurd and would never happen because if they did, the US would make Iran pay and they would have the support of the world. Obviously dropping a nuke on Iran is out of the question, as is destroying cultural sites, but if these "sleeper cells" killed Americans, you could expect massive damage to Iranian infrastructure that they wouldn't be able to recover from in a timely manner.
If Iran feels threatened that they would be at the brink of destruction, i.e., with a disproportionate attack by the US, look to active operations in allied countries.
Don't get caught up in specific words like sleeper cells or terrorism. I have no more information than you. I just know if I don't have a nuclear bomb, I need a nuclear option and I expect today's press conference by Iran with the flags of all the groups they support was a signal of the threat.
Perhaps you personally profited from the Iraq war, but US taxpayers footed a bill in the trillions to keep that going. People died. It isn't a game of Civ.
Yep. They couldn't do nothing because they had to posture themselves as strong/appease citizens upset about the general, so the best option was to make a big, splashy attack that would still leave the U.S. the option of calling everything settled. If Americans died, the U.S. would have no choice but to escalate further.
True; on the other hand, Iran seems to have already benefited from Soleimani's killing: after the world's fear of a new war, the outrage, the divisions within NATO, the Iraqi resolution to expel American troops, the contradictory claims by the US government, the US position is weaker than before. So it was wise not to waste this advantage with some act that could have reunited the West against them.
Trump's plan? What plan? Trump is saying things (America first, let's MAGA, no more ME wars, let's get the troops back) but he's doing the exact opposite: weakening the US' international standing by stirring up conflict with enemies and allies, disregarding international law, stirring more conflict in the ME (which requires more troops, +17000 in the last year), and forcing countries that relied on American tech and finance to become independent or find alternatives (China being the obvious example). The US presidency has become a global problem and a laughing stock, so the "US position" is certainly much weaker than it was before. And the killing of Soleimani is just another step in the same direction.
Trump is all show, anybody following him knows there's no secret 5-d plan there's just instinct and bad decisions made without thinking about the details. Also without getting all the data from background briefings because he considers them boring.
My analysis is Iran's attacking a US base directly and ensuring of no US casualty was its best strategic option to avoid war.
1 - Iran had to save face domestically and regionally so had to attack.
2 - Most importantly, Iran had to immediately attack. With the calculation that many types of false flags or attacks against US personal by other entities would instantly be attributed to it.
A - Their foreign minister Zarif, made it clear that Iran will retaliate "direct and promotional" and not through any proxies, which was the same message signal by their Supreme leader[0]
B - After the attack ended, Zarif made it clear Iran is done with their retaliations[1]. So to avoid being blamed for any further attack that may take place in future date against US forces or interests.
Iran calculus probably was to avoid a high likely hood of attacks possibly orchestrated by Saudis or other entities (who benefit from a Us-Iran escalations) disguised as Iranian.
Having quickly retaliated, ensuring no US casualty and made it clear they're done, they're closing the door for getting blamed for false flags and trying to avoid additional escalations against US.
This signals a very rational and calculating player who doesn't want to escalate against US.
The question is how much US media would now push the narrative of crossing "red line" and forcing Trump to take escalatory military action.
One can even argue even this article uses a language like, "Iranian missile strike has caused extensive damage" and *"...show hangars and buildings hit hard by a barrage of Iranian missiles" to set the stage for US to take re-retaliatory steps.
It really does look more like a show of force than an effort to kill. That's some pretty impressive accuracy by the Iranians. Those were not random impacts.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 188 ms ] threadhttps://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.asp
Edit: wiki shows even lower tech ballistic style electromechanical guidance on their page. Thats 1960s tech.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fateh-313
Those missiles landed dead-center on buildings. (Seriously, look at the images!) This demonstrates an impressive operational capability to select which targets to destroy.
https://missiledefenseadvocacy.org/missile-threat-and-prolif... claims "GPS/unknown"
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/iran-s-ball... "improved the precision of the Fateh-110 guidance system, which uses both INS and Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) with a projected CEP of 250 m."
> Edit: wiki shows even lower tech ballistic style electromechanical guidance on their page. Thats 1960s tech.
The US still fields missiles with "1960s tech":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-30_Minuteman#Minuteman-III...
I'm not so quick to dismiss these Iranian missiles. They seem to be accurate and able to effectively perform the job they were meant to do. It's a mistake to classify military technology as lower=worse/higher=better like it's a tech tree from a videogame. Inertial navigation systems like these missiles seem to have are actually superior to GPS in many circumstances that are relevant here. Yes, they drift, but that's not a huge issue over a short flight time. More importantly, they're self-contained, jam-proof, and don't rely on a service provided by an adversary.
Iran has a very backwards military with almost no air force and no serious navy power at all.
The few planes they have are mostly ancient and their navy consists of speed boats.
They have a thousand tanks that are a mixture of ancient and more modern tanks with medium capability compared to the US.
They have a large standing army that is moderately well trained, with some large elite forces, and they have good ballistic missile capabilities. They have almost zero ability to properly defend their territory from the US when it comes to air strikes. They have almost no ability to keep up a foreign strike outside of their borders, with their ballistic missile stockpile being their sole means. Basically they have almost no ability to sustain foreign strike capability via their military. Outside their borders they have numerous proxy terrorist organizations they fund persistently for asymmetric warfare.
That's all they have. They're an impotent military after decades of sanctions and grinding poverty. In a war context that of course doesn't mean the US would find invading to be easy (it would be a disaster), it means the US strategy would properly be to sit outside of their borders and destroy everything inside of Iran and never invade; acquire air dominance (would take one or two weeks max), and continue wiping out all infrastructure and military capabilities as needed.
If Iran had focused on developing the best tank force or air force possible, would it make a difference? No, Iran's most likely enemies are either the US or a country supplied by the US and the best Iran could produce would still fall short. They would certainly lose a conventional war.
So Iran has focused on developing asymmetric warfare capabilities. Their very large infantry and special forces mean any invading force will have an extreme insurgency problem to deal with, which could keep any enemy bogged down in a bloody and expensive war for literally decades. And their ballistic missile force can target important economic, military command or political targets, adding another significant deterrence.
Iran has been developing a variety of land-based anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles. Given that their naval interests are limited to the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Sea of Oman (and the Caspian), that's probably enough naval power. Your air strikes are going to have to track down mobile launchers.
> and they have good ballistic missile capabilities
That's not a bad resource mix to potentially defeat the US Navy using asymmetric tactics:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a30392654/millenni...
>> Once U.S. forces were within range, Van Riper’s forces unleashed a barrage of missiles from ground-based launchers, commercial ships, and planes flying low and without radio communications to reduce their radar signature. Simultaneously, swarms of speedboats loaded with explosives launched kamikaze attacks. The carrier battle group’s Aegis radar system—which tracks and attempts to intercept incoming missiles—was quickly overwhelmed, and 19 U.S. ships were sunk, including the carrier, several cruisers, and five amphibious ships. “The whole thing was over in five, maybe ten minutes,” Van Riper said.
> The problem? U.S. forces had expected Van Riper to sit back and come under attack, and then to launch a counterattack with his surviving forces, which could be easily brushed aside. Van Riper, who actually wanted to win the exercise, refused to sit on his hands and let the Americans attack first.
As you might guess, it has a slightly different view of what went down, and how representative it would be of a real conflict.
One of the most glaring issues in your quote is this:
> The carrier battle group’s Aegis radar system—which tracks and attempts to intercept incoming missiles—was quickly overwhelmed
This wasn't actually the Aegis radar that was overwhelmed, it was the system to simulate an Aegis radar for the purposes of an exercise. Actual Aegis systems don't seem to have the same problem.
> "There are other structures at the air base that would be exclusively for people so maybe they intended to strike sites with equipment over people."
Maybe being a key word here.
target /ˈtɑːɡɪt/ noun 1. a person, object, or place selected as the aim of an attack.
back channels are very effective and should be embraced in business and politics
Edit: Thank you, Planet Labs, for making them CC-BY-SA!
https://help.npr.org/contact/s/contact?request=Ask-the-Publi...
I'd imagine the Iranian state-of-the-art varies significantly from Hamas's state-of-the-art (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qassam_rocket).
One of the difficulties in ballistic missile defense is actually destroying the warhead. Because it is ballistic, hitting the missile and destroying the body during the terminal phase isn't good enough. The structure is essentially dead weight at that point; the warhead is still on track (roughly) to its target. That's why current ABM systems focus on boost-phase interception, because then a body hit completely throws off the missile trajectory.
Some speculation on possibilities in https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-s....
The pics are from Planet Labs, but PL does not have anything on their blog about it.
edit: I'm surprised how little damage each hit inflicted. Purpose more to say "we struck the US" rather than actually do damage, I suppose.
I don't believe for a second that they would not intervene if their economies are affected by another Middle East war where this time it is one of their significant business partners.
The idea this would cause an escalation from Russia and China is also absurd. Of course they are backing them now because it's politically convenient, but when push comes to shove, they won't fight. As long as the US doesn't try to expand its geopolitical aspirations in the Middle East, which has been a complete and utter disaster ever since George W., nothing will come of this skirmish.
> The idea this would cause an escalation from Russia and China is also absurd. Of course they are backing them now because it's politically convenient, but when push comes to shove, they won't fight.
The best surprises are the ones you do not see coming. You can say what you want. You don't make the decisions. Furthermore I stated my opinion that they would intervene. It was not a prediction as you take it. I strongly dissented from your opinion.
> if the US hits its refineries, etc, Iran is hosed
This one makes me laugh! To believe that one country would be hosed from striking at oil. There's an elephant in the room that indicates it would not be in the best interest of anyone to stifle turmoil in an OPEC state given that other countries will have to deal with the offsets and refugees. Think we've all seen the effects around the world with these wars. Very funny!
And I never said the US was pristine. The entire Middle East is fucked up because of the US. US fucked up Persians by helping overthrow the Shah. As far as I'm concerned, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld should be tried on crimes against humanity. Trump is a moron and a despot but he is only the second worst US president in my opinion.
But they are all better than the current government of Iran.
At this point, calling someone a terrorist is a dog whistle, because it's so broad to be almost meaningless. The differentiating factor seems to come down to US-backing.
If Iran did anything like a terrorist attack on US soil, it would open the door for the US to completely devastate Iran through bombings, etc, and that's not what the Iranian government wants. What they did was probably the smartest thing they could do, which is show explosions on their TVs so say they attacked back, but incur no loss of life to escalate things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMIA_bombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_attacks_on_Israeli_diplom...
2) Iran has connections with Hezbollah and god knows who else. I would not dismiss the possibility.
3) There are enough people all over the world who would be incensed enough at the US to self radicalize.
2) Iran is Hezbollah. They're basically the same thing.
3) If Iran attacked the US with their fictional "sleeper cells", the world would be completely on the US side. This is why Iran didn't kill a single US soldier in their attacks yesterday.
2) ok not sure I was implying different.
3) you missed the point. If the US attacked disproportionately, it is highly unlikely that the USA would have the support of the world. At this point it would be expected for them to retaliate through any means available. Did you see the accuracy of their rocket? It destroyed a specific building at the base. The reason there were no casualties was because Iran told Iraq (who told us) that they were going to attack. No one wants an escalation.
2) saying that Iran has connections with the Hezbollah is like saying Trump has connections to the Republicans. Iran IS Hezbollah. There's a difference.
3) I'm not sure what you're arguing at this point. I said the same thing. Iran doesn't want an escalation because they know they can't win. If they caused any US deaths, it would lead to escalating destruction of Iran. You were the one that said "sleeper cells" around the world would start conducting terrorist campaigns or something. But that's absurd and would never happen because if they did, the US would make Iran pay and they would have the support of the world. Obviously dropping a nuke on Iran is out of the question, as is destroying cultural sites, but if these "sleeper cells" killed Americans, you could expect massive damage to Iranian infrastructure that they wouldn't be able to recover from in a timely manner.
Don't get caught up in specific words like sleeper cells or terrorism. I have no more information than you. I just know if I don't have a nuclear bomb, I need a nuclear option and I expect today's press conference by Iran with the flags of all the groups they support was a signal of the threat.
Perhaps you personally profited from the Iraq war, but US taxpayers footed a bill in the trillions to keep that going. People died. It isn't a game of Civ.
Arrogance blinds.
Trump is all show, anybody following him knows there's no secret 5-d plan there's just instinct and bad decisions made without thinking about the details. Also without getting all the data from background briefings because he considers them boring.
My analysis is Iran's attacking a US base directly and ensuring of no US casualty was its best strategic option to avoid war.
1 - Iran had to save face domestically and regionally so had to attack.
2 - Most importantly, Iran had to immediately attack. With the calculation that many types of false flags or attacks against US personal by other entities would instantly be attributed to it.
A - Their foreign minister Zarif, made it clear that Iran will retaliate "direct and promotional" and not through any proxies, which was the same message signal by their Supreme leader[0]
B - After the attack ended, Zarif made it clear Iran is done with their retaliations[1]. So to avoid being blamed for any further attack that may take place in future date against US forces or interests.
Iran calculus probably was to avoid a high likely hood of attacks possibly orchestrated by Saudis or other entities (who benefit from a Us-Iran escalations) disguised as Iranian.
Having quickly retaliated, ensuring no US casualty and made it clear they're done, they're closing the door for getting blamed for false flags and trying to avoid additional escalations against US.
This signals a very rational and calculating player who doesn't want to escalate against US.
The question is how much US media would now push the narrative of crossing "red line" and forcing Trump to take escalatory military action.
One can even argue even this article uses a language like, "Iranian missile strike has caused extensive damage" and *"...show hangars and buildings hit hard by a barrage of Iranian missiles" to set the stage for US to take re-retaliatory steps.
[0] http://archive.is/tqv8M
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/iran-says-it-has-concluded-its-resp...
Back channels are important.