Y'all are missin what I am putting down. There ain't any sense in massaging the fact.. Regardless of the circumstance, regardless of whether it is righteous or not, you throw down on somebody, you gotta figger they are going to throw back.
If that's me and you, that must mean there is an intention to fight. That in the least, that fight is on the table and predictable before the fact.
In the matter of nations, same thing. War is most certainly on the table.
They did. They didn't throw much, nor very hard, just enough so they could walk away and not slink in shame.
The Iranians have been signalling their intention to fight for decades, now, over 40 years.
Trump has just said, "enough", and (unlike predecessors) signaled what he is willing to do to stop the crap.
It's like some obnoxious pipsqueak in a bar trying to egg on the local tough guy, and the tough guy just stands up (and over him) and says "Do you
really want this fight?". The pipsqueak might have gotten away with it before, but it ends there. If he wants to fight, he's gonna get his butt kicked, but good, and he knows it, so he might mouth off a little to save face, but essentially, the threat of overwhelming force by someone who has signaled they are willing to use it if necessary has ended the fight before it began. It's a tactic I used with some success as a younger man, only rarely actually having to actually engage farther, and one which I was thanked for by some of the would-be instigators later.
The Iranian throwdowns over the years have included the Hostage taking,
Barracks in Beiruit, the
Khobar Towers, the diabolical Embassy bombings in
Kenya and Tanzania, Improved penetrators in IEDs used in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a host of other events either carried out by the Quds Forces or supported by them on at least three continents. I see this as finally someone has stood up and said 'we're not going to tolerate any more of this crap' instead of caving, kowtowing, or sending tribute.