Previously, Iranian actions were constrained for fear of ending up in an all out war with the US. This was not a scenario that Iran welcomed, and so they would moderate their response to provocations accordingly.

The US expected that a strikes on nuclear facilities, killing of Iran’s leadership, provoking protests through economic warfare, and other lightning-fast actions with high density would cause unacceptable damage, which would outweigh the benefits of resistance. The theory was that if they pushed hard enough, then Iran would collapse. Survival and saving face have become absolute values for the Iranian system. When the price of surrender is higher than the price of war, then the calculus changes.

The Iranians also saw that the destruction the US can bring to bear does not lead to an immediate collapse, and now they’ve started to fight back. Once the victim realizes that it is possible to withstand the first strike and maintain the possibility of a response, the fear of escalation goes away and the conflict becomes one of attrition.

The problem for the US and personally Trump now is that Iran withstood the initial attack, and American conventional weapons capability is now clear. Iran has stopped fearing a hypothetical war because it is already living in it.

It seems that neither the US nor their vassals in West Asia planned for this scenario. They assumed that whatever action the US took, the response from Iran could continue to be limited. Now that it’s an all out war, they don’t know what to do.

The double tap on the girls elementary school was planned using claude

update to cnn reporting the same thing