On Saturday morning, the U.S. attacked Iran. American and Israeli forces targeted the infrastructure of the Islamic Republic in air strikes. President Donald Trump said that he started his campaign to allow the Iranian people to “unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach.”
The strikes come after weeks of talks with Tehran. Last week, when the threat to Iran was beginning to build, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News that President Donald Trump was “curious” about Iran’s failure to accede to American demands over its nuclear and missile programs, even as vast American naval forces and airpower was being moved into the region. The president was articulating a frustration that has haunted Western strategic thinking about the Middle East for years.
The Iranian regime, it is assumed, is a rational state actor that can be deterred by the threat of “unbearable costs.” Yet Islamic revolutionary movements and regimes don’t seem to behave rationally, in the sense that Western analysts typically understand.
