As Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at the Washington-based thinktank Defense Priorities, points out: “This is a pretty low-cost strategy for Iran with very high costs globally. All the Iranians have to do is keep firing drones to keep regional airports closed, to attack oil infrastructure across the region, to attack US bases and stop traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The challenge is that Iran gets to decide when it ends and it will be difficult for Trump to walk away if Iran is still firing.” The Iranians have called their response to Epic Fury “Operation Madman” for good reason. The only way to fight crazy is to go crazier.
The upshot is that, as Kavanagh says, Trump has “backed himself into a corner.” His administration can keep ratcheting up the military pressure, conducting ever more strikes against Iran’s fast-dwindling weapons supply. But if America and Israel cannot cause regime change, this merely amounts to “mowing the grass,” as the Israelis say. And the trouble with fanatical Islamists in hot countries is that, similar to lawns, the harder you mow, the stronger they grow back.
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