Rosemary Kelanic, director of the Middle East program at Defense Priorities, tells TIME the current stalemate is a way for both countries to demonstrate their power and test each other’s limits.
“One way to think about war is that it’s a disagreement over the balance of power and who would win a conflict,” she says. “The United States and Iran haven’t figured out yet where each other’s limits are, and they both think that they have to convince the other side that their position is stronger than the other.”
…Kelanic says that, as the conflict currently stands, each exchange of tit-for-tat strikes is “disproportionately bad for the U.S. because Iran can show us that they can continue to strike ships” in and around the Persian Gulf.
“They can continue to strike U.S. bases in Jordan and elsewhere. The U.S. can continue to defend, but the cost of defending is much higher because we’re using these interceptors,” she tells TIME.
Featuring
More on Middle East
