Time (July 16)
“Iran’s return to conflict is best read as a calculated gamble…. Above all, Tehran’s leadership fears a staged unwinding of its leverage. Once it stops threatening shipping and restrains its regional partners, those tools become difficult to recover.” While Iran may be “running a familiar playbook of escalating to deescalate” and may have an “accurate reading” of President Donald Trump’s desire “to avoid rising energy prices, American casualties, and another open ended war in the Middle East;” there’s less certainty about how that deescalation will come about. “There is no formal consensus… and no faction willing to move first on anything that could be portrayed as surrendering leverage, legitimizing the bombing campaign, or handing Trump a clear victory.”
Tags: Calculated, Casualties, Certainty, Conflict, Deescalate, Energy prices, Escalating, Fears, Iran, Leadership, Legitimizing, Leverage, Middle East, Recover, Shipping, Threatening, Tools, Trump, War
