By inflicting damage on US-Israel and disrupting everyday life in Washington’s Arab allies, it’s telling Trump that Tehran can endure more pain than his side. Ordinary Iranians are collateral, for both sides
Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz famously said, “War is merely the continuation of politics by other means.” It is in just this vein that we are witnessing a hegemon, US, incoherently wage war. The policy that the Iran war is supposed to support and execute, its rationale, changes with each interview and speech Trump gives.
So how does Tehran read this incoherence? Its lessons are drawn from the kinetic exchanges with Israel in 2024 and the 12-day war in June 2025. The main conclusion is Trump launches a small war to circumvent negotiations whenever these are not going his way, and a restrained response from Iran is read as a sign of weakness in Tel Aviv and Washington.