Wednesday morning's missile strikes against al-Asad airbase and Erbil airport were clearly
not an act designed to kill the most Americans possible. Iran will have known that the troops are normally asleep in the early hours of the morning. It will also have known the US has a strong air defense system that would have been on high alert. The missile attacks don't make sense if Tehran's goal was to really hurt US troops in large numbers -- as some had been pledging to do. There are three possible explanations for the action. First, that Khamenei, Iran's octogenarian Supreme Leader, is out of touch with what his military can achieve and overestimated the effectiveness of the strikes, which then failed. Second, that moderation won out, and this largely empty signal -- hitting military targets in the dead of night with a small number of missiles -- provides the off-ramp both sides might ultimately have been looking for. Third, it might be a bid by Iran to lull the US into a false sense of security -- that Iran is militarily weak and has done its worst -- while an asymmetrical and nastier response is plotted.
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Source: Iran's strikes seem intended to avoid US deaths. Here's why that might be the case
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2914307721989401
Location: Iraq
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