The FT finally came around to reporting that ‘Iran sets the pace in war with Trump’. This has been clear since July 9, when Iran threw down the gauntlet. They shut down the cat and mouse game of the Oman route. They challenged the status quo in Yemen with the air link. They started this round of attacks.
Military men have long understood the importance of initiative. Initiative comes with all the advantages of the first mover: the side with the initiative forces the enemy into a reactive mode, sets the ‘agenda’, and can control escalation.
But what is Iran trying to achieve? Not a single analyst that the reporters spoke to offered to explain Iranian objectives and grand-strategy. The closest we get is Vali Nasr saying: ‘They escalate with an end result in mind, which is to control American behaviour and force the US to recalculate its options’. That’s hand-waving. Iran has concrete objectives and a compelling theory of victory.
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