> If you step back, in 1979 Iran launched a revolution that had an avowed goal of “death to America”. If the Iranians play the kinetic scenario to the bitter end, they simply are demonstrating this was not mere poetry and there never was any other off-ramp, just tactically deciding at what relative strength these two systems will collide.

Step back further and you see that they were overthrowing a dictator that the US had installed over their democratically elected government.

If you take a step back even further, perhaps you don't bomb a girls school three times because someone 47 years ago said something mean about your country and then never followed up.