Attacking Iran and then backing down has just shown all the West's enemies that the US has no resolve.

The U.S. leadership has a bad habit of starting conflicts that the bulk of the population doesn't want, which leads to large political costs and resulting half-measures. Our current leadership literally ran on "no more wars." Morons.

... and now a low, and continuing to decrease, number of protective missiles.

> the US has no resolve.

This would be the wrong conclusion to take from it. Trump is incredibly unpopular domestically and the war is dumb and pointless and was sprung on the US population by surprise and planned and executed with complete and utter incompetence, and the negative economic consequences are way out of proportion to any conceivable benefit we will get out of it. It's not a lack of resolve, it's a rational reaction to incompetent leadership.

"The West's enemies" have to be careful not to give the US an excuse to commit to a real war, rather than fight it with basically pocket change the way we are now while we look for a way out.