I think he’s sending a wrong message against the aggressors. He needs to hit Iran hard or they might take these inconsistencies for weakness. The drone attack should have been the last red line they crossed. Economic sanctions are not enough. Iran is incrementally raising the stakes until the final hit which is Israel. What is he going to do now? Russia is already in Syria trying to regain the Golan Heights and assist Iran in making headway there…
@patco, your thoughts?
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President Trump appeared to be softening toward Iran. He had broken with his administration’s leading advocate of confrontation, signaled a willingness to meet personally with his Iranian counterpart, and reportedly considered relaxing some sanctions.
But Iran, American officials say, responded with violence. The officials have accused Iran of orchestrating or even launching a major attack on Saturday against critical Saudi Arabian oil installations, jolting international energy markets and humiliating a key American ally.
But the slap-the-other-cheek tactic is hardly surprising, Iranian scholars say. Tehran, they said, has concluded that its recent aggressions have effectively strengthened its leverage with the West and in the region. And despite his occasional outburst of threats, Mr. Trump is deeply reluctant to risk an open-ended military confrontation in the Middle East that would endanger world oil supplies in the middle of a re-election campaign.
“Iranian hard-liners consider Trump’s inconsistency to be weakness,” said Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. For Iranian hard-liners, he said, “their policy of ‘maximum resistance’ is working.”
Mr. Trump has imposed punishing sanctions that Iranian leaders call “economic warfare,” but he has already demonstrated his aversion to using military force.
American officials concluded that Iranian forces sabotaged a handful of oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz in May and June, and shot down an American surveillance drone in June. Mr. Trump initially ordered a wave of American airstrikes in retaliation for the downing of the drone, but he called it off at the last moment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/17/world/middleeast/iran-saudi-arabia-oil-attack.html