I'm quite naive about these conflicts but it seems like whoever is in charge of the Iran military really has a death wish. I wouldn't be surprised if Iran is a parking lot by the end of the year at this rate.
Basically the Iranian war plan seems pretty simple and clear: try to destroy US and Israeli military infrastructure in the region, and destroy energy infrastructure to raise the cost of oil. The first part is a completely legitimate military target, especially in a war of defense as Iran is waging. The second part is not legitimate, but the thinking behind it is very simple and clear.
Iran is a very large country, to make it into "a parking lot" would take many years, during which time we'd have a global recession and core US partners in the region would collapse.
Unlike what some would have you believe, the iranian leaders are generally quite thoughtful and educated. It's not an Idi Amin regime, or the occident would be supporting it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Dhafra_Air_Base
And dozens of others, in Jordan, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman...
https://www.americansecurityproject.org/national-security-st...
We will see how this plays out. Meanwhile gas is north of 1.6 CAD a litre in my city.
This is one of the reasons that most administrations declined to start a war with Iran in the past, the risk that they would do something like this, that taking out the leaders wouldn’t end the threat but would just make it more wild and unpredictable.
The theory was probably that the Gulf states are only begrudgingly going along with Washington in this war, and that the moment they start seeing costs they’ll personally call Trump to stop it. What Iran miscalculated on are the Gulf’s (a) long-time frustrations with Tehran, (b) massive bets on economies that suffer from capitulation and (c) monarchies being a stubborn lot.
Alternate hypothesis: Iran’s hardliners think escalating the war lets them consolidate more of a smaller pie. (If you’re looking for the truly WTF moves, it’s targeting Cyprus and Azerbaijan, the latter who has Iran’s sizable Azeri minority right on its border.)
To be clear, I am no fan of the Iran regime. Just trying to keep my head above the BS/propaganda that gets put out/repeated by the news agencies. There are no "good guys" here.
Are they also denying the attacks on Dubai's hotels and Oman?
> There are no "good guys" here
There usually aren't in any war. But to the degree this war has a solid bad guy, it's Iran.
Also, you are forgetting that BB/Israel wants the Gulf States to get into the War against Iran. So it is highly plausible that some of those hits are the Israeli's. The Israeli's are masters at subterfuge.