Zvi Bar'el in Haaretz: ‘U.S. President Donald Trump doesn't intend to attack Iran's missile bases and nuclear facilities or destroy its enriched uranium. Nor is he threatening the lives of leaders of the "new regime" in Tehran. The dozens of strikes the United States has conducted on Iranian targets can still be considered "surgical," and their purpose, according to Trump, is to force Iran to return to the negotiating table.’

And: ‘It therefore appears that just as Trump has set limits on Israel's military activity in Syria and Lebanon, the Gulf states are setting limits on how much U.S. military activity they can tolerate.’

Also: ‘But when a struggle over control, sovereignty and humiliation has replaced the original rationale for the war, which was the desire to end Iran's nuclear program (…) both sides view any compromise as a defeat.’

A war of attrition, instead of defeat?

(a sf 2183)