More Thought on Iran and Domestic Politics

So, the latest in Iran. 

The Iranians are issuing outrageous threats to "thirty-five vital American positions in the region," while Trump threatens to bomb fifty-two sites "at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture" in retaliation. 

Once again, forgive me for analyzing this primarily from the perspective of US domestic politics.  I realize the the international repercussions are the most important, but I am not qualified to so much as speculate.

From a domestic perspective, although this strike against Iran has not produced a rally-round-the-chief response, Iranian retaliation very well could.  It may well be that targeting cultural sites is a war crime, but if Iranians start killing our fellow countrymen, I doubt that most Americans will care.  (Twitterati will care, but Twitterati represents a minuscule share of the total population).

At the risk of seeming a bit treasonous, I am inclined to think the Iranians' best bet is to attack the oil.  That will hurt economically (and not just us), but without producing the sort of outrage that killing Americans or attacking symbolic targets would do.

Another point to make -- Trump has successfully destroyed any chance of rapprochement with Iran if he loses the next election, so congratulations (I guess).  Up until now I had advise to any Democrat winning in 2020 on how to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).  There would be no way to openly restore it -- no way to remove the sanctions in exchange for Iran returning to compliance.  The Blob would be outraged.  There would be grave warnings not to reward Iran for its violations of the JCPOA (our violations would remain unmentioned), and general grave pronouncements that negotiating before the other side has surrendered is appeasement.

Instead, my advice would have to announce an official channel to let humanitarian goods through.  If that met with a positive response, begin, as quietly and discretely as possible, to relax secondary sanctions and allow other countries to work around them.  Each step should be taken cautiously, awaiting positive response, but in the end we might hope to get to a de facto return to the JCPOA, while keeping the moral satisfaction of leaving sanctions in place.

But I would say this latest escalation has taken any such prospect off the table.  There is no going back.