US-Iran escalation: It’s message-sending, but the risks are high
Another day, another step in the apparently inexorable escalation of U.S.-Iran tensions that has brought the arch-adversaries to the brink of war since President Donald Trump last year withdrew from the nuclear deal.
The escalation has included a U.S. “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign that has crippled Iran’s economy and targeted its supreme leader and elite Revolutionary Guard; incremental Iranian violations of the landmark 2015 deal; Iran shooting down a $130 million U.S. intelligence drone; and Mr. Trump at the last minute calling off a retaliatory surgical strike – while planes were reportedly mid-route.
The result: the U.S. and Iran have not been this close to open conflict since the 1980s.
Which raises two very pressing questions: What is the psychology of escalation at play? And how
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