US plan doesn’t include a war. Military preparedness is part of the plan and it stems from the nature of the regime they are dealing with.
The plan is to choke the regime to compliance. Regime change is a presumed side-effect to the compliance- carried out by the Iranian people. This is purely a ‘business’ plan. From the words of Pompeo -not Trump- one can suspect a military support to the Iranian people upheaval down the road. But this is very much dependant to the US interior politics and to the turn of events in this ‘presumed side-effect’.
So the issue of how to handle the military actions -perfectly expected from Islamic regime behaviour- is measured by how it can support the plan. Proving military superiority of the US is never an issue and never has been in the past forty years. The issue is how it can help the plan.
In the early days that Trump came to the WH, he specifically assigned a task-force to come-up with a plan vis-a-vis Iran. If I’m not mistaken Mike Pompeo was in charge of that task-force. What we saw thereafter, from exiting the nuke deal to scheduled sanctions are all part of a plan that was initially put together in early days of Trump presidency.
Trump -like Tucker- is an isolationist at heart. ‘Great’ America he envisions is the America of before WWII. When the companies and businesses were named after their founders, when they were family business and not corporates with no identity. After all, this is where he is coming from.
Beside military capability of Islamic regime to shot down a drone in a such altitude, there was nothing surprising to that event. I thought the best retaliation would be to send the bill of a new drone to the regime! Trump aborted a retaliation strike that I suspect in itself would be very limited. Not long ago (a week or so) Trump said he is considering military action as the absolute last option ‘because war kills people’. He used the same logic to abort the strike. I do think that he sincerely believes it.
But I also think that it was simply not helping his plan. It was adding some complication to a situation that was going his way anyway. Europe is distancing itself from its stance regarding the sanctions, and China and Japan are getting more concerned about the oil price, clearly not blaming the US for it.
The head of IRGC just claimed that they could shoot a plane with 30 passengers at the same time the drone was flying but they chose not to! He didn’t say if that plane also crossed their ‘red line’ and if it did what stopped them shooting it! But in an islamic way, this is a sign of matching the compassion expressed by Trump.
Now going back to the choking process!
If Iran tensions flare, Israel may strike while the world quietly watches
Iran shot down a U.S. drone on June 19, further escalating tensions between Iran and its adversaries.
Relations with Iran have been worsening for months. In early May, one year after the United States withdrew from the nuclear dealnegotiated in 2015 between Iran, the U.S., the European Union and five other countries, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that his country may also withdraw from the agreement, which limits its ability to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting sanctions.
In June, Rouhani announced that Iran will restart uranium enrichment, which could put the country on track to develop a nuclear weapon within a year. Rouhani’s government insists its uranium will go to civilian nuclear power, not weapons.
https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/if-iran-tensions-flare-israel-may-strike-while-the-world-quietly-watches-119062300146_1.html
Donald Trump says military action against Iran still 'on the table'
President Donald Trump said Saturday he's still considering military action against Iran after it downed an unmanned US military aircraft, saying the use of force is "always on the table until we get this solved." The president said he aborted a military strike set for Thursday after learning 150 people would be killed. "I don't want to kill 150 Iranians. I don't want to kill 150 of anything or anybody unless it's absolutely necessary," he told reporters as he left the White House for a weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat.
Trump said "we very much appreciate" a decision by Iran's Revolutionary Guard not to shoot down a US spy plane carrying more than 30 people. He said the downing of the US drone was "probably intentional" contradicting what he said Thursday. The president's comments came as Iran summoned the United Arab Emirates' top envoy to Tehran to protest the neighboring Arab nation's decision to allow the US to use a base there to launch the drone that Iran says entered its airspace, state media reported Saturday.
https://www.businesstoday.in/current/world/donald-trump-says-military-action-against-iran-still-on-the-table/story/358309.html
Amid tough talk, Trump says he could be Iran’s ‘best friend’
AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that military action against Iran was still an option for its downing of an unmanned U.S. military aircraft, but amid heightened tensions he dangled the prospect of eventually becoming an unlikely “best friend” of America’s longtime Middle Eastern adversary.
Trump also said “we very much appreciate” that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard chose not to target a U.S. spy plane carrying more than 30 people.
The president’s softer tone Saturday marked a stark contrast to the anti-Iran rhetoric he employed throughout the presidential campaign and presidency, including his use of punishing economic sanctions in an attempt to pressure Iran to give up its quest to build nuclear weapons.
https://www.apnews.com/b3001dc1cf6a4da59ab55ca759664068
It’s inconceivable that Trump didn't know any military action has some casualty, let alone the number of casualty for each strike option. This is the information that pentagon presents to the president about various strike options well before he made his decision.
I think Trump had in mind to abort the strike at the last minute from the very beginning! As I said above, it simply wasn’t helping his plan.
This won’t sit well with the pentagon to be used as a puppet for his PR stunt. He will have to do some work to repair the damage.
But in terms of his Iran plan, beside the ‘chocking to compliance’ process, he efficiently added favourable mindset to the ‘presumed side-effect’ for the Iranian people.
A showmanship to the core!
In Israel, Bolton warns Iran not to mistake US ‘prudence’ for ‘weakness
Iran should not misinterpret US President Donald Trump’s decision not to retaliate over the shooting down of an American drone last week as weakness, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said Sunday in Jerusalem.
“Neither Iran nor any other hostile actor should mistake US prudence and discretion for weakness. No one has granted them a hunting license in the Middle East,” he said before a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-israel-bolton-warns-iran-not-to-mistake-us-prudence-for-weakness/
Of course Trump already knew he was going to cancel the attack.
Before becoming president Traump criticized Obama for telling America's enemies what he was thinking.