Good comments. But I suspect that we are not sitting around waiting for the next provocation and are rather retaliating in other ways.
“I suspect that we are not sitting around waiting for the next provocation and are rather retaliating in other ways.”
We are starving the mullah regime out, in a siege strategy - at almost no cost to ourselves (in fact, it helps our oil and gas producers pick up market share and expand). This is a major strategic shift. Our enemies have grown accustomed to using a strategy of slow military attrition to defeat us politically, since Vietnam.
The Iranians are losing badly in the new approach, and they (and their anti-American supporters, like communist China) seek to change the nature of the conflict, back to one that disfavors the USA.
It is just a matter of weeks since the really severe sanctions were placed on the mullahs (designed to bring their oil exports to zero). Time is on our side. Strategic patience may be all that is needed for strategic victory - regime change in Iran.