Iran sets giant oil tanker ablaze off Dubai after Trump warnings

I think they basically got played in Venezuela by Rodriguez who wanted to do a coup against Maduro and got Trump to do her dirty work for her. No one in Iran is interested in that deal so they're SOL.

may be Iran should demand release of Maduro as part of negotiating.)

And in The Fifth Element. 

I mean, the US wasn't chess though. The Iranians **are** playing chess.

In chess you don't even kill the king, you just corner it and threaten it simultaneously.

As we all know trump plays chess while the rest of the world plays checkers.  Like one person playing a game by themselves makes any sense at all

Iv played arma games with more tactical and long term planing than these guys

Iran definitely has significant military limitations unless they are getting a stream of supplies from Russia and China. Hence the perceived Iraq approach. The media is definitely confusing as to what is actually happening. As for terror attacks, those take time to plan and a smart terrorist waits until people start to lose interest and least expect one to happen which is how you get the most effect. Usually also wait to target, or threaten to target, major events (e.g. World Cup). The goal is to make all the security process so invasive it disrupts the event and people’s willingness to attend. There may be no actual attack, it’s the constant threat that starts to have an impact on more events in daily life. Then you do random actual attacks just to show people you can actually do it, usually after the false sense of security sets in. There’s a lot more to it too but kinda the general idea. All that’s to say, sure, they could be idle threats but we see many successful terror attacks all over the world all the time and the uncertainty is the goal. Take a look at how much security will be at the World Cup events, the controlled security zones they are setting up at each and the disruption it’ll cause. You can’t hide that and people will know why it’s there.

So far, the world is on Iran’s side, or at least not taking America’s, especially with all of the civilian targets the US has and has threatened to hit. An Iranian terrorist attack could very quickly turn public sentiment against them, with nothing to gain for it. 

Not just Fox, OAN and Newsmax either. The main media companies have been complicit with all sorts of shit even before the current buyout spree by super right wing billionaires.

I mean, the rank and file of us military overwhelmingly voted for Trump, so I wouldn't count on them doing too much thinking.

I think they knew they just didn't care because they got blackmailed into it 

It's wild how nuclear energy was vilified over the past decade or so but as soon as tech companies want it it's suddenly a no brainer

China doesn't really use oil powerplants, the majority is coal, followed by renewables and nuclear Most of the oil going to china is for industrial purposes

Of course not, the troops in the area have had to abandon their bases and go work from hotels, whilst actually invading Iran in any way will be an even bigger disaster.