Imagine there’s a bully, one bully, that runs the town.
They remain a bully because they are in an any one-on-one engagement likely to succeed, this has been shown. There are many victims, and any 3 or 4 of them could easily take out the bully – but not one on one, rather all at once. The victims barely communicate and the bully sows divide and conquer ops among them.
The “peace” is maintained because each player fears the bully but generally do not work together, if they cooperated the bully could be easily taken out. This is a variant of the prisoner’s dilemma …
There are many reasons why the world situation is unstable right now, and very little of this might have to do with the IRAN situation; however, I think the IRAN situation is showing many players that NOW is the time to pile on.
Between the UKRAINE WAR that looks like the SOMME 1916 and the IRAN debacle, Trump has either purposefully or accidentally shown the USA to be a paper tiger and that if ALL THE POORS stood up to the bully at once? – the outcomes would shift further.
When I was in graduate school I called this “firestorm” theory, and mainly as a critique of the whole “we can fight 2.5 wars” bullshit.
This situation is showing we can’t win ONE war at this point: Iraq, Afghanistan, … etc.
What do we do if all of these victims decide to gang up on us?