Thomas Small

Some people suggest that when those two American servicemen were rescued from Iran early-ish on in the war, just before the ceasefire, that that spooked the president a little bit, the idea that maybe Americans would have been captured by the regime,

who would have then been able to parade them in front of cameras, humiliating the Americans, humiliating the president in a way eerily reminiscent of the sort of scenes that were seen after the Iranian revolution, which brought, you know, some people say brought down Carter's chances of reelection and certainly sort of

overshadowed his his presidency in in in president trump's mind for sure because even in the 80s president trump was very open about how humiliating all of that was for the americans so some people suggest that slightly spooked him he realized just how bad it would be for him politically if american servicemen were brought in harm's way and possibly

taking control of the Persian Gulf enough to ensure that the Iranian regime can't close the strait would definitely have put too many American servicemen in harm's way.

And that was a bridge too far for the president.

That's what I've heard.

You know, I don't really know.

Right now, there does not seem to be any appetite for anything like the sort of military campaign that would be required to win back the Strait.

But we'll see.

This attack on the Apache helicopter has now, I think just like within the last 90 minutes, President Trump has tweeted on Truth Social that the United States must of necessity respond to this attack.

What that will mean, I don't know.

That may actually be a sign of what the attack was about.

If, in fact, the Iranian regime did attack that helicopter with anything like intention, it may be because the Iranian regime is testing President Trump now to see how he will react.

There's been a lot of back and forth in the last week between Israel and the regime, between Israel and Hezbollah.

on truth social, being quite anti-Israeli, telling Benjamin Netanyahu to hold back.

Benjamin Netanyahu, it seems, ignoring that, instead attacking.

But then perhaps behind the scenes, there's less truth to that than it seems.

This might be political theatrics.

Maybe Trump and Netanyahu are conspiring together in a good cop, bad cop kind of routine.

Maybe the Iranian regime is trying to get a sense.