alt Hacker News> If the US thought an Iranian retaliation from an Israeli strike would be to attack US assets
A reasonable belief, because Iran in fact responded to the US+Israeli strikes by attacking US allies and even neutral nations like Qatar.
And why should we doubt that Iran would have closed the Strait of Hormuz even if the US had not attacked, leaving Israel to attack alone? The strategic calculation (threaten the world economy so other nations oppose the war) would have been the same.
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tovej • today at 6:22 AM
Qatar is not a neutral nation. It is a US ally, and the US army has a big presence there, inclusing CENTCOM forward headquarters and air operations.
The largest US base in the region is an air base in Qatar (which Iran has hit).
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But had the US not been part of the first strike, they could have applied much more diplomatic pressure to open the strait. As an active aggressor, they have no wiggle room. It might seem like semantics to you, but there's a huge difference diplomatically.