World War III?

Last week the US Embassy in Iraq was attacked. In response President Trump ordered a drone attack on a high-ranking Iranian who was implicated in organizing the attack. Now the Left is going crazy insisting that World War III is about to start. This is beyond silly. Iran is no superpower with allies across the world ready to declare war on the US in retaliation for us threatening Iran. At most it is a regional power with militias in several neighboring countries forming states within a state.

Is war even likely? No. Neither side wants it.

Let's be honest about war between the US and Iran. We'd win. There's no question about that. We overthrew the Taliban in days. Iraq only lasted a few weeks. And when we fought those wars we hadn't been in a real war in decades (Desert Storm barely counts). Since then we've been in constant warfare. Our troops are battle-hardened. Our equipment is battle-tested. Iran wouldn't stand a chance.

Iran isn't united, either. They had major protests a few months ago. They were brutality put down. The entire country was cut off from the Internet for weeks to keep images of the protests from getting out. In suppressing the protests, nearly 150 were killed and thousands detained. In addition, Iran's economy is collapsing because of American sanctions. This is not a united country ready to take on a super-power.

But, as Afghanistan and Iraq proved, occupying a country after you overthrow the leadership is difficult. If we overthrew Iran, we would be stuck with another unpopular occupation but the Iranian leaders would probably be dead. There are no winners there.

Of course Trump could follow Obama's example in Libya and overthrow the government then let it turn into a failed state and blame the "international community" for not doing more. But Iran isn't Libya and Trump would get a lot worse press than Obama.

So neither side has anything to gain from war. In fact it was Iran's desire to avoid war that led us to this place. Iran wants nuclear weapons and a delivery system capable of reaching all of Europe. Once they are a nuclear power then they will be safe from attack. No one wants to risk a nuclear exchange. But no one wants a Nuclear Iran, either. They want to be a regional power and were building their empire until Trump hit them with sanctions over their violations of the treaty Obama signed with them.

So Iran will stall for time, hoping they can survive the sanctions until they can build some working nuclear weapons or a more favorable president is in the White House. Trump will continue the sanctions hoping for some real concessions instead of the weak treaty Obama signed (and which Iran had violated before it was even written).

In the meantime Iran is testing Trump to see what they can get away with and he's projecting strength in an effort to get them to back down. But it won't lead to war because neither side wants it.