How it ends

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In the New York Times, Susan Rice writes about Iran and concludes with this: “It’s hard to envision how this ends short of war.”

I’m not making a prediction one way or the other, but it’s pretty easy to envision how this ends short of war. In fact, the most likely scenario is that both sides continue to launch periodic “retaliatory” attacks, but they slowly wind down and we end up right where we started. That’s how things like this usually go.

I’m not saying that’s what will happen. President Trump could do something stupid, or he could goad Iran into doing something stupid. Who knows? But if I had to put my money on something, it would be another few weeks of bluster and low-level strikes, followed by everyone getting exhausted and deciding to call a nervous halt to things.