Most people can “understand” it. It’s just like you said “brain dead” and probably the worst option possible they had.
If I was them I’d have just took the hit then went in front of the world and said “I don’t know what happened. I thought we were still negotiating and making progress.”
That makes the US and Israel look like bullies. Russia and China would convince MANY EU countries to acknowledge the bullying and put pressure on the US leaving Israel to Fight Iran alone.
Domestic issues will withdraw the US from the conflict early regardless but Iran lost A LOT of goodwill.
While this is true from a geopolitical game theory point of view, taking the hit without fighting back, trying to garner sympathy as the victim of US/ISR bullying, would have made Iran look weak as fuck.
For a myriad of domestic political reasons, their regime just couldn't take this approach.
Also, there was no guarantee that the crucial players on the world stage would have sided with Iran. I can easily see a scenario in which the rest of the world goes "yes, you are getting bullied by the yanks and the Israelis... and you know what? You kinda deserve it!"
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 4 2026 03:10pm