With this latest attack, Iran has reminded the world they have networks all over the world with the ability to strike any time, anywhere. Iran and the Saudis are the original ISIL. Iran has also been leveraging potential nuclear capabilities, given to them by US/European allies during the Cold War, to extort what they want from other nations (cue the JCPA). Now that Trump canceled the least bad option the west had available to deal with Iran diplomatically, then failed to follow it up with anything other than macho tweets and more sanctions, Iran is free to hold the other cosigners hostage while playing the victim to cover for its continued shadow war tactics.
If the problem could be solved with war, the US would have Iraq’d or Libya’d these places by now. Unfortunately, war would only spread the disease of Islamism, now with dirty bombs courtesy of the Ayatollah. Only Republicans on the take from Israel and/or the defense industry are really pushing for conventional war, and the only way it would actually happen is if Iran finally does something that causes an irreversible miscalculation by other stakeholders. That’s what makes attacks like this one so dangerous. It’d be great if the Iranians and Saudis managed to mutually weaken each other to the point of irrelevance, but such is wishful thinking as long as the world runs on fossil fuels. The rest of the world will continue to suffer in the company of Iranian and Saudi terrorist regimes for the foreseeable future, no matter what happens.