Perhaps it’s only natural that the media indulges in some hyperventilating when talking about foreign policy and volatile actors such as Iran. But it doesn’t help. It’s time for fewer histrionics and more sober assessments. Deconstructing the current head-butting between Tehran and the White House is a case in point.For starters, Washington is no better at predicting war under President Donald Trump than it was the results of the 2016 elections. On at least three occasions now in the nascent era of Trump, everyone has been beating the war drums except the parties that were supposed to be going to war.In 2017, when Trump called Kim “little rocket man,” there were warnings to head to the bomb shelters. More prudent assessments held the prospects for serious escalation looked unlikely. Fast forward, and we find the United States and North Korea holding serious negotiations for over a year—the dire warnings of the inevitable escalation to war long forgotten.More recently, when the Guido-Maduro face-off in Venezuela devolved into a stalemate, again there were calls that U.S. military intervention looked imminent. It’s not. Weeks later, even those who were most worried would have to admit that.Now the Chicken Little types have turned their eyes to Iran. Yet there are no signs of serious escalation.
