Empathy for the Iranian people, whose budding democratic movement was crushed by the United States, for oil. The ones who are trying to fight for their own freedom from a repressive government, in the middle of this whole mess.

All these events risk spiraling the whole region into chaos, and creating another ISIS-like militancy, the brutality of which is going to be felt by the Iranians first and foremost.

Internally theocratic countries can also be diplomatically reasonable when it comes to the use of arms. The measured retaliation against the unprovoked bombing of its Iranian consulate in Syria leads me to see that it is quite reasonable in its actions.