Andreas Krieg zeroed in on the mismatch. Washington chose a drone rather than an airstrike, deliberately small, hoping to stop the mine-laying without provoking much.
Tehran replied with a strategic barrage across Jordan, US naval targets and the UAE.
"This is a different regime from the regime that we saw in 23, 24 and early 25"
They no longer wait, and they no longer answer in proportion.
Which exposes the flaw in the periodic-strikes plan Axios describes.
Andreas reads that leak as pressure rather than policy, and warns that telling Iran you'll hit it whenever you please, mid-negotiation, only convinces Tehran the Americans must be pushed out of the region entirely.
His deeper point should worry every Gulf capital.
Iran doesn't aim at Israel because Israel absorbs punishment.
It aims at the Gulf because the Gulf breaks first and picks up the phone to Washington.
A retired Navy captain wrote in Military Times that losing the Bahrain base equals
"losing an aircraft carrier"
Meanwhile Riyadh is quietly seeking $8 billion in new loans.
Fifty years of punishment never bent Iran once.
The only deterrent left is making the Gulf too tough to hurt, and that takes years nobody has.
@andreas_krieg
