His issue was the asymmetry.
Iran's hit on the Ever Lovely blew out the bridge windows and the ship sailed on, nobody killed.
The US answer hit radar and missile storage with a full strike package, the kind that kills.
A diplomatic protest, he argued, makes the same point without handing Iran a reason to escalate, and without guaranteeing the strait stays shut for days the country can't spare.
The targets barely matter to him. They sit under mountains, and the radars Iran uses are the kind you bolt onto a boat.
His version of the morning after at IRGC headquarters: "Hossein, we need another radar."
We've got six more.
The Lebanon deal stopped him cold.
Reading the 14 points, he called it a beautifully drafted fantasy, signed by people who can't speak for Hezbollah, asking a museum-grade Lebanese army to disarm a force it could never touch.
Not a peace plan, in his read, but a blueprint for the civil war Israel has long wanted.
@MalcolmNance
