> They claim they want to destroy Israel and call the US the big satan. They aren't famous for rational decision making.
Both of those are very rational ways of ginning up domestic support in a way that commits to absolutely nothing meaningful on the geopolitical stage. There's very little reason to believe Iran's power brokers are privately suicidal.
The US says all sorts of things it doesn't really mean, too.
There's very little evidence the Iranians are acting irrationally.
Their pursuit of a nuclear program is pragmatic (as evidenced by the kid gloves we treat North Korea with, versus how we treated Libya). Their negotiations and the resulting agreement for its suspension was pragmatic. Their response to Trump blowing that agreement up was pragmatic. Their funding of anti-Israeli groups is pragmatic. Their playing up of external threats for internal political purposes is pragmatic.
What genuinely irrational things has Iran done in, say, the last two decades?
> You can't compare the US and Iran on their records concerning threats.
The US made a bunch of "red lines" in Syria, without following through, but I was more referencing stuff like tough talk on human rights contrasting with business involvements in China.
A nuclear weapons program may be in the interest of Iran (though I doubt it). It's not in anyone else's interest.
Much of what Iran is doing is somewhat irrational... meddling in conflicts around the reason in particular is often much to its own detriment, but serves some "irrational" purpose. Same as with posturing over the Hormuz strait, well knowing they can't do shit against the US navy.
Yes, if you ignore all the things contrary to your world view and only look at what fits it, and squint really hard, you can say the stuff you say.
It's order of magnitudes easier to stop Iran from getting the bomb rather than "disarming" them completely.
And there are good reasons for countries having at least some kind of army. You need a police force to stop a few gangsters from teaming up and raiding weaker civilians. You need an army to prevent/deter the police forces of your neighbor countries to team up and overwhelm your police force to take your stuff.
Both of those are very rational ways of ginning up domestic support in a way that commits to absolutely nothing meaningful on the geopolitical stage. There's very little reason to believe Iran's power brokers are privately suicidal.
The US says all sorts of things it doesn't really mean, too.