Such is modern warfare. It‘s all ‚your proxy force against mine‘, and theatrical ‚force-posturing‘ because, if any real war were to break out between countries with sizable arsenals, the global economy would be wrecked.

Relevant transcript, on Iran telling the US exactly where and when they would strike the US base in northern Iraq:

„I had Iran in check. We hit them very hard [via the assassination of Soleimani], and they had to hit back, I understand that.

Do you know they called me to tell me they‘re going to hit a certain location [at al-Asad airbase], it‘s gonna be outside the perimeter.

They let us know. We had 16 missiles [targeting the base]. They said ‚don‘t move, we‘re going to have to hit you back‘.

Psychologically, they had to do that because we hit them. So they aimed those missiles [outside the base] and said ‚please don‘t attack us, we‘re not gonna hit you‘.“

And, on Israel backing out of the plot:

„When we took out Soleimani, you know, Israel was supposed to do it with us. Two days before the takeout, they said, ‚We can‘t do it, we can‘t do it.‘

I said, ‚What? We can‘t do it?‘

Then I had a certain general, who‘s great, and I said, ‚So, General, do we do it ourselves?‘

He said, ‚We can, sir, it‘s up to you.‘ I said, ‚We‘ll do it.‘

But Israel was a part of it, you know. Bibi [Netanyahu] was a big part of it. And we had everything planned, everything.“