people imagine that war is random and crazy because it's seen as irrational and stupid. war is what happens when hot-headed yosemite sams can't get the damned rabbit using their faculties of reason and resort to the stupidity of violence out of desperation. right? wrong.
in the modern world, people get paid to plan wars out years ahead of time and when they happen they're predetermined and, by extension, virtually impossible to stop. there was almost nothing that the russians could have done to stop ukraine from happening, in 2014. a deep state contingency plan kicked in. post-kgb forces started operating independently of centralized authority. if putin claimed he had no idea, he was probably being honest.
so, who is making decisions in iran?
the answer is that they were already made before this happened, and what's unfolding was pre-determined, pre-scripted. we're left to wait for the program to finish and for the ammunition to run out. there are no negotiations possible because there's nobody to negotiate with, in addition to the system being structurally and inherently irrational by design. there's nobody to push stop. there's a system running without a control mechanism.
the iranians are dead. we just have to let them die in front of us, and it might be painful. i don't know what's been programmed or how long the show lasts.
the americans and the world should be trying to figure out what the chinese are doing.