Mad Diplomacy

The NYT is on a campaign of (US govt sponsored)mad diplomacy to Iran trying to convince Iran that in the event of an Israeli "surgical" strike that if Iran limits its response to a few face-saving missile attacks on Israel, with minimal Israeli casualties, and maybe a few anonymous terrorist-style strikes on US forces in the region, then Iran will be able to avoid a more punishing US counter-attack.

They've even worked out an easily understood formula for the Mullahs to follow.

From the NYT: "A former Israeli official said the best way to think about retaliation against Israel was through a formula he called “1991 plus 2006 plus Buenos Aires times 3 or 5.” The reference was to three instances in the last two decades when Israel came under attack: the Scud missiles sent by Saddam Hussein into Israel in 1991 during the first gulf war; the 3,000 rockets fired at Israel by Hezbollah during their 2006 war; and the attacks on the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish center in Argentina in the early 1990s. Those attacks each killed 100 to 200 people, wounded scores more and caused several billion dollars of property damage."

Got that? No? Well, will neither do I, nor will the Iranians i suspect.