Let's speculate a bit here. So Iran strikes back and let's say, for sake of argument, dozens of Americans are killed and a few hundred are injured and Iran takes credit for the bombing.

and the Mullahs are not suicidal, if an attack of this magnitude were to happen Trump would be more than justified in declaring all out war against Iran with the full weight of the US Armed Forces behind him. This of course would have to have the backing of Congress as only Congress can declare war, but an attack of this magnitude would force even the likes of Pelosi, Schumer et al to authorize a declaration of war against Iran. To do otherwise would most certainly cost the Dems dozens and dozens of seats in Congress later this year.

Killing Americans outright would be crazy- they know they can’t win a war with  a superpower much less THE  SUPERPOWER. Nor can they do tit for tat. I have to assume that cooler heads in Iran will prevail on this.

But you didn't attempt to answer my question. Your answer was what IRAN would do, not Trump.

1. the ballistic missile sites;
2. the nuclear facility sites that are mothballed

Trump will now claim the authority to wipe out the Iranian nuke program but he MAY wait until another exchange with them before doing so. This may have been Trump's plan/hope all along.

Iran has done enough to save face, but not enough to elicit much of a response from us. As I said in my earlier post, the targets have all been hardened and so far what Iran has done tonight can be considered VERY "measured" In no way does this greenlight Trump to wipe out anything on a large scale inside the borders of Iran.

I dont think a dozen or more MISSILES being fired at U.S. troops is weak at all and certainly not VERY weak. Is it the max they can do? Certainly not, but being missiles and NOT rockets is a hug difference as missiles carry a much bigger payload.

It appears that they chose these targets to make a lot of noise with very little chance for loss of life, ESPECIALLY loss of American lives.  

Tonight's attack is actually more than I expected, but yeah, it's more saber rattling than an effective attack.  I would expect they would try to do damage through proxies.

The fact that they DIDNT use proxies is quite telling to me. it is a major "fuck you" to Trump.

It's pretty clear from Trump's tweet tonight that no lives were lost and he may actually step back from hitting back. That would be uncharacteristically measured of him and would be a good thing.

...view his lack of a military response as a weakness and then act on that perceived weakness.  

Apparently not carefully enough.  There has been an airliner crash (to Ukraine) near Tehran.   Maybe they shot it down.

I think the North Korean leverage is that they have massive artillery along their border just 25 miles from downtown Seoul as well as the ability to send waves of soldiers.

can hit the Saudi oil refineries at three times the distance, and can shoot one of our drones out of the sky, its inconceivable that out of a dozen ballistic missiles, not ONE hit the area where Americans would die, when Iran knew what part of the base housed the Americans.  I have to believe that this was an "intentional" miss just to save face back home.  It was strictly for domestic consumption to show how tough the regime in charge is.  If they wanted to actually kill Americans, they had the technology to hit their target from the distance they were at.  This was not an "accidental" miss, or a miss due by faulty missiles.  

which seems to have been designed to destroy property only and NOT to kill Americans,  
would Trump be saying  “almost no collateral damage,” or would he be launching a massive counter strike? The Suleiman drone strike killed at least 4 Iraqis, only two of whom have been identified as militia connected to Iran in what I have read.  

Or would you like to revise your remarks about Trump being one?

4 fail the others hit dirt/sand in  remote areas of the bases.  
They had to be careful no one was killed or injured.
otherwise the shit would hit the fan.

It does not matter who the president is. Really, you have got to stop looking at everything as a Republican/Democrat disagreement and comprehend what is actually happening. I gave you one Obama Drone strike post, and there are many more on the Board. In fact, for a while I even had my own personal stalker – Dronepilot – who flamed me whenever I made a drone post. Gee, I miss that guy.

Why the fuck did it take you THIS long to admit it then?

You are EXACTLY right that "acceptable collateral damage" most definitely depends on who is being killed, and from all reports no "innocent victims" were killed. Not a single tear should be shed for any of those people who were killed while planning to kill Americans.

Even I didn't realize it was that bad. Good thing Laffy was keeping count.  
I’d say that beats your “3 to 4” times, Jack, pretty badly.  
 Hate to see you go down in flames so badly to Laffy, Jack, LOL  but fortunately you are only collateral damage.

Unfortunately liberals are so invested in their claims that Trump is worse than Hitler, etc, they they really pay no attention to his rather obvious disdain for foreign involvements.  He's been pretty consistent about that for decades.  The chances of Trump launching a ground war in the middle-east are slim, slimmer than under Obama or Hillary for that matter.

and I think he got the Mullahs to believe it to. Hence the very calculated non-attack missile attack last night.

Does he have a name, or is this  just one of those generic generals you find at Walmart?  Or more likely, are you just making this up?

Gen. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
And he did say that.

Quite entertaining to witness a bunch of dunces, pontificating on a topic they know NOTHING about, while they beat their chests as if they knew shit from shinola.  When in actuality, they are a bunch of bumbling old men, struggling in the dark to find their Geritol, as they march to the can for their fifth piss of the night.

Yeah, I called that one.  The timing was too coincidental.  Iran now admits to shooting the airliner down ... which departed from their own country.  What a bunch of fuckwits.

Apparently the airliner was at 8000 feet and climbing three minutes after takeoff when it was shot down.  No cruise missile operates so high.  They try to be stealthy by flying low to the ground, anticipating surface features such as hills and mountains.  Airliners also have radar transponders that squawk specific codes.  

Have read many of your posts and often your comments are insightful.  In this instance, I believe you are referring to the "laws of armed conflict."  War need not be declared for us to employ our military instrument of national power, pursuant to  international law.

I’m going to back off my statement that collateral damage is only a concept of the laws of war or “armed conflict” as you call it. That was clearly wrong. So how do we justify the killing of innocents in drone strikes?  

"fog of war."  Which does not directly refer to legal, "declared" war but a myriad of operations military or otherwise.  We can plan to our heart's content.  We can efficiently digest all the intel available (which we know is not always 100% accurate), and still the human factor results in a number of unknown/unexpected factors affecting the execution of our intent.