By Xavier Villar

The hidden strategic toll of confronting Tehran

MADRID - In Washington, there remains a persistent temptation to treat a confrontation with Iran as a modular option. Limited strikes, punitive operations, calibrated actions aimed at restoring deterrence without altering the broader strategic balance. That logic has proven effective in other contexts, but with Iran, it is increasingly less so. A US attack on Iranian territory would not be interpreted as a discrete operation or as another episode in a long-standing rivalry. It would be read as a strategic rupture: the moment when the accumulated power of the United States in the Middle East begins generating adverse effects that reinforce one another.