"If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran," Trump threatened on May 19 on Twitter. "Never threaten the United States again!" the president wrote.
White House national security adviser John Bolton takes questions outside the White House in Washington, U.S., April 30, 2019. Inside Iran, the country’s religious leadership, which has long bashed the US as the Great Satan and Israel as the Little Satan, has increased its anti-American rhetoric. When the US invaded Iraq, they were attacking a country with a fraction of Iran’s population and bitterly divided along sectarian lines.
The Americans in Iraq were fighting a depleted poorly motivated force but Iran would be a different kettle of fish.