US launches retaliatory strikes on Iran after missile attack on American forces

For five months, the United States and Iran have been exchanging blows across the Middle East in a cycle where each retaliation becomes the next justification for war. On Wednesday night, American forces struck dozens of Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities — command centers, missile sites, naval infrastructure — in response to Iranian ballistic missile attacks on U.S. bases and commercial shipping the day before. The strikes unfolded even as both governments claimed, however tentatively, that diplomacy had not yet died. Humanity has long struggled to hold a sword in one hand and an olive br