Kori Schake also leans heavily on the discredited “credibility” argument in this complaint about the attack on Iran that wasn’t:

The problem with the Trump administration’s policy on Iran isn’t that it won’t go to war. It’s that it keeps constructing policies that require the use of military force to achieve objectives, when the president has repeatedly made clear he’s unwilling to take that step. The administration points a gun, but won’t pull the trigger, and that will encourage other adversaries to challenge America in other theaters.

Something doesn’t add up here. Schake says that the problem with the administration’s Iran policy isn’t that it won’t go to war, but then blames Trump and his administration for their unwillingness to “pull the trigger.” The thinking here seems to be that the U.S. should always pull the trigger after it has “pointed a gun” at another state, or else risk encouraging adversaries elsewhere to challenge the U.S. This is not only not how credible threats work, but it is also a recipe for plunging into one unnecessary war after another solely for the sake of saving face. If the U.S. doesn’t launch an unjustified attack on Iran following the loss of a drone, which adversaries does that encourage? What are they going to be encouraged to do? What exactly will happen that wouldn’t have happened if the U.S. carried out the attack? Hawks get very fuzzy about this part, and they prefer to keep things as abstract and general as possible so that they don’t have to explain in any detail why it is so important for the U.S. government to “pull the trigger.” All that matters to the “credibility” fans is that the trigger gets pulled.

It is remarkable how anxious hawks are about the possible negative consequences of not initiating hostilities against another state, but they tend to be pretty blasé when it comes to thinking about the possible costs and risks of attacking another country without any legal justification. Committing acts of war and killing foreign nationals are not as worrisome as possibly providing some other government elsewhere in the world with the idea that it can get away with acting out against the U.S. An attack might precipitate a major war, or at the very least cause the deaths of hundreds or thousands of people (including more than a few Americans), but in this view the real danger is that our “credibility” might be victimized by the decision not attack. If preventive war is committing suicide for fear of death, going to war over “credibility” amounts to jumping off a cliff for fear of embarrassment.

Responding to the downing of a drone with military action is itself a ridiculous overreaction. Choosing not to indulge in a ridiculous overreaction would likely have the effect of reassuring our allies that our government is not run by fools, and it would tell prospective adversaries that our government doesn’t go to war at the drop of a hat. The U.S. doesn’t suffer from being perceived around the world as gun-shy and reluctant to use force. On the contrary, many other countries around the world see us as something of a trigger-happy active shooter moving from region to region with no regard for law or sovereignty. The idea that our reputation and credibility in the eyes of other states are diminished because the president chooses for once not to fly off the handle and start bombing is laughable.

If Trump’s Iran policy requires “the use of military force to achieve objectives,” that is a good sign that the policy is bankrupt and inimical to U.S. interests. Because that policy has always focused on compelling Iranian capitulation, attacking Iran is where that policy has been headed from the start. The problem here isn’t that Trump took aim at Iran and didn’t pull the trigger, but that he was trying to compel them to surrender to unrealistic demands to begin with. If we think of Trump as a thug trying to hold Iran up at gunpoint, Trump’s failing is not that he didn’t shoot the victim but that he was trying to rob them.