They Will Greet The Missiles As Liberators

Elliot Abrams imagines [pdf] how average Iranians would react to Americans bombing their nuclear facilities:

Itʹs not clear to me that the reaction [would be] letʹs go to war with the Americans, but rather, perhaps, how did we get into this mess? Why did those guys, the very unpopular ayatollahs in a country 70 percent of whose population is under the age of 30, why did those old guys get us into this mess.

Uh-huh.

Massie rolls his eyes:

Abrams clearly cannot imagine how an Iranian might be both opposed to the regime and proud that Iran had a nuclear capability. Yet it is not difficult to imagine how such feelings might exist. Equally, Abrams' lack of empathy makes it impossible for him to imagine how an Iranian might hear the "good messaging" about "why we ae not against the people of Iran" and see these messengers dropping bombs on Iranian territory and conclude that perhaps the Americans do indeed have something against the Iranian people. This is elementary.