Apparently in retrospective Iran's escalation and unrestrained tit 4 tat response to the Empire's aggression looks like the right choice.
Much better than Russia MO, but the latter had no moral higher ground against the West when it decided to invade Ukraine, so it necessarily had to be militarily restrained and gloves on to keep both a minimal support/benign neutrality from the global majority and acceptance from its own people who considered Ukrainians their brothers.
Then with their soft approach they fell into the Istanbul trap and Bucha false flag did the rest..
