Eh, how is this self-inflicted, when you have a radical has-been-empire blocking a global arteries by waging relentless proxy wars. Stop it with the "only white people can be actors on the global stage"-ism, the us basically clashes with Iran once every president (directly or indirectly) - and not by choice.
Iran is a pain in the ass, but the latest round of escalation was started by Israel and the USA.
I am no fan of Iran but the white people in question literally went there to wage war with the so called has-been-empire and got their butts spanked, despite EVERYBODY warning them for years this would have been an unwinnable war
It was blatantly obvious Iran would do that if attacked. This has been known for decades.
The only thing previously stopping them holding the strait "hostage" was the threat from the US of doing an "Operation Praying Mantis v2" and destroying their navy and attacking them.
And when the US did that anyway, they had nothing to lose.
> when you have a radical has-been-empire blocking a global arteries by waging relentless proxy wars.
Took me a while to understand that you were not referring to the US here.