Qatari airspace closed

Because Iran informed people of their actions beforehand.

Hopefully an exit strategy and that’s it.

Iran wanted to respond to the US attack, but warned them in advance because they didn't want casualties.

It was performative, to show the world they had responded.

we just have to hope Trump's advisors give him the steer to STFU now and not do anything daft.

Yes, they have done this previously and it ended there. I don't think they would be keen for further direct escalation with the US.

The Iranians have already done it before. Told the Americans where they would bomb so they both could save face. Whether this time ends in the same way who knows.

Imagine the poor prisoners, as if they haven't been through enough that they know have to go through the trauma and fear that Israel might kill them too.

Because this has all been very carefully orchestrated.

@Gattopardo ”I might be tempted to try a decoy attack on airbases and then something worse in the coming days when everyone had decided it was all calming down.”

While that may be successful as an attack, it would be suicidal. The Americans have just proved they can fly their B-2 bombers over Iran, and they also have B-52’s which would be equally as safe over Iran, though with a lot more air protection required.
Also today, Israel proved that they can literally ‘blow the bloody doors off’ a building.
I think both the Israelis and Americans are very, very keen not to have civilian casualties, and rightly so. Their gripe is not with the Iranian people.

Iran put out a statement yesterday saying the stats of American military bases and citizens and basically said words to the effect that they were all fair game.

I hope people are right that this was just a symbolic show of force and then everything cools down. The thing I keep thinking, though, is if I was a billy big bollocks Mullah who’d been attacked by a billy big bollocks orange man unexpectedly (under the decoy of ‘two weeks to consider my response) I might be tempted to try a decoy attack on airbases and then something worse in the coming days when everyone had decided it was all calming down.

I’m not sure trump will retaliate. I think Iran will feel they’ve saved face and the threat was clearly not very credible, the missiles were easily intercepted.
Now I imagine the gulf states will try to negotiate with Iran.

It was a token retaliation so people are uneasy but there are no casualties. It was very obvious many countries, including USA and UK, were tipped off. Started yesterday with many airlines abruptly cancelling flights to Dubai. It's too much of a risk for them to have civilian deaths, particularly from the wealthy Gulf states.

Yep

I'm not holding out much hope for that one.

Can I ask why/how was the threat of missiles known about so airspace was closed? Surely Iran want the element of surprise to inflict damage?

Well I hope so.

Depending on how Trump retaliates.

If anything the gulf states may use this to get involved and mediate an end to the war.

Qatar won't go to war with Iran. Very very unlikely.

I agree that not watching or listening to breaking news is a good thing in situations like this. Nothing we can do about it anyway right now.

Having said that, I do keep an eye on updates, but just the one liners in a newsfeed on the phone. I can turn that off if it gets too much!

Let us hope that cool heads prevail.

But it’s an interesting point re trying to make people scared, it all seems such mind games from everyone involved

I don’t mean red button as in the big nuke. Red button as in going to war - or retaliating on the greater scale he threatened. Whilst not seeing the bigger picture or understanding the consequences.

my TV is not on.

But watching the news, it’s hard to see whether this will be what happens or if Trump will red button

The news outlets want people to be sitting scared and wondering about red buttons. It’s what they’re there for. Just turn your tv off and ignore the scaremongering.

I just said to my son, What if Qatar want to get involved in fighting now??

But he said they have very little military strength so he thinks it was just words.

I agree, this is the true knife’s edge.

trump will 100% retaliate

I think it depends if Qatar's condemnation was genunine or if it has to obviously say something strong in response. None of their personnel were hurt and there is speculation they were warned. This is the breaking point IMO where things will either get better after this or worst.