Joe Biden's new deterrent policy - don't do it.

When the US president says to a potential adversary about to lanch an attack - "don't" - I guess a lot depends on the implied threat in the word "don't". If it just means, "plese don't because it will cause a lot of trouble for everyone", then the adversary might think, "let's do it anyway, sod it." But if the word "don't" actually means, "if you do, we, the United States, are going to make you pay for it in a way that will make you regret you got out of bed", even the most vociferous adversary mgbht think twice and call the whole thing off. Donald Trump when president once warned Kim Jong-un that if he ever attacked the US he would order the annihilation of North Korea. I'm not saying Joe Biden should have told Tehran that if it launched an attack on Israel he would personally order a strike on Iran's nuclear weapons programme facilities. It's just that the word "don't" didn't cut it for me and probably didn't cut it for the ayatollahs. I think they will go ahead with an attack on Israel of some sort and will risk upsetting Biden. If that happens, the only conclusion one can come to is that the Biden "don't" warning had no impact. And that's not good. A "don't" plea has to have a helluva lot of heavy metal behind it.