[Flammy]

Sure, but not all retaliation is equal and nation states know what constitutes escalation vs retaliation without escalating.

I'm failing to find it, but after the recent Israel <> Gaza war kicked off, there was an interesting article about the types of military actions between Israel <> Hezbollah and what constituted "not escalating" vs "escalating." The different attack options for each side were asymmetric, but basically both sides had "ramp up the conflict" and "ramp down the conflict without losing face for not responding" options.

Unless this is a prelude to more attacks, this feels like a "de-escalation" option to me: Iran gets headlines, gets to negotiate, gets to show its strength domestically, but if this is the extent of it probably no one dies and the damage will be limited to shipping insurance costs and the like. Big $ numbers, but not blood.

That isn't to say some terror group or 3rd party (Saudi, Houthis, etc) isn't going to take this moment to take a swing at one of the parties involved, it's always possible.