Analysis: Iran faces tough choices in how to respond to Israeli strikes

JERUSALEM (AP) — It’s Iran’s move now.

How the Islamic Republic chooses to respond to the unusually public Israeli aerial assault on its homeland could determine whether the region spirals further toward all-out war or holds steady at an already devastating and destabilizing level of violence.

In the coldly calculating realm of Middle East geopolitics, a strike of the magnitude that Israel delivered Saturday would typically be met with a forceful response. A likely option would be another round of the ballistic missile barrages that Iran has already launched twice this year.

Retaliating militarily would allow Iran’s clerical leadership to show strength not only to its own citizens but also to Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the militant groups battling Israel that are the vanguard of Tehran’s so-called Axis of Resistance.

It is too soon to say whether Iran’s leadership will follow that path.

Tehran may decide…