Saying the Iranians put themself in this position is ridiculous though.

I mean they didn't put themselves in this position alone but they teased the monster by enriching uranium beyond their needs.

They don't need 60% enrichment, not at the quantities they were making. Not for medical research or other bullshit I'm pretty sure. It was done as a middle finger to the west to kind of taunt them to get them back to the table and to get something like the JCPOA back. It was a negotiating tactic and an attempt to punish the west by saying "see, you break your deal, we'll enrich far beyond our needs, now that we're here at this mark you need to give us more concessions compared to when we were at that lower mark". It was a bunch of "bad stuff" they could in theory trade to a west that doesn't exist, the west that maybe existed in the minds of Iranian liberals in exchange for things they wanted.

That was a tease, it was insincere and a negotiating tactic most likely and a taunt against the zionists and the US who have been hounding them about getting nukes. It was silly to go half-way thinking they could negotiate with the west and it was a bluff clearly as they didn't go the rest of the way.

And we can see from other Iranian actions they do other gestures like firing their oldest and most easily intercepted rockets at the Americans, warning them ahead of time as a "response" to US aggression and bombing them that they intone highly of "retribution" and god and blah blah blah but when the time comes they duck the war or striking back. They avoid doing anything that would seriously escalate the situation and alter the status quo they've had in tit for tats with the zionists for decades. They chose the off-ramp.

Fact is Iran blinked. It was probably the right move under the circumstances for their own situation (maybe not the world, probably not Palestine but who knows). They threatened the US not to get involved, the US punched them in the face and they did this purely propagandistic gesture of spitting at their feet and stomping off while declaring victory (while the US does the same).

So yes, in conclusion they put themselves in this position to be doubted as anything but a paper tiger with their moves as mentioned AND by not getting that nuke.

I have no doubt if the US starts a full on invasion of Iran they'll respond but the US knows this and is content to manage it and knows what lines it can step up to and how to salami-slice. The zionists got Iran to stop firing missiles at them after all. Palestinians got nothing. Iran got a propaganda victory that's transparent and empty.