A) the US ruling class is scrambling to find a thesis to maintain some form of large scale dominance in the face of inexorable decline in the economy and on the battlefield. I think they may have gotten to the point where they are jumping between theses rapidly at this point. Some of these include a crypto-currency future, a multi-polar regional hegemony model, an AI-driven autonomous weapons platform, AGI/ASI runaway power scaling, technofeudalism, and a return to the robber baron / company town era.

B) They have been actively building the domestic military force for the next showdown with the population. ICE is only the half of it. The various local PDs, combined, are bigger than most national militaries. Then there's the Nat Guard, then there's domestic deployment of paid mercenaries, then there's the domestic deployment of the Banderites and the IDF, and finally the deployment of the US military directly. They have everything they need to quell a resistance.

C) But it looks like they are also seeing a resistance IN the military. The clogged toilets and laundry fires are evidence, but so are the purges and the use of absurd rhetorical filters like claiming Armageddon is the goal and waiting to see who complains so they can purge them. I think they're still seeing a situation where if they try to move too quickly before purging the military fully they'll have a coup on their hands.

They have no intention of having their forces wiped out by a foreign adversary before they can be deployed domestically against a resistance. This conflict with Iran may have shown their limits, but that doesn't mean they won't continue to operate within those limits with wild and reckless abandon.