Was the missile attack a face saving gesture?

Imagine for a moment an Iran where Khamenei is excreting in his pants knowing that he might be the next target; after all if the amazingly mobile and highly secretive Soleimani could be targeted Khamenei, who stays in Tehran, could be targeted too.

That Khamenei is stuck between a rock and a hard place.  If he does nothing then he may be ousted by power seeking members of his own fascist theocratic regime.  If he retaliates against the US he could die.

What better way out than to fire missiles at US bases that he knows, either because they're amazingly inaccurate or because the fix was in and they were targeted near but not at the American airbases, that will make him look tough but not actually cross Trump's red line since they wouldn't kill any Americans?

This is also good from Trump's perspective since he can shut down all the Democrats yammering about a war with Iran, something Trump doesn't want, and appear to be the rational war averse voice in the room by simply saying "gee the Iranians tried but failed; we only kill Iranians when they kill Americans so we won't be leveling Iran today".

Sure this sounds insane but perhaps not as insane as Khamenei acting as though the fact the US has managed to kill everyone they've targeted--Osama, the head of ISIS, and now Soleimani--is something Khamenei isn't aware of.

Does this mean that if Trump retaliates he's making a mistake?  Not really.  Khamenei needs to learn that we don't care if he's overthrown so we're not going to give him a pass on shooting at Americans even if he misses.

However if Trump decides not to retaliate and we don't see any new mass attacks by Iran then we'll know that Khamenei got the message and that Trump has pulled off a major win for America.

That all the Democrats can do is feel sorry for Iran and condemn Trump shows us whose side they're on.