The US government (both parties, for decades) never seemed to want to highlight who was behind a lot of that stuff. More politically expedient just to let it be accounted for in the columns for other conflicts and activities in the region. A lot of us who were cogs in the machine were quite frustrated by that... when Soleimani got droned many of us in the know were on cloud nine.

I'm a realist, didn't expect the US to declare war but maybe we could have pushed back a little harder on the low intensity front.

Although there was one apparent Quds Force plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US by bombing a popular restaurant in DC... the restaurant in question was quite popular with congress critters and USG officials. If that had actually happened, IMO it would have triggered a war of some sort against IR. The DC crowd would likely take it personally if IR actually bombed THEM while having lunch, on US soil, in the US capitol.

For clarity IRGC Quds Force is not a proxy, they are a clandestine special ops component of Iran's fundamentalist government wing. So no third-party, arms-length deniability there.