Good News/Bad News From a General

The good news/bad news about Iran overall is, of course, that we have a President willing to fight it -- but who may be too impulsive and incompetent to prosecute it to the right conclusion: a complete decimation of Iran's ability to harm our interests.

That latter emphatically includes the end of its current regime.

The crisis caused by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz epitomizes Trump's unfitness to lead this war, given that he plainly failed to account for that very possibility upon launching.

Fortunately, others have gamed out this scenario and, having done so, may yet save Trump's bacon. RealClear Politics summarizes an interview with a retired general on this point:

Retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, the former commander of U.S. Central Command, told CBS's "Face The Nation" that after years of preparation, after one month, the campaign against Iran is "further along than we would have expected to be at this point, in all the simulations that I've seen."

"This is not back-of-the-envelope calculations. These are things we've been working on for many years," he said. [bold added]

That's the good news. The bad follows in the very next paragraph:

"I believe that they will break. I believe that they will come to terms," he said. "I'll be honest with you. I've simulated this many years in many positions at Central Command; we're a little further along than we would have expected to be at this point in all the simulations that I've seen." [bold added]

In other words, for all our tactical superiority, we are crippled by an institutional strategic blindness to the nature of our opponent that feeds straight in to Trump's naive obsession with "making a deal" at all costs.

We fought World War II and prevailed in the Cold War against opponents that at least had a desire to live in this world. Those opponents were, in that respect, paragons of rationality compared to this foe. Unlike with them, there is no basis at all for negotiating with Iran's regime.

The current regime are religious fanatics for whom criminal bargains -- much less good faith negotiations for mutual benefit in the future -- are an alien concept, and who will lie through their teeth, if doing so will keep them in power, so they can regroup and try to kill us again another day.

-- CAV