Bombing Iran into surrendering was never a realistic outcome.
There was regime change, just not in the direction anyone else wanted.
I'd feel remiss not to point out that we had all of the objectives in Iraq completed within 3 weeks - it was the nation building cleanup that became the quagmire.
After 6 weeks in Iran we are worse off than we started and the long term implications are so much worse.
By all accounts the JCPOA was a success and working effectively when Trump cancelling it in 2018. We're here because he felt the need to solve the problem of his own making.
A third option is for the US to throw Israel under the bus and either cut military funding to them, or force them to contain themselves by treaty, join the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and so on, under that threat.
Since Israel have been goading for this war, spoiling any diplomacy (by killing the Iranian diplomats), and seem to have no intention of ceasing fire until Iran is completely fractured, I think they are the ones who need to be stopped.
Iran would perhaps re-agree to the terms and inspections they were previously under if Israel were also forced to submit. America would then re-establish it's authority in the region to some extent.
The other place I'd push back on this article is its belief that America doesn't want to trim the grass in Iran every few years. We are pretty committed to Iran not having nukes and the American people seem to have liked this war and the earlier strike pretty well.
https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/...
and that's without the oil supply shocks having kicked in properly yet
We not committed at all to an expensive war every few years with Iran. Rather, we should do what China is doing and unwind our dependence on middle eastern oil (or a low world price for while pumped domestically) and just move on to new and better transportation tech.
> ... and I forget what's going on with Russia...
Well they relaxed sanctions on Russia in the hopes it would counteract the effects of their blunder, that's how it's going.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-oil-sanctions-iran-war-hor...
If success here means China looks like the good guy and the world is disentangling themselves from the US as fast as possible then, yeah, we are winning. China is taking a hit right now, but it is at the exact moment they are hitting an inflection point in alternative energy. Is their economy actually grinding to a halt right now? I honestly haven't seen a lot of news stories about china actually taking a massive hit but I have seen several speculating they will. The net result here will likely be a big win for China.
> the American people seem to have liked this war and the earlier strike pretty well.
I don't think that is true at all. I think there is a cult of Trump and the republican base hits the hypocrisy button every chance they get so the party propaganda is only saying good things. However, within that base the cracks are there in that they aren't 100% cheering this on. There are quiet people that don't want to disagree with their cult leader so they don't say they disagree, but at the same time they are not saying loudly they actually do agree. This is, I think a telling change. As for the people not in the cult of Trump, I don't know any that are for this. There is a lot of 'Iran is bad' talk, but no 'this was a good idea' talk.
We were actually on a path to international normalization with verifiable nuclear disarmament before Trump 1.0 and here we are, Iran unleashed. Potentially they will get tolls for all traffic and a massive influence boost.
"Clausewitz’s most profound warning was not that war is hard, or that enemies get a vote, or that fog and friction confound the best-laid plans — though he believed all of those things. His deepest warning was about what happens when the political object is unclear or absent from the start."
Even now I can't think of a person that has clearly stated why we did this and what we aim to get out of this. The only plausible explanations I have seen are that Trump wanted a distraction and his only negotiating tactic is to double down hoping the other side will run out of chips. Both domestically and abroad this has been a disaster and will be for the next generation, at least.
wpollock•1h ago