Ted Edson

Hey Christine, I can answer that. Dominating Iran would be a cakewalk. A few thousand casualties on our side vs. hundreds of thousands on theirs. Not turning it into Afghanistan is also easy. All it requires is our military leaders accepting those high casualty numbers. That’s how we won two world wars. Now before you get upset, know this: I’m not talking about war crimes. I am only talking about accepting a very high number of enemy combatant casualties along with an unfortunate but necessary number of civilians caught in the crossfire. That’s all we need. And high casualty numbers are not a war crime. Death and destruction are allowed under the Geneva Conventions. Just not certain types of death and destruction, like chemical weapons. But winning this way is not going to happen, Christiane, because moving enough tanks and artillery to do that requires a massive sealift operation, and I don’t see any massive cargo ships getting loaded. So yes, the military types are right. We absolutely, positively can dominate Iran. The problem is no politician has removed the handcuffs from our military (called ROEs, Rules of Engagement) since General MacArthur was fired by President Truman for explaining to him exactly what I’m explaining to you right now. Massive sealift of heavy bombs and Army munitions PLUS an order to put as many warheads on enemy foreheads as possible. Dead men do not fight back. Taliban using children as shields and ROEs that only let us kill them at certain times in certain specific situations with a preponderance of evidence… they do shoot back. I don’t see Trump doing that, fighting a traditional war with ROEs that allow us to kill huge numbers of IRGC. But I also don’t see him sending large numbers of boots inland with crazy restrictive ROEs either. The end is likely going to be Option C. What is Option C? I don’t know. Option C is classified.