joshuabgood wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2026 10:21 am
Ernie wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2026 10:06 am
Szdfan wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2026 8:00 am
What will it take for Trump to finish the job?
Figure out a way to stop all drones and missiles
or
Figure out a way to get Iran to stop sending drone and missiles.
There is a way to do it, but thankfully, due to the influence, I think, of Christianity, it isn't considered tenable any more, ie total wanton war/destruction that really breaks a people - think Hiroshima, Dresden, Constantinople, Lakota Indians, Georgians, etc.
My understanding of contemporary military doctrine is that air strikes alone are not enough to win a war. Aircraft and missiles play a support role by destroying infrastructure and military capability. However, in order to win a war, an invading military has to occupy to land in order to force regime change.
I think Operation Epic Fury bears this out. Even though the US has killed the majority of Iranian leadership prior to the war, the regime is still in place and still able to resist the US.
If “finishing the job,” means regime change, I don’t see how Trump accomplishes that without a large ground-scale invasion and engaging in the same kind of neo-conservative nation building he ridiculed and repeatedly promised not to get caught up in.
Of course, a ground invasion is incredibly expensive, both in money and human lives and as the past twenty-five years of American efforts in the Middle East, there’s no guarantee of success.
Trump seems reluctant to launch a large-scale ground invasion. I’m concerned that we are instead stuck in a never-ending cycle with the Iranians of broken ceasefires. Both sides at this point seems ready to give up, but also unable to accomplish their ultimate objectives.
This looks increasingly like the kind of forever war Trump promised not to get the US into.
"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless."
-- Isaiah 10:1-2