Three weeks into the war, the Iranian regime is signaling that it believes it is winning and has the power to impose a settlement on Washington that entrenches Tehran’s dominance of Middle East energy resources for decades to come.
This attitude may prove to be a dangerous misreading of President Trump’s determination, or of Israel’s capacity to inflict strategic blows on the Islamic Republic’s surviving leadership and military capabilities.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have given mixed signals on how long the war would go on, as they try to talk markets down and keep Tehran guessing. Netanyahu said Thursday that the war would end “a lot faster than people think.” Trump said this week the U.S. would wrap up the conflict in the “near future” even as the Pentagon dispatched thousands of additional Marines to the Middle East.
There is a reason the US hasn't won a war since 1945.
ReplyDeleteWW2 was the last major war in which both sides defined victory the same - the defeat and surrender of the enemy.
Since then, the US and Israel have fought wars where they defined victory as the defeat and surrender of the enemy and the enemy defined it as surviving.
That's why the US didn't win in Korea. North Korea survived even though it was beaten. Same with Viet-nam. Same with the PLO in Lebanon in 1982 and Hezbollah in 2006 and last year, and Hamas right about now. They survived everything thrown at them despite taking huge damage so they won.
For the US and Israel to win, the government in Iran has to fall and be replaced with one willing to end the conflict on America's terms. For Iran to win, it just has to wait out the Americans and Israelis.