Speaking to the media during Monday’s Easter Egg Roll, President Donald Trump made clear that he is looking for a total victory in Iran.
“Hopefully it [the war] can be over with quickly. Again, there are lots of different alternatives. We have many alternatives,” the president said.
He added, “We could leave right now and it would take them 15 years to rebuild what they have … But I want to finish it up. Iran CANNOT have a nuclear weapon. They are lunatics — and you can’t put nuclear weapons in the hands of a lunatic.”
After 70 or so years of half-assed wars populated with half-assed victories and outright defeats caused by an unwillingness on America’s part to just freakin’ win, this attitude from an American president is something beyond refreshing.
Yes, Trump could declare victory and get out today, and it would be a victory of sorts, but not a total victory, not a victory like the ones we had in Japan and Germany, victories so total and costly to the enemy that those countries would never wage war again.
What Trump doesn’t want is another Gulf War I, where we leave a Saddam Hussein in power, only to find ourselves in a more devastating war ten years later. Obviously, Trump also doesn’t want a Gulf War II, where we waste American lives and trillions of dollars under the stupid belief that the building of schools and roads will turn tribalist, 7th-century goatherders into Thomas Jefferson.
There is a sweet center between those two options. Trump found it in Venezuela and intends to find it in Iran. He’s gonna bomb the shit out of Iran, bring them back to — his words — the Stone Age if necessary. Meanwhile, he will continue to kill off Iran’s leaders until leaders we can do business with are in charge (which is what happened in Venezuela).
This is also the most moral way to wage war. You wipe out the enemy as quickly and brutally as possible. That’s what we did in Germany and Japan, and both were able to get back on their feet quickly. But what did we do in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan? We pussyfooted around, which extended the horror of war into two decades and resulted in more civilian and American deaths than if we had just gone in and finished the job.
Sanctions didn’t work in Iran.
Pallets of Obama dollars didn’t work.
Half-assed wars didn’t work.
Trump wants a quick war, but not one that remains unfinished, and should he be successful (which I believe will happen), the transformation of the Middle East will be an invaluable good for us, for Israel, for the Middle East, and for the world.
We have two choices: A nuclear Iran or a non-nuclear Iran.
This is an easy choice.
