Premature Evacuation
I do have one big and overriding concern about President Trump’s effort in Iran and one ancillary concern. I’m worried we might pull out too soon.
A lot of people learned the wrong lessons from the Iraq and Afghanistan situations. They speak of “forever wars” when those wars are over. Joe Biden withdrew from Afghanistan at a time when the locals were the ones getting killed. There were very few American deaths the last few years we were there. Now we’ve lost an important asset in our air base there. In Iraq, at one point, Joe Kent made an accurate point that we were there, but Iran was pulling Iraq’s strings for some time. One in six American deaths in Iraq were from Iranians and their proxies.
The temptation to avoid staying too long could cause us to leave before we should.
Right now, we have grabbed hold of a tiger by its tail. We have not defanged it, declawed it, nor killed it. We are working on doing those things. To let go too soon would have the tiger maul us, if not kill us.
Our Arab allies’ chief concern is that we leave before the job is done.
Israel’s concern is that we leave before the job is done.
The Iranian people’s chief concern is that we leave before the job is done.
We cannot pull out too soon. The President said it would be a five-week operation when it started. We are three weeks in, and every day we are hitting harder and harder. We are able to send in the A-10’s now because we have air supremacy. The F-35 that Iran hit yesterday was not knocked out of the sky, but was able to land safely.
All this does get to my ancillary concern. Beyond pulling out too soon, what conditions must be necessary for us to pull out? What does success ultimately look like?
I would prefer it if we thoroughly destabilized the regime, and the people could take it back. That is the ideal goal. I have had conversations with some intimately familiar with both the President and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s thinking, who have also spoken to those tied to the Saudi Crown Prince.
