at the same time you correctly point out that US intervention usually fails when they deploy on the ground

This is not the point where US intervention fails. The boots on the ground do their job quite well initially. Where the US fails is long term, they have no long term strategy for these nations they defeat beyond sitting around with their thumbs up their arses for several expensive decades while their opponents simply wait them out.

In terms of retaliation, I still do not believe Iran can do enough to deter the US and the US policy of overwhelming retaliation would just lead to their own destruction by following this path.

In terms of your might is right point on imperialism I would again refer you back to the last century and a bit where all of the great empires collapsed one by one, starting with the Ottoman’s, followed by the Germans, British, French and Russian. This was the century of the insurgent, TE Lawrence, Michael Collins, Vo Nguyen Giap amongst others.

In very few cases is the leader of a state solely responsible for the military actions of said state

The USA is one case where the president is actually Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Provided the order is not illegal, the army have to follow the order of their superior. Trump and the republican party have been going down the state capture route a long time now and there is no one left who will say no to him, as we have seen since he has come to office. Even if someone was brave enough to dissent the would be removed from their position without much thought.

To me it looks like Trump is going to get America dragged into another expensive forever war that with their current debt levels they cannot afford. The attempted decapitation looks like it will not lead to a quick end as Iran entrenches. The American people should rightly be asking the question of why are we striking Iran when Iran has not now or ever posed a real threat to the USA. This is Trump’s war, he never even asked for congressional approval. If he’s going to bankrupt the American people he should at least have a damn good explanation of why. We are all scratching our heads trying to figure this out.