Trump is now caught in the oldest trap of modern warfare – believing a swift, surgical military operation will yield quick, enduring political results. The Soviets did it in Afghanistan; the US in Iraq in 2003; Putin did it in Ukraine, and is still fighting. Whatever force a military fails or succeeds in applying at the start, the people it is attacking have greater commitment to defending their lands and homes.
The White House may have rushed into this, seizing the opportunity for a decapitation strike, provided by Israeli intelligence. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has very different objectives regionally, and a long US involvement against Tehran suits his desire for an Iran in rolling collapse that is no longer a threat. But the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on February 28 has caused as many problems as it has solved.
The implication I haven’t seen explicitly mentioned in the article (which it should be! Bad article) is “there is no way for Trump to stop the war without losing face and thus his power”.
The reason they keep going is because otherwise they have to admit they were wrong. And probably not only wrong, but knowingly wrong, which equals malicious. And admitting that you’re malicious is bad, even with your most loyal supporters. The only way to not have that happen is to just keep going and act as if everything is fine, which is what’s happening.
The actual “path to peace” is very very simple, you just have to retreat your troops. It’s supremely unlikely Iran will attack halfway around the globe with their infrastructure.
They’ve backed on tons of things before without admitting any wrongdoing, I don’t see how this is different
basically what I was trying to get at. But I’m not sure that it’s a matter of losing face, and rather that Netanyahu is holding some damning evidence (of the epstein files variety) over him.
as mentioned on other posts, the easiest way to deal with blackmail material is to just release it all.
I don’t know if just stopping the attack is going to work this time. Iran was significantly attacked and will want some form of retribution in order to remind the USA to never do this again.
The USA and Israel will need to pay costs for peace.
The last time someone succeeded at that, it made the USA even worse.