I am by no means a dove, but I’m no neo-con either. Not that the president cares, but I’m perfectly OK with his decision. While the Global Hawks are an expensive piece of hardware, they’re not worth the 150 or so lives that would have been taken in a strike on the air defense installation.
Our trump card in the Iranian situation is that the vast majority of the Iranian people hate the theocratic government of Iran and its heavy-handed use of the military. We’ve blown previous opportunities to encourage a counter-revolution and there’s no need to blow yet another one.
You express my thoughts exactly.
I do think Bush had no other choice in 2003. When every single intel source in the planet, including your own general who visited the Egyptians, Israelis, and Jordanians, ALL say there are WMDs there, just 2 years after 9/11 I don’t think Bush could have let it go.
As for a cyber attack, we would try this with Suxnet later and it came back to bite our own systems.
BUT, I think in this case Trump was right to be restrained, both on humanitarian grounds and on political grounds. Iran is a VERY tough nut to crack militarily. It’s nuke facilities are spread out everywhere, and it’s not the easiest country to invade. A better option might be to pull out of the Gulf altogether in terms of our Navy, especially since we are now energy sufficient. Let the Japanese pay for this.
I have no problem with the president’s forbearance in this instance because I firmly believe he will respond militarily to another direct attack on US assets. More importantly, I think the Iranians believe it too.
Just send them a bill for the drone. Iran will be dealing with the commander who shot it down.
Expect Shapiro to claim that drones count as American soldiers.
I learned sometime in late 2018 to never second guess Donald J. Trump.