If people are honest with themselves, they know if Trump could go back in time, he would tell Benjamin Netanyahu no effing way are we doing this.
Nonsense.
If the Israelis packed up the whole country and Elon had the means and took it all to Mars tomorrow, or even some time back, the need to quash the Iranian regime would only be all the more compelling.
What Trump may eventually figure out is that trying to keep serious distress to the Iranian population from occurring, by fighting a war without taking out some critical element without which the mullahs and IRGC can’t run the country, is a no-go. The regime has counter-strategies, including their “mosaic” strategy, all based on the assumption the US will only go so far. And by prolonging the conflict, we likely end up harming the populace more, not less.
In lieu of not having 10 million or so Ukie style drones on hand (their production for 2026), such that we could smother the IRGC, the critical element I would go after is refined products, after taking out as many more Iranian missiles as possible. Supposedly Adm. Cooper and Gen. Caine already have a new plan for the missiles. In any event, we can rather easily reduce Iran’s refined products supply to essentially zero, even leaving refineries intact except their distillation towers. This WILL be rough on the population, but would be effective far more quickly and have less lasting effect on the population in the long run, than anything else I’ve seen suggested. (Nobody serious wants the US to employ nukes or a truly massive ground invasion.)
What’s really sad is that this idiocy — both now and in the 2000s with the Iraq debacle — has turned FR into a shadow of what it once was.