Count me as stunned.
I survived the debacle of the Vietnam War. I celebrated when the United States liberated Kuwait and was disappointed when we failed to protect the Kurds from Iraqi helicopter attacks.
I was all in for attacking Taliban bases in Afghanistan after 9/11 but totally opposed to an all-out invasion of Iraq.
None of that prepared me for what the current POTUS is doing with Iran.
Simply put, President Trump is presiding over military success after military success while, at the same time, managing to lose the war he started against a country his administration repeatedly told us had been militarily devastated.
And that's what makes all this so stunning.
Because military success is not the same thing as winning a war.
Last year, President Trump claimed Iran's nuclear capability had been totally “obliterated.” This year he claimed Iran's military had been decimated. He repeatedly told us the Iranians desperately wanted a deal with the United States.
Yet the war rages on.
At the outset of the conflict, Trump and his administration outlined sweeping objectives:
• Eliminate Iran's missile threat.
• Eliminate its nuclear threat.
• Destroy its ability to project military power.
• End the threat from its regional proxies.
• Regime change in Iran
Then Trump added one more.
On March 6, he declared there would be no deal with Iran except:
“UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.”
Iran's military has certainly been battered. Its leadership has been hit. Ships, missile launchers, military installations and infrastructure have been destroyed.
Those are significant military accomplishments.
But destroying targets is not the same thing as achieving the objectives of a war.
I'm reminded of an exchange U.S. Army Col. Harry Summers said he had with a North Vietnamese colonel in Hanoi at the end of the Vietnam War.
“You know you never defeated us on the battlefield,” Summers told him. The North Vietnamese officer replied:
“That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.”
That's a lesson we seem to have forgotten.
You can win battles and still lose a war.
And by the objectives President Trump himself established for this war:
Not one has been achieved.
Not one.
• Iran still has missiles.
• The nuclear question remains unresolved.
• The Islamic Republic is still in power.
• Iran still possesses the ability to destabilize the region.
And most remarkably, five months after President Trump demanded Iran's unconditional surrender, Iran has presented demands of its own to the United States.
Think about that for a moment.
Iran has demanded an end to American military operations, sanctions relief, compensation for war damages, the release of frozen assets, American withdrawal from the region and other concessions as part of negotiations over reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
I can hear the echoes of conservative commentators had this happened during a Biden or Obama administration.
“How dare they,” we'd hear.
“We're the United States, the greatest military power on the planet.”
“No one dictates terms to America.”
But here we are.
And there is something even more troubling.
By absorbing some of the best shots the United States can deliver and remaining on its feet, it can be argued that Iran's stature in parts of the world has increased.
For decades, Iranian leaders have called America the “Great Satan” while portraying us as a paper tiger… an enormously powerful nation that ultimately lacks the ability to translate overwhelming military power into political results.
We should be deeply concerned when our own actions begin helping our enemies make their case.
Take a moment and let that sink in.
This isn't the presidency of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama or Joe Biden.
This is Donald Trump.
A Republican.
A Make America Great Again guy.
An America First guy.
A president whose entire foreign-policy persona has been built around strength, winning and the idea that other nations would once again fear American power.
Yet the nation he demanded unconditionally surrender is still fighting, still standing and has now presented conditions to us.
And that brings me to what really worries me.
History gives us some frightening examples of what can happen when leaders realize they are losing control.
By March 1945, Adolf Hitler knew Germany was facing catastrophe. Allied armies were advancing from the west while Soviet forces closed in from the east.
His response?
The Nero Decree.
Hitler ordered Germany's transportation systems, communications networks, industrial facilities and infrastructure destroyed rather than allow them to fall intact into Allied hands.
Think about that.
