Archive article: https://archive.is/WCeDJ
The Pentagon is preparing for weeks of ground operations in Iran, U.S. officials said, as thousands of American soldiers and Marines arrive in the Middle East for what could become a dangerous new phase of the war should President Donald Trump choose to escalate. Any potential ground operation would fall short of a full-scale invasion and could instead involve raids by a mixture of Special Operations forces and conventional infantry troops, said the officials. All spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss highly sensitive military plans that have been in development for weeks.
The problem with the military in the 21st Century is that it has plans for absolutely everything. Nobody else has plans for anything, especially not the politicians, especially especially not this politician.
Since the only ones with plans are the military, everything looks like a military. The only plan the military has at this point is ground invasion, so ground invasion it is. When that doesn’t produce the results desired by the politician, more military plans are tapped, because the only plans available are military.
We have seen the same thing happen in 2022. The plan was to invade Ukraine, decapitate the regime in three days, three weeks tops, and then profit. That didn’t work out, so the next military plan was executed. Then that didn’t work and the next military plan was executed. And four years later, there are still military plans to be executed, and well over a million people incapacitated.
The Iran “thing” started with the attempt to decapitate the Iranian regime. The plan failed (for different reasons) but the similarity in the failure of Plan A is startling. I hope someone tells this politician that chasing military plans is a terrible idea in this case, too.
The problem with military plans is that they are always planning on fighting mostly based on the last war. Case in point, drones are overwhelming conventional weapons - they didn’t plan for that.
Well, the state department does. But Trump gutted it…
To be fair, all the State Department would have had for plans would have been, “Don’t. Fucking. Do. It!”