The campaign against Iran has turned into a debacle. The reasons are simple and obvious: President Donald Trump assumed the Iranians would surrender ("unconditionally") after the first air and naval attacks (they didn't) and that they wouldn't shut down the Strait of Hormuz (they did).

Everything since then has been utterly futile; an embarrassing "Groundhog Day" of a war, with each iteration leaving us with fewer options, and Iran with more options and more leverage.

Iran's leaders were never going to surrender because they don't care what our forces destroy or how many of their people die (having proven quite adept at killing their own in far larger numbers). They only care about holding on to power, and there is no reason for them to believe that their hold is in any way threatened by anything we have done or are now likely to do.

The only way we could have achieved our objectives — to permanently destroy their nuclear program and halt their support for terrorist proxies — would have been to overthrow the regime, and that could only have been done by doing what Trump from the outset never seriously contemplated doing, invading Iran and taking Tehran.

We can hit all the targets we want, and watch our munitions stockpiles diminish still further, and it won't affect the........

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