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Disclaimer:  Notwithstanding what you are about to read, I am not a neocon, an Islamophobe, a callous or insensitive monster, or a depraved, unethical, wicked, immoral, amoral dupe of Benjamin Netanyahu.

As far as I can tell, as the war is now being conducted, this is what winning looks like for Israel: sleep deprivation, gallows humor, low-level but devastating casualties, property damage, insecurity, economic disruption, creative YouTube bomb shelter vignettes, and occasional despair.

This is what losing looks like for Israel: October 7, every day, until we are all gone.

This is what winning looks like for the world: Higher energy costs, disruption of capital markets, inflationary pressures, and a possible recession.

This is what losing looks like: higher energy costs, a nuclear, impenetrable, and invulnerable Iran, perpetual Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz and global energy markets, a diminished United States, and an annihilated Israel.

Framed in that way, it appears that all of our alternatives are grim, and our choices  are binary and unpleasant: heads they win, tails we lose. This will be the case as long as we constrain ourselves and our efforts in waging and actually winning the war.

The one question that our political leaders appear not to be asking our superb military commanders is: what will it take to bring the war to a decisive, victorious end?

You may not recall the term “least abhorrent.” It was the justification provided by the United States for the use of nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The more abhorrent alternatives were an invasion of Japan that would destroy the entire country, a continued blockade of Japan that would bring widespread famine and disease, and the infliction and absorption of millions of casualties, including up to a million Americans.

There was another justification that was retributive in nature, as well as a geopolitical rationale involving deterrence of the Russians, but historians tell us that the primary argument was utilitarian. Secretary of War Stimson described the use of nuclear weapons as the “least abhorrent choice.” Ending the war quickly was somewhat counter-intuitively and incongruously described as the ethical choice, when contrasted to a prolonged conventional conflict.

The decision to use nuclear weapons was arrived at only after the United States government and military concluded that Japan would never surrender, no matter what losses were inflicted through firebombing and what suffering resulted from the blockade. (Documents recently discovered reveal that the Japanese were prepared to incur over 20 million casualties in an invasion of the homeland.)

Only an unprecedented demonstration of overwhelming destructive power and the will to use it would be effective. That is why there were two bombs; one would not have been sufficient. There was a three-day hiatus during which it became clear that Japan would not surrender.

As to civilian casualties, the architects and engineers of World War II had previously demonstrated few scruples. Civilian populations of London, Coventry, Dresden, Berlin, and Tokyo had been indiscriminately targeted. Atomic weapons were different only in degree, not in purpose. The objective was to end the war in victory, save lives, and deter future enemies.

The Bataan Death March and the notorious Japanese POW camps were deemed sufficient to justify a retributive impulse in those who might otherwise have objected to the deployment of such inhumane, massive force.

Ethically, morally, and operationally, those Japanese excesses were no worse than the depraved brutality of October 7, the thousands of missiles indiscriminately aimed at civilian populations, and the massacres in the streets of Iran.

Terrorists, mass murderers, and war criminals have no standing to object to disproportionate violence.

We need to win decisively and we need to end the war.

Now–let me be as clear as I can.  I am not–not, not, not, NOT, Not, and NOT–endorsing or suggesting the use of nuclear weapons. The world has changed since 1945, when the US was the only nuclear power. Even if it were not ethically irresponsible, it would be tactically and strategically unwise. The Middle East is not an island and the weapons have become progressively more destructive. Their use would mean the end of the world.

I am merely suggesting that to win the war we must use weapons and tactics designed to defeat the enemy, not merely inconvenience it. An injured and degraded Iran becomes even more dangerous; what is needed is devastation sufficient to prompt insurrection or surrender.

Whatever we do, we will be accused of war crimes, genocide, and a catalog of other horribles. Those charges have been defanged by overuse and profligate, unwarranted condemnation. We already stand indicted by the progressive and unbalanced world; nothing we can do is going to change the opinions of Spain or Francesca Albanese. We might as well try to win the war.

And there, I freely admit that my legal and literary backgrounds present insuperable obstacles to a presentation of the successful scenario I envision. I do not know what it will take, what it will cost, whether we have the horses, and what specific tools and weapons will be necessary to accomplish the goal. If we are unable to accomplish it, we will have to live with the Hobson’s Choice set forth in the beginning of the essay.

But I have the liberal arts major’s unbounded confidence in our technology and our military. Based on what I have seen of our military capabilities, we can accomplish any goal we set for ourselves. And that is all I want–a clear, concise, goal that will bring victory and peace. We should settle for nothing less.

Is that too much to ask?

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)