Trump will start winning again when he stops deferring to the Obama types in his Administration.

The “it’s bad for the U.S. to win outright” people are still around. The people who think — as Obama and Biden indicated obliquely, with all their rationalizations for never winning — that it’s better to keep our enemies in business so we don’t get too conceited about being the good guys and there’s a balance of power against us in the world, and besides, we can make deals with them.

These people are still around. There’s a lot of them on the never-really-American Far Right as well as on the openly anti-American Left. There are even a few of them near the top of this Administration as well as load of them in the media-Democrat crowd.

Fighting to not win means forever war

The reason Obama and Biden always fought wars in an endless way is that they worked hard to make sure they never came out with a clean completed victory. Every time our Syrian allies came close to winning, Obama cut off military supplies so as to make sure that, even if they happened to win, it would be done without America. That is the real reason why more than half a million Syrians got butchered by the regime and the war just dragged on while they were mostly losing. Similarly with Biden in Ukraine; he made sure Ukraine, when to his surprise it started winning, could not go very far.

This was fighting not to win – just short of fighting deliberately to lose, as I wrote in National Review at the time. It is why, after Americans got fed up with the forever fruitless wars of Obama and Biden, our side usually lost them to boot.

The real Trump wants to be a winner again

Trump will be @realTrump and become a winner again when he stops listening to the people who support the Obama-Biden policy. The real Trump will instead brings his wars to an end with victory. Real victory and real peace, not not another fake Obama-Biden peace.

Free people must count on the real Trump to make a real strike on Iran, not a “limited strike” designed not to win.

Fortunately Trump seems to be thinking of a limited strike as only a preliminary. He would use to knock out threats that can’t be left to wait, and if Iran is then finally ready to give in to America’s unadulterated demands, fine; otherwise, he’ll have just enough time to complete the preparations for the real, comprehensive military strike.

We should be clear on what would happen if we were to fall instead for the siren song a “limited strike” and then full stop, returning to more long rounds of diplomatic faking. It would have the costs of poking the hornet’s nest without the benefits of destroying the swarm.

A real strike means real regime change

What does a real strike mean against a real enemy? It means fighting to win.

What does winning mean, when we’re facing a regime that is determined eternally to be our enemy but is weak, and can be beaten completely? And that, if given more time, is likely to get long-range missiles and nuclear weapons and do us immeasurable harm?

Winning can only mean: ending that regime and its threat forever.

And how can we do that? Only by a real regime change.

What is a real regime change? It’s really pretty simple. It’s one that gets Iran to a fundamentally new regime. Not a mere leadership reshuffle within the Islamist regime.

Trump’s strike this time needs to aim at this real regime change, not another fake one.

The cost-benefit analysis: real regime change vs. a pretended one

The cost-benefit analysis is clear. Real regime change is far better.

Costs-benefits of a real strike and regime change:

Costs. Israel pays the bulk of it; it has its neck on the line, and will wage a campaign determined enough to win for real. Israel will put its own boots on the ground to make sure a genuine pro-Western regime gets into power this time. And America? We’ll pay some air strike costs to enable the rest.

Benefits. All the benefits of a pro-Western government in Iran, one that will last for decades to come thanks to the solid pro-Western majority of its people.

Cost-benefits of a “limited” strike and maybe get a pretended regime change:

Retaliation against our assets and our allies

Regional wars and instability

Reinforcing the enemy regime politically with its base

Spurring Russia and China to give Iran the nukes and missiles it wants

More mass killings of suspected Western spies and Iranian protesters

Temporary damage to regime forces

Maybe spurring protests and bloody regime reprisals

Satisfying the “in out” fantasies of the unilateralists and isolationists

The result of the cost-benefit analysis is overwhelming. Full strike and full regime change comes out far better than “limited” strike and hopes for a Venezuela-style regime reshuffle. Venezuela has never been on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon or missiles that can hit us. We could afford to allow more time there.

The costs-benefit balance of a “limited strike” is badly negative on balance. Even if the direct costs seem limited for a short time, the regime keeps its radical enmity to us and its nuclear intentions. The cost-benefit balance of a full strike and regime change is positive, large, and enduring.

Best policy: We do our part, Israel does the sustained follow-up

But what about the present rhetorical mood of not finishing any regime change job ourselves? If we’re not willing to change this mood and become responsible imperialists again like Trump’s hero, President McKinley, then what is our best strategy?

The best strategy is to give Israel 100% support in finishing the job for us. Israel will carry through for sure — as long as we do our part in making possible, and as long as we finally refuse to give in again to the media and the isolationists who always call for stopping Israel before it can finish any job.

It was our giving in to that ritual of stupidity– telling Israel to stop immediately, after 12 days of highly successful war in Iran, instead of finishing the job – that has let Iran learn from its mistakes and figure out how to make itself again a threat to us. It makes our job harder today. It forces us to go back in again. This time we must do it right.

Heavy initial U.S. strikes are crucial again. After that, Israel will be able to take care of the rest – as long as we don’t give in again to the ignoble crowd in the media and in a fraction of the Administration itself, who always want to force Israel to stop short and not carry through when it is winning.

Why Israel will be solid and do the heavy lifting for us

Israel has the staying power for this — as long as we support it faithfully. That’s because, unlike Americans, nearly everyone in Israel realizes that their own neck is on the line. They know their head will be cut off if they give in again to the rhetoric of fake peace and stick their head in the sand like an ostrich.

After we strike first, Israel can make sure the main remaining regime forces are subdued. And above all, it can help a legitimate new Iranian government, probably led for an interim period by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, gain control, stabilize the country, and organize the enduring constitutional and electoral processes for a future Iran. The Iranian people and their legitimate new government will be determined to do most of the work to clean up the looser remnants of the regime’s terrorist forces.

It will be a friendly, pro-Western Iran, if we simply start the job and let Israel finish it.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)