\u201cPride go\u2019eth before the fall\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s the phrase that\u2019s come to mind as I listen to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (oh wait, he\u2019s a comic book hero, the Secretary of\u00a0WAR<\/em>). \u00a0Hegseth is bragging about the US attack of Iran, about the bombs, the decimated and destroyed Iranian missiles, weapons, and Naval vessels all obliterated (like the nuclear program?) by the \u201cvast resources\u201d of the United States of America.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cIran tried to assassinate President Trump, and he got the last laugh\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Hegseth\u2019s a \u201ctough guy\u201d, a \u201cmilitary bro\u201d leading the greatest military force of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He reminds me a lot of Herman Goering, the Nazi commander of the Luftwaffe, who claimed he would \u201cBomb England to its knees\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0That was a lesson learned in World War II, that strategic bombing, while devastating, cannot alone destroy a Nation.\u00a0\u00a0Goering learned that in the Battle of Britain, the Allies learned that in the interminable bombing campaigns against Germany.\u00a0\u00a0But most importantly, the United States learned that lesson once again in Vietnam.\u00a0\u00a0More bombs were dropped on that small country by the US than were dropped by both sides of World War II.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the Vietnamese survived the bombs, and continued their \u201casymmetrical\u201d warfare against the US military.\u00a0\u00a0Even with all the munitions, even with the most powerful military the world has ever seen, the Vietnamese hung on, and eventually won.\u00a0\u00a0Americans had to learn that same asymmetric lesson once again in Afghanistan, where we spent twenty years trying to defeat the Taliban.\u00a0\u00a0Our leaders claimed, again and again, that it would be the next strategy or the next surge of troops that would finally turn the battle.\u00a0\u00a0But it never did.\u00a0\u00a0The Taliban were willing to pay a cost so much higher than America was, that their victory was inevitable.\u00a0\u00a0Finally, the US recognized that, and abandoned the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So here we are, bragging about another attack on a smaller nation.\u00a0\u00a0We are paying a price in cash: bombs dropped, missiles fired, ships deployed, world-wide missions launched; rather than in blood.\u00a0\u00a0The six dead Americans, so far\u00a0\u00a0are honored, but they seem incidental.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWe torpedoed an Iranian frigate on the high seas, the first sinking by torpedo since World War II\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0If only Captain America was available for interviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the whole point of asymmetry, is that the Iranians won\u2019t fight back with the same tactics.\u00a0\u00a0Sure, they\u2019re firing off missiles and \u201csuicide drones\u201d. I\u2019m sure they\u2019re using everything they\u2019ve got.\u00a0\u00a0But when those munitions are done, the Iranians will shift into the mode they used for generations, terrorism.\u00a0\u00a0Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, the Iraqi Shia Militias, the KH, the AAH, the HAN, the KSS, the KIA; all have two things in common.\u00a0\u00a0They are terrorist groups, and they are all loyal to Iran.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s not just the Revolutionary Guard Corps of\u00a0\u00a0Iran that engages in terrorist acts. It\u2019s a vast number of \u201cauxiliary\u201d groups, spread throughout the Middle East and the world, ready to die for Iran.\u00a0\u00a0We won\u2019t see them coming.\u00a0\u00a0They are already here, in the United States and Europe and the Middle East.\u00a0\u00a0Once the firestorm stops over the skies of Iran (and it will stop), they\u2019ll appear.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n If there\u2019s two things for sure, the Iranian leaders are patient and loyal (and fanatically devoted to the Ayatollah; if you know, you know<\/em>).\u00a0\u00a0When one dies, another steps into their place, in a religious hierarchy that gives them the \u201cfaith\u201d to move ahead, despite the missiles and launchers and bombs.\u00a0\u00a0They are the \u201cchildren\u201d of the Persian Empire, thousands of years old.\u00a0\u00a0They will wait, \u201cduck and cover\u201d, then return with vengeance.\u00a0\u00a0While we may not have learned the lessons of Vietnam and Afghanistan; they have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What will we do when the bombs no longer have targets?\u00a0\u00a0How will we truly alter the situation?\u00a0\u00a0The United States is clear:\u00a0\u00a0there will be no \u201cboots on the ground\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0So we will blow the entire nation up, but leave the theocratic government intact?\u00a0\u00a0We might ask that the people \u201crise up\u201d to take control, but bombs are not disarming the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or the local police, still loyal to the theocracy.\u00a0\u00a0On the ground, the tens of thousands of protestors who have sacrificed so much in the past months, are no stronger than they were before.\u00a0\u00a0And their oppressors, while battered, still out-gun and out-man them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can\u2019t create another Gaza, battered to rubble.\u00a0\u00a0And even there, where the surviving Palestinians are just trying to get by, Israel has created an incubator for the next generation of terrorists.\u00a0\u00a0Iran is too big for that, the size of Alaska, with ninety million people.\u00a0\u00a0So when the bombs stop falling and the missiles stop screaming in, they will continue.\u00a0\u00a0The comic book heroes in the War Department will have spent billions, and puffed up their chests with new medals.\u00a0\u00a0But in the long run, the inheritors of Persia will survive, and have their own form of revenge.\u00a0\u00a0Who will be the targets?\u00a0\u00a0Not the bully boys in the hardened Pentagon.\u00a0\u00a0It will be us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bombing Alone<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Terrorism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Patience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n