Unconditional surrender
Even during the Second World War the demand for “unconditional surrender” was controversial. Why not encourage the German army to overthrow the Nazis by offering some very limited concessions? Because many Allied soldiers would die just to secure unconditional capitulation when the war was obviously already won.
In the end and quite rightly it was decided that after the “stab in the back” theories of WWI and the appalling actions of the Nazis regime, unconditional surrender was necessary, whatever the cost in Allied and German lives.
In Japan, not so much, even after dropping the bomb twice, the Allies made it clear the Emperor’s position was safe. So it was not unconditional surrender at all.
But in Iran? Really?
How or why would that work? Bombing and missile strikes might reduce much of Tehran to rubble but Iran is a huge nation and as Iraq and Afghanistan showed, just destroying the government or its armed forces is no guarantee of victory and takes troops on the ground.
If the only Iranian official left was an assistant, deputy mayor of a flea ridden, dusty, one horse town in the most remote region in Iran he would be mad to surrender unconditionally. Not least because Trump thinks he can appoint the country’s new leader too.
Iran’s regime is disgusting, violent, nasty and deeply unpopular. But I imagine that Trump’s Quisling appointment would be even less popular, and like Quisling once the forces of occupation are gone his future would consist of standing in front of a firing squad, if he was lucky.
Trump is also changing the rules of war, by ignoring international law, something that will come back to bite the USA. When you have overwhelming force like the USA does playing by the rules makes sense, as it makes it harder for your opponents to use unconventional or asymmetric weapons against you.
Well that advantage died in the Indian Ocean along with over 100 Iranian sailors, a pointless criminal act, carried out by a government which thinks this is all some kind of video game and “rules” are woke.
Trump is therefore engaged in a war for no reason, with no explanation and no plan. His so called war aims are laughable, his strategy non existent or even worse self harming, and his chances of success remote.
Still Trump always chickens out. We are now just waiting for him to claim a great win, the greatest win of all time, ignore his previous claims and stated aims, beg for a Nobel peace prize and go golfing.
After all it has distracted the media from his sexual history for a few more weeks, job done. But at what cost?
From Jonty Bloom Media Ltd
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
He and those around him have the mental acuity of junior/elementary school children brought up on a diet of cartoons, animated films/movies and video-games. Which means that it's the language and conduct they are most comfortable with spouting,
It's migrated across the pond; just listen to the arrow/archer analogy from Badenoch or any number of the rhetorical claptrap regurgitating from the groups she's trying to emulate.
This is a war of religious imperialism, so no amount of death and bloodshed is too much to make the perpetrators pause for thought.
The delusional morons who support this have been fighting the crusades in their heads since the day they were first convinced an all-powerful invisible sky wizard had anointed them as the good guys. They used the same justification to invade Ireland, enslave Africans, steal Inca gold, manifest destiny their way across the North American land mass, and more recently to attempt to wipe Islam off the planet.
There is no reasoning with these freaks, and they count (and welcome) the suffering caused to others and any that bounces back on them as part of the greater objective.