Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Sunday, May 03, 2026

It would be wrong to say the United States is trapped in the war it started. It has options. But it is now going to pay a very steep price, no matter which of them it chooses. It can desist in Iran " having demonstrated, for no good reason, that its military is far less dominant than the world had assumed. Or it can draw resources from theaters that are of vital national interest, such as Europe and East Asia, to fund what the president refers to as his Iranian "excursion." Or it can resort to the extreme military options Mr. Trump darkly alluded to in social media posts starting in early April, which will redound to the everlasting shame of the country he leads. The United States stands to lose its reputation, its friends or its soul.

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That is because the United States lacks the military means to impose its will on Iran in a long conflict. In 1991 a million soldiers from more than 40 countries were needed to reverse the invasion of Kuwait carried out by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, a country less sophisticated than Iran and a fraction of its size. When Iran and Iraq fought each other to a standstill in the 1980s, deaths ran into the hundreds of thousands on each side. The United States would have to send a significant portion of its armed forces " which total only 1.3 million troops " to stand a chance of subduing Iran, and that force, if successful, would have to stay for a long time.

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The stars' alignment for catastrophe required only a consummate fool and his manipulator, as the essay's author makes clear:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel urged this war on Mr. Trump because he, too, recognized the musical-chairs logic of the moment. Once the music stops, the United States may lack the firepower to protect Israel from its neighbors in the traditional manner and will probably lack the inclination. Ironically, the war's catastrophic outcome shows Mr. Netanyahu's basic understanding to have been sound: Israel's prospects for enlisting the United States in such anachronistic adventures were dwindling. Mr. Trump's gullibility provided Mr. Netanyahu with a last chance.

#1 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2026-05-03 06:03 AM | Reply

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