Iran’s Regime Won’t Surrender—It Must Be Defeated

 

President Trump must recognize that Iran's blood-thirsty regime does not believe in surrender. Years  of negotiations have failed to change its behavior. It is time to stop chasing a deal that never arrives and finish the job militarily. When a door has been locked for decades, there comes a time to stop knocking.

I have watched enough wars, revolutions, and dictatorships to know one uncomfortable truth: you can destroy an army faster than you can destroy an idea. Buildings collapse. Runways crack. Ships sink. Generals die. Yet sometimes the regime remains standing, battered but breathing, like a cornered wolf showing its teeth through broken jaws.

If this ongoing U.S.-Israel-Iran’s war  is any indication, President Trump must realize that Iran’s murderous, blood-thirsty regime does not believe in the word “surrender.”

The first lesson is staring Washington in the face. The remnants of Iran's ruling system have reportedly endured punishment that would have shattered many governments. Their former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead. Multiple layers of leadership have been eliminated. Their navy has been wrecked. Their air force has been devastated. Months of bombardment have pounded military targets across the country. Yet the surviving elements of the system continue  fighting.

That should tell us something. A regime that continues resisting after suffering losses of that magnitude is not behaving like a normal government seeking a negotiated settlement. It is behaving like an organization driven by survival instincts, ideology, and fear of what happens if it loses power.

And history is full of such regimes. In April 1945, Berlin was surrounded. Soviet artillery was smashing the city. Germany's defeat was mathematically certain. Yet Adolf Hitler's regime continued fighting. Tens of thousands died in battles that changed nothing. The leadership preferred destruction to surrender.

Imperial Japan offered another example. Even after devastating defeats throughout the Pacific and the destruction of much of its military power, resistance continued until the final stage of the war. The logic was simple: some leaders viewed surrender as worse than catastrophe.

That is why people who believe diplomacy alone can end every this ongoing war in Iran often confuse hope with strategy. Hope is a wonderful thing. Strategy is a different animal.

The uncomfortable reality is that some governments do not negotiate because they suddenly discover morality. They negotiate when they conclude that continuing the fight threatens their survival more than compromise does. If a leadership group believes surrender means prison, exile, or death, its members often choose continued resistance instead.

A drowning man does not politely discuss swimming lessons. He grabs anything within reach. That is exactly why the current situation raises difficult questions for President Trump.

For months, air power has reportedly carried the burden of the conflict. American military aviation has long been the world's heavyweight champion. From the Gulf War to operations against ISIS, U.S. air power has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to destroy military infrastructure with astonishing precision.

But air power has limitations.  Aircraft can destroy targets. Aircraft cannot govern cities. Aircraft cannot secure neighborhoods. Aircraft cannot physically inspect every bunker, tunnel, warehouse, laboratory, or stockpile.

Eventually, every war reaches a point where military leaders must ask a simple question: What exactly is the desired end state? If the objective is punishment, bombing can accomplish that. If the objective is deterrence, bombing can contribute to that. If the objective is forcing regime collapse and securing strategic assets, history suggests the problem becomes far more complicated. And this is where the job of the regular army—the infantry—comes in: to move beyond destruction, ferret out and arrest the remaining members of a blood-thirsty regime, establish control on the ground, secure key assets, and turn military gains into a lasting political outcome.

This brings us to the issue that hangs over the conflict like a storm cloud: uranium.

If significant uranium stockpiles remain inside Iran and if there are concerns about their potential military use, then those materials become central to the war's outcome. Destroying a facility from the air is one thing. Accounting for every gram of enriched material is another.

You cannot secure uranium with a press conference. You cannot inventory nuclear material through a television interview. You cannot guarantee control of strategic stockpiles from 30,000 feet in the sky. Someone eventually has to put boots on the ground and verify what exists, what has been moved, and what remains hidden.

That reality may be politically unpopular. In fact, it almost certainly is. Americans remember Iraq. Americans remember Afghanistan. Americans remember promises that sounded quick and simple before turning into years of blood and treasure.

The phrase "ground invasion" does not exactly win elections. But wars do not care about poll numbers. Wars care about outcomes. A surgeon performing emergency surgery does not ask whether the operation will be popular. The question is whether it is necessary.

Then there is the question of Israel. In plain terms, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent decades warning about the dangers posed by Iran's leadership. Only a few world leaders have studied the Iranian regime as extensively or as consistently. Whether one agrees with Netanyahu or not, it is difficult to deny that Iran has occupied a central place in his strategic thinking for much of his political career.

Experience matters. A detective who has spent 20 years tracking the same criminal gang usually understands its habits better than someone reading the file for the first time. That does not mean the detective is always right. It does mean his assessment deserves attention.

The larger lesson emerging from this war is brutally simple. Some regimes surrender when they lose. Others surrender only when they can no longer fight. And a few refuse surrender even when defeat is obvious to everyone except themselves. Those are the most dangerous adversaries because they force their opponents into increasingly difficult choices.

Given that months of devastating air bombardment  have failed to produce surrender in Iran, then this should tell President Trump three important facts. First, the moral dimension is absent from what remains of the murderous  regime, which means negotiations and diplomacy will never make it surrender. Second, U.S. air power has done its job in Iran. To save the Iranian people, who have literally begged for help in removing this blood-soaked regime, it is now time to send in the U.S. Army to finish the job, secure Iran’s uranium stockpile before it becomes a nuclear nightmare, and free the country from its tormentors. 

This option may be politically unpopular today, but it is the only one that can end this war—and when it does, today's political poison will suddenly become tomorrow’s political gold. Third, President Trump should always listen to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when dealing with Iran. In my opinion, he understands the mindset of Iran’s ruling regime better than President Trump does. After all, when facing a wolf, it helps to listen to the shepherd who has spent years watching the pack.

For readers interested in a separate line of thought, the titles in my “Brief BookSeries” are available on Google Play. Read them here on Google Play or in Barnes & Noble bookstore: Brief Book Series.