Joe Kent

So I think, number one, that swim work hasn't been done.

As far as, like, putting people on Karag Island, I mean, I don't think you need to be a tactician to say, if you commit troops to that, they're essentially going to be used as bait.

Because Iran, regardless of how degraded we think some of their capabilities are, they can pin down that island immediately.

with a good deal of ballistic missile, a good deal of drone fire.

They could essentially cut off the straits and then any ship that goes to reinforce them, any airplane that goes to reinforce them, it's just a matter of time before they can pick them off as well.

So I think that that would tactfully be a massive blunder and we would lose lives.

And if we lose lives, then we're stuck in this cycle of, well, we lost lives.

we have to double down and avenge them and we have to commit more.

Taking the island didn't work, so now we just gotta take all the beachheads and we'll secure the Straits of Hormuz by having soldiers and marines, you know, like on the shore and for how long, for what end, once again.

So this is where I think the fight there is just, it could just end up being a massive quagmire.

And look, and if our goal is regime change, the last thing that we should have done was kill the last Ayatollah who was putting a lid on the development of a nuclear weapon.

And look, there's no formula.

I think a lot of folks would have you believe, and this is kind of the Israeli theory of the case, if you kill enough of these guys, you're eventually going to get to the moderates.

That's not the way this works.

If you kill these guys, you're going to get more and more radical people.

There's always been a tension in Iran between, you know, hardliners and the clergy and some of the more moderates, but then the IRGC in particular.

And the IRGC, these are the soldiers of Qasem Soleimani.

And Soleimani was like literally a very, very hardcore, competent general.

The IRGC's leadership, these guys cut their teeth.

They grew up fighting in the Iraq-Iran war.