Ross Douthat

Well, but again, I don't think by your own account we would have to fight a major war.

We would just need the next president to continue giving Israel permission to degrade Hamas and Hezbollah and continue to do periodic strikes.

And you're saying you don't think any president would have extended even that permission.

Okay, so it's not enough for...

a future US president to allow Israel to conduct these raids, we also have to be involved in them.

And that's fair.

But again, it just seems to me that

The evidence of the last few years is that you can do a lot of damage to Iran without having a full scale battle of the Hormuz Straits.

But I don't want to harp on this.

Let's get back to the war itself.

So we're here and we're going to fight the Battle of Hormuz.

Do we use ground troops?

I mean, he likes he likes to talk like that.

Well, wait, wait a minute.

I mean, they're not gonna reconstitute that in two years if the military campaign has been as successful as you've suggested, right?

Not in two, not in two.

In two, right.

But over a longer time horizon.

Ocasio-Cortez, yeah.

Okay, but in a world where Trump stays the course and we do essentially try and find a military solution to the Straits of Hormuz, does that involve ground troops?