Tom Nichols

I'm worried that the people in Washington are doing a lot of mirror imaging.

They're doing a lot of what we...

you know, strategic analysis called script writing.

If we do this, they're going to do that.

And then when they do that, that opens it for us to do this.

And it's all very convenient and congenial to your own assumptions.

And I think that a lot of that is going on.

But as you say, have they thought through what happens if the Iranians decide we don't care?

We'll go out in a blaze of glory.

We'll, you know, we'll fire everything at everybody.

Are we going to put ground troops in?

I was just going to say, I mean, we should learn from other cases of regime collapse, not just regime change by war, but regime collapse, the former Soviet Union.

You know, what happens to the KGB?

Well, it turns out they become a powerful mafia and they run the country.

You know, what if the IRGC says, we're the most organized group in this shit show here, if I can use one expletive.

And, you know, we're the people that can, we'll get the water back on, you know, we'll get the electricity going.

But I think the other problem is, what if they decide not, you know, who decides when a war is over?

The loser.

right?

That's an old adage of strategy.