This is written with at least some measure of hope—whether entirely justified or not.
Was it myth, history, or strategic fantasy that MacArthur urged Truman to let him march westward—through a starving Soviet apparatus—all of it, with minimal American casualties. All the way to breakfast in Moscow? Perhaps. Perhaps not. One could argue MacArthur fancied himself capable of becoming emperor of Mother Russia. Why not? He certainly did an extraordinary job of that in Japan.
But no. That just “ain’t us.”
And on more reasonable authority—or perhaps enduring folklore—that may well have been Bush’s essential message to Schwarzkopf when the road to Baghdad appeared militarily unobstructed; perhaps as American norms would have it, morally fraught. That supersonic march, characterized by the Air Force “a turkey shoot,” would have likely cost a million lives. Some, many just wanting to surrender.
I choose to ignore all the elegant prose about our strategic foci on all that. I call B.S. on all that.
No. That just “ain’t us.”
Whether wholly true or partly apocryphal, the principle matters. Power unconstrained by judgment is destruction.
Which brings us here:
Is Donald Trump fully weighing what it would mean—kinetically, economically, and historically—were he to unleash the immense force now sitting, quite literally, locked and loaded, capable of delivering the Armageddon of 2026? Balancing his instincts, bravado, whatever, with a conscience? Like, “doing that to those many millions of people, well, ‘that just ain’t us.”
Let us hope wisdom proves greater than impulse.
In the interest of clarity: Iran must never have a nuclear weapon. Nor delivery systems capable to blackmailing the entire world. Nor control over the Straight. Those imperatives are non-negotiable. That does in fact leave the potential for a genuine Hobson’s choice. Kinda like Truman’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
