Operation Paul Bunyan anyone?

Yes, the lesson is to stop a country like that from having Nuclear weapons before they have them. Once they have them there is jack **** we can do. Under no circumstances should a country send a C-17 with pallets of cash to once of those countries and allow them to continue to develop their nuclear program unimpeded.

Option 3 isn't exactly "full scale invasion or nothing". There are levels of ground involvement that don't require toppling the Iranian gov or occupying Tehran. The MEU, for instance, could be used to conduct amphibious and/or air assault raids against suspected missile/rocket launcher sites and mine laying ops/cells in order to prevent Iranian interdiction of commercial shipping in the straight. Of note, I'm using the Joint DoD definition of raid - which requires that the operation must end in a planned withdrawal.

Nothing like calling your “allies” cowards for refusing to help you with a problem you created. Great team building. This isnt ending anytime soon. Nice…..

Trees - my one true enemy. That and DPRK Army officers.

I'd rather have a President do that then one that placates and folds to their every demand to the detriment of the US interests. Like thinking they had the luxury to reduce spending on their national defense thinking the U.S. would always be there to pick up the slack for them. Clinton, Obama, and especially Biden allowed them to do that.

I don’t think we should force them to have cultures like our own. I said the opposite. Letting them have nuclear weapons, though. Nope.

Yeah, but the argument that I responded to (at least implies) that Iranian access to nuclear weaponry is some sort of imminent, existential threat to the US. I believe the example of North Korea's nuclear program is instructive as to the threat level. Is it ideal that they have nukes from a national security standpoint? Absolutely not. It terribly constrains US actions - both militarily and diplomatically. Has it resulted in levelled, irradiated US or Western cities? No. Could it? A big maybe, that would have to involve two (probably 3, with China) sets of non-rational actors. Maybe you can argue China is the big check on NK...and the US. I'd concede that.

So what does that, coupled with the example of Iran and Iraq, show non-nuclear armed adversarial powers? I'd say it's "get nukes as soon as you can, your regime's survival depends on it". It, coupled with our diplomatic retreat from the world, has the potential to become a game of whack-a-mole that even the USAF and USN can't win. The US military is not a limitless resource.

Anyway, who's talking about C-17s full of pallets of cash here? And how do I get ahold of one? (Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know - JPCOA/sanctions lifting).

Newsflash: Not everyone needs our way of life. Their country, their choice. They don’t need us to bomb them to democracy.

Even the Kim’s are in a different class than Iran. Counting on them not using nukes while killing women for not wearing a hijab is a completely different class of nuttery. I don’t think you can compare apples to IEDs there.