{"id":1740,"date":"2026-07-31T20:47:57","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T20:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1740"},"modified":"2026-07-31T20:47:57","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T20:47:57","slug":"the-incoherence-of-the-iran-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1740","title":{"rendered":"The Incoherence of the Iran Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Speaking to reporters today about the war with Iran, President Trump delivered an inspiring pep talk praising the courage and resilience of a brave nation retaining its fighting spirit in the face of adversity. Alas, the subject of his praise was the Iranians.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTheir entire navy is laying at the bottom of the sea,\u201d he said. \u201cThey had 200 airplanes\u2014they\u2019re all gone. Every one. They don\u2019t have one airplane. They had anti-aircraft weaponry, very good, but it didn\u2019t work, and it\u2019s all gone. Their radar is all gone. Their leaders are all gone. Everything is all gone! But they\u2019ll fight onward.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was probably the most Churchillian rhetoric Trump has managed to muster throughout the entire conflict. Iran shall fight on the beaches, they shall fight on the landing grounds, they shall fight in the fields and in the streets, they shall fight in the hills; they shall never surrender.<\/i><\/p>\n

This is not just a mystifying rhetorical move, but also a peculiar analysis of the military situation. If Iran\u2019s military is gone, how exactly is it continuing to fight? An extant military of some kind is generally seen as a precondition for waging war.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s comments might be chalked up to spin or confusion. But his contradictory appraisal of Iran\u2019s capabilities turns out to be very similar to the doctrinaire assessment of leading Iran-war hawks.<\/p>\n

Marc Thiessen, the former Bush-administration speechwriter and frequent Trump adviser, recently wrote a Washington Post<\/i> column that, having been published the evening before the president\u2019s remarks, seemed to anticipate Trump\u2019s case for why the war has been a success and must continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the Iranian regime\u2019s ballistic missile attack on U.S. troops in Jordan, the time has come for President Donald Trump to take a good, hard look at the advice he is getting on Iran\u2014what has worked, what has failed and who is responsible for those successes and failures,\u201d he begins. This is an audacious way to frame the question, given that Thiessen\u2019s own advice helped bring Trump to the current impasse. But his argument is that the hawks\u2019 strategy in Iran has actually worked, and needs only to be followed a bit longer to produce victory. Thiessen praises the military\u2019s \u201cstunning success on the battlefield\u2014entombing Iran\u2019s nuclear material, destroying more than 85 percent of its defense industrial base, sinking its navy, grounding its air force, decimating its ballistic missile capability, annihilating its conventional military forces and imposing a crippling blockade on its ports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alas, Trump tried to turn this victory into a negotiated deal. Big mistake: \u201cResult? Iran fired five ballistic missiles at a U.S. military base in Jordan,\u201d Thiessen writes. The same Iranian military that Trump had already destroyed took advantage of his cessation of hostilities to attack us.<\/p>\n

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This seems to suggest that destroying Iran\u2019s military does not mean that it will stay destroyed. Indeed, a recent Wall Street Journal<\/i> report found that Iran has quickly rebuilt much of its infrastructure and military capability. The same principle would imply that \u201centombing Iran\u2019s nuclear material\u201d is useful only if Iran cannot dig it back out again, which it likely can. The natural conclusion is that bombing Iranian military installations has limited, reversible effects, and requires endless application.<\/p>\n

No, no, no<\/i>, Thiessen counters. \u201cNo one is advocating indefinite war,\u201d he proceeds to argue. \u201cWhat many are advocating is completing the military plan that was paused in April when the ceasefire took effect\u2014executing the final few weeks of the campaign the U.S.-Israeli combined force was carrying out.\u201d Just a few more weeks of bombing will finish the job permanently.<\/p>\n

Those of us who closely study Thiessen\u2019s columns for clues as to what Trump is likely to say next will notice something familiar here. After the April cease-fire, Thiessen wrote, \u201cU.S. military commanders had about two weeks\u2019 worth of targets left,\u201d and allowing just two more weeks of strikes would leave Iran \u201cfully crippled militarily.\u201d He repeated this claim at the end of that month. \u201cIf he decides to resume major combat operations and finish the job, Trump is just 14 days away from a decisive victory in Iran,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

The cease-fire has since crumbled, and Trump has had more than three weeks to attack remaining targets. Yet now the final destruction of Iran\u2019s military is \u201ca few weeks\u201d away.<\/p>\n

One barrier to once again finally re-destroying the Iranian military is that the United States\u2019 capacity to sustain combat operations is finite. A week ago, journalists reported that Trump held back from carrying out bigger strikes owing to a shortage of munitions, especially interceptors to defend against the inevitable Iranian counterattack. United Nations Ambassador Mike Waltz went on NBC\u2019s Meet the Press <\/i>this past Sunday to insist that this was untrue. The military \u201chas everything that it needs to conduct this campaign as effectively as it needs to be,\u201d he insisted. Also, he added, \u201cthe people that are leaking this nonsense deserve to be in jail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Threatening prison time for people who leak information that he claims isn\u2019t even real about the American military seems like overkill. But when you are as passionate about operational security as Waltz, no measure is excessive. And he seems to have transposed upon our military the Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s-cat state of military preparedness that we have projected onto our adversary, depleted yet dangerous. The two combatants, in their paradoxical states, appear to be well matched.<\/p>\n

Later in Trump\u2019s remarks, a reporter asked him if Americans should expect Iranian attacks to continue. Called upon to inspire his countrymen to endure ongoing sacrifice, he replied: \u201cThey\u2019ll get weaker. They\u2019ll get a little stronger, maybe, now. But they\u2019ll get weaker, and then they peter out. Uh, yeah, sure. I think so.\u201d Churchill could not have put it better.<\/p>\n

Read more Kafka\u2019s Most Entertaining Stories<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If bombing has limited, reversible effects, then it will have to continue indefinitely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ideas"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Incoherence of the Iran Hawks - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1740\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Incoherence of the Iran Hawks - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If bombing has limited, reversible effects, then it will have to continue indefinitely.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1740\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-31T20:47:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1740#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1740\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"The Incoherence of the Iran Hawks\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-31T20:47:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1740\"},\"wordCount\":1018,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1740#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/85ac3665bcc2fee03f7cff348a11b940.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Ideas\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1740#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1740\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1740\",\"name\":\"The Incoherence of the Iran Hawks - 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