Because of a combination of gossip, outright misinformation, and genuine incompetence, it is next to impossible to know at any given time what exactly is happening with Donald Trump’s war on Iran. A slew of indicators now suggests the president is preparing to escalate US involvement any day now and send in ground troops. Then again, maybe he’s not.
No matter what ends up happening, the following will still be true: deploying US ground troops to fight the war in Iran is a politically and militarily disastrous decision that will do the opposite of what Trump hopes it will do.
This is such a bad idea that it has united both card-carrying members of Trump’s hated “deep state,” such as former Defense Intelligence Agency official and former NATO supreme allied commander James Stavridis, and some of Trump’s closest political allies, such as Nancy Mace and Matt Gaetz in opposition. His own just-resigned National Counterterrorism Center director, Joe Kent, a veteran and as MAGA as they come, says it would be a “disaster.”
Stavridis’s explanation of the problem with ground troops being deployed to Kharg Island, where 90 percent of Iran’s oil is processed, is worth paying attention to in particular. Stavridis was not just once upon a time the highest ranking military official in NATO, in charge of both the alliance’s military operations and its war planning. He is also a hawk who just a few years ago advocated for NATO to go to war directly against Russia.
In other words, this is not someone whose impulse is to avoid reckless US military force nor inclined to excessively weigh up the risks involved. And yet even he thinks that on balance, this would be a horrible idea:
The first challenge, before even contemplating boots ashore on Kharg, would be getting the [31st Marine Expeditionary Unit]’s ships through the Strait of Hormuz. . . . My guess is the [USS] Tripoli and her naval escorts . . . would have to fight their way through the strait. . . ….
Auteur: Branko Marcetic
