The Trump administration has launched a major military campaign against Iran while failing to secure three pillars that historically underpin any successful war effort, a prominent defense analyst has written in The Atlantic, as "Hvylya" reports.
Eliot A. Cohen, a professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University, identified three critical gaps. First, the administration has not obtained congressional authorization for the use of military force - something the George W. Bush administration secured twice before its wars. Second, the president has yet to deliver "a substantial and coherent speech from the White House" explaining why he chose this war and how it is going. Third, when the need for allies to clear the Strait of Hormuz and escort shipping emerged, the administration's approach produced the opposite result.
The administration's "bullying and contempt excited an understandable aversion among other governments to doing its will with a smile," Cohen wrote. Meanwhile, at home, the vice president "appears to be in hiding" and the secretary of state is focused on Cuba rather than building the case for war. Without a disciplined National Security Council process, officials lack even a common set of talking points.
Cohen stressed that these are not cosmetic problems. "Some things, and usually some big things, will go wrong in a war," he warned. New enemies will arise, old allies will collapse, grotesque blunders will occur. Domestic support and competent alliance management are "the necessary reserves to meet such emergencies" - and the administration has squandered them.
The defense scholar stopped short of condemning the war itself, noting that the Iranian regime poses a severe threat that all previous approaches have failed to neutralize. But a just cause, he argued, does not excuse sloppy execution. The administration has botched the political foundations "with a rare degree of thoroughness."
Also read: Strait of Hormuz Crisis Gives the US a Problem It Never Planned For, Friedman Warns.