Timothy Birdnow

Just another stalling tactic by Iran? That's what I think.

Trump has to walk a fine line; he has to be hard enough to make the moderate and mildly hard-liners know he will destroy them but not so soft as to make them believe they can pull the wool over his eyes. What is needed is to get the factions inside the Iranian government fighting, and to nurture the reasonable and freeze out the hard-liners. If he pushes too hard he will turn them all into hard-liners.

Sun Tzu said that a good general will "leave a golden bridge of retreat" for his enemies because if he puts their backs to the wall they will fight to the death. You give them an out. Trump has read his Sun Tzu. (So have I.) But so, apparently, have the Iranians.

I think this is a stall and the first hint of a violation should lead to a major retaliation just to prove we aren't playing. But not so hard as to turn the moderates away from us.

What we should do is if the Iranians block even one ship or try to make them pay a toll we should bomb the coastline around the strait until it looks like the surface of the Moon and keep it as a no-man's land, barring their entry into the area as we let the shipping continue.

I fear President Trump, eager to cut a deal, may not do what is necessary to win this.

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