Bob Bowker

A ground war in Iran would carry high costs with little strategic return. With oil flows vulnerable and escalation risks growing, the US faces limited options and no clear path to resolution.

A ground attack on Iran, including occupation of Kharg Island or areas along the coast, will not achieve results commensurate with the likely cost in terms of US lives and energy prices. (It also poses risks to the infrastructure and oil facilities of the Arab states that they find unacceptable – although that has been an incidental US and Israeli concern throughout the conflict.)

Cargoes transiting the Strait of Hormuz without Iranian approval will remain sufficiently subject to attack or interdiction by Iran for those cargoes to be un-insurable. There is no military solution to that issue.

The Iranians are convinced they have a higher pain threshold than the United States. They have not lost the will to fight. They probably believe time is on their side. They know that geography certainly is.

Economic pressure on Iran, including loss of oil revenue and key infrastructure, is unlikely to produce strategic benefits in the short time Trump needs the fuel crisis to end. Meanwhile, allowing oil to be exported (mostly because the US has more at stake in its relations with China and other North Asian countries than it has in defeating Iran) will provide much-needed revenue to the Iranians, either through oil sales or through tolls, or both.

Logically, Trump would be more likely to seek an off-ramp than to escalate. Moreover, in addition to press leaks about not reopening the Strait, Trump has backed away from several of the key objectives he mentioned at the outset: regime change; preventing nuclear enrichment; ending ballistic missile capability; and cessation of support for Iranian allies and proxies. He is talking more about cost and burden-sharing. Lately he has taken to underlining the lack of ‘courage’ on the part of oil consuming countries, rather than threatening to go it alone (with Israel) against the Iranians.

Despite tactical losses, therefore, for the Iranians the vision of a strategic victory remains alive.

There are at least two key risks.

One is that the Iranians will strike so hard at non-military US targets in the Gulf (including regional offices and investments of major US companies) that Trump may feel obliged to respond against Iranian energy facilities. That would risk the escalation against Arab oil and other infrastructure, as well as closure of the Red Sea to oil cargoes, that both sides have tried to avoid so far.

Another is Iranian hubris. Especially under a more hardline regime, Iran will try to make the United States (and possibly its Gulf partners such as the UAE, and also Israel) pay a high price for ending the war.

The Iranians believe they are in a better position than Trump to set the terms for ending the conflict. It is likely they aspire to achieve an enduring reset of the thinking behind the strategic architecture of the region in the minds of both the United States and the Arab countries of the region.

But more tangible demands will certainly be presented, including for guarantees against Israeli attacks, an end to sanctions and possibly compensation. And no agreement is likely without considerable US pressure on Israel to accept the outcomes Trump is willing to endorse.

If the demands set by the Iranian side are too high, and with time running out, Trump may yet decide to raise the stakes, including by focusing again on destroying Iranian energy infrastructure, with the dire consequences that would produce.

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/time-and-geography-are-on-irans-side/

READ FROM TOP.

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….

TRUMP DOES NOT CARE WHETHER HE COMMITS WAR CRIMES OR WASTE BILLIONS... THE AIM OF HIS VENTURE [EXCURSION] IN IRAN IS TO CHOKE CHINA AND INDIA IN ORDER TO DESTROY BRICS, WHILE AVOIDING A FEW POTHOLES... BUT FALLING OFF INTO THE RAVINE...

Moral opposition to an unholy war

BY REV. DR. WILLIAM J. BARBER

On March 30, 2026, clergy members, moral leaders, veterans and directly impacted people organized Moral Mondays across the country and in a solidarity action in Canada for public prayer, testimony, and prophetic witness against unholy war in the Middle East. Demonstrators across 14 states, Washington DC, and Montreal, Québec called for Congress to end funding for the war in the Middle East – which is costing an estimated $1 billion per day.

During this Holy Week on the Christian calendar and Passover celebration for Jews, a President who claims to champion the “Judeo-Christian tradition” is threatening to commit a war crime by destroying civilian infrastructure. The Commander-in-Chief of the most lethal military force in the history of the world has a Defense Secretary who presents this war as a crusade and religious advisors like Franklin Graham who celebrate him as some kind of messianic figure.

We need a moral opposition to unholy war.

What we are witnessing is moral insanity and, quite possibly, mental insanity. He is fighting for a kind of god status. All want-to-be kings and emperors have eventually gone to this space – it is the dead end of strongmen throughout the history of the world. They desire attention and adoration so much that they despise God – especially the God who is love and whose prophets declared that swords will be beat into plowshares.

Trump, his MAGA cabinet, and their Congressional entourage do not worship the God of Scripture, and certainly not Jesus. They worship Trump. They worship themselves and their own plans. They worship their own way of seeing the world. Trump is their idol and altar – the object of his and their own worship.

Trump does not believe that all people have inalienable rights endowed our Creator. We know this, whatever he says, because of what he does. He believes there are different kinds of people and that he can determine who deserves which rights.

In his twisted self-glorification, everything was bad before him. Nobody else has ever done anything. He is the salvation. He feeds on this kind of false deification. So it is no wonder in a week when so much of the world turns to the One who loves all and did more with nonviolent love on a cross than all the armies of the world, Trump and his religious nationalist backers who despise Jesus and his Way would deepen his commitment to the unholiness of war and specifically his war of choice.

This is what false gods and self-worshiping emperors do. He is doing it in this holy season because he just can’t have the real God taking all the attention and showing us a faith that bombs can’t blow out and fire can’t burnout.

This is Trump’s greatest unholiness and failure. He is at war with divinity. He is driven by the need to be all in all. So were the ancient Caesars. It’s what drove them insane and caused them to make insane decisions to destroy life. Could it be this is the real reason why we have a 25th amendment? When an elected leader is at war with divinity, trying to prove his own god status and demonstrate his desire for everyone to bow to him – even if it means using the resources of this nation to obliterate and kill civilians – he is, in the truest sense, “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

This is why we organized Moral Mondays across the nation in this Holy Week and are making plans to gather again next Monday in the nation’s capitol. If you would like to join Moral Monday in Washington, DC, please register here for more information.

William J. Barber, II

As with all op-eds and news analysis articles published by People’s World, the views expressed above are those of the author.

We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/moral-opposition-to-an-unholy-war/

READ FROM TOP.

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….