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A learning opportunity for everyone to understand 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐧. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫. Before you get pulled into the title, it is important that we define the war itself—and separate it from the battlefield. Because they are not the same thing. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞. The United States has the power. It has the technology. It has the intelligence capabilities, weapons and military reach necessary to completely dominate the Iranian battlefield. America can destroy missile launchers, sink ships, eliminate weapons factories, dismantle command centers and severely restrict Iran’s ability to project military power beyond its borders. Those are tangible objectives. They can be located. They can be measured. They can be attacked. Iran’s ability to continue launching occasional attacks should not be confused with military equality. It is not evidence that Iran possesses the power to defeat the United States. 𝐈𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐧 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐲 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐲. In my view, this is where Donald Trump’s discipline must be recognized. He is not confronting an empty battlefield. He is confronting a radical regime embedded within a nation of more than 90 million human beings—millions of whom do not support the Islamic regime or the IRGC and should never be treated as the enemy. America could unleash destruction on a scale Iran could not withstand. But overwhelming destruction would not represent strategic brilliance. It would cause unimaginable suffering among innocent Iranian men, women and children while feeding the very ideology we are attempting to weaken. Therefore, the challenge facing Donald Trump is not whether America possesses enough power to win the battlefield. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠. That restraint leaves some enemy capabilities alive long enough to fire again. It makes the campaign appear slower and less complete than total destruction would be. But restraint is not weakness. And the continued existence of scattered weapons is not proof that the battlefield cannot be won. It reveals the extraordinary difficulty of defeating a regime while preserving the lives of the people trapped beneath it. But that brings us to the larger war. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐫 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐰𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬. A war involving beliefs, ideologies, loyalties, fears, grievances and generations of religious and political conditioning. And you cannot bomb an idea. You cannot destroy an ideology with missiles. Imagine the worst possible attack upon the Vatican. Imagine every building within Vatican City destroyed and the physical location itself wiped from the map. Would Catholicism perish? Would Christianity disappear? Of course not. Because the Vatican and the churches are not the faith itself. They are institutions and places of worship. As long as the belief remained alive within human beings, the only thing destroyed would be the place in which some of that worship occurred. The same strategic reality applies to the radical ideology underlying Iran’s regime. A military can eliminate one leader, a dozen leaders or an entire generation of leaders. But unless the belief system sustaining that leadership loses its legitimacy, another leader can eventually rise and occupy the ruins. 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐭. 𝐖𝐞𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝. 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞. In only a few days, America will once again remember September 11, 2001. Nearly 3,000 innocent people went to work, boarded airplanes or began an ordinary morning—and never returned home. But the attack up