As someone who spent close to a decade in the SEAL Teams, I can tell you that “hope” is not a Course of Action.
Neither is “Pray for our troops.”
The “Moto” tough-guy sound bites spit out by Hegseth and the Pentagon (like chewing tobacco on the rodeo grounds) do not win wars. They’re just more great content for SNL skits.
In the world of Special Operations, if you go into a mission without a clear objective and a defined exit strategy, you’re not just risking the mission; you’re betting the lives of your teammates on a coin toss.
I support taking out the oppressive regime in Iran. The Iranian leadership has slaughtered thousands of their own people and has long been a state sponsor of terror, including coordinating logistics for the 9-11 attacks on America.
But, how about we have a clear plan and communicate this to all Americans?
Right now, the United States’ posture toward Iran feels less like a calculated chess move and more like a blindfolded stroll through a minefield.
Great organizations communicate their strategies clearly and ensure they are understood from the bottom to the top of the organizational chart.
What a splash of spring water on the face that would be.
For decades, the U.S. has struggled to communicate a coherent long-term strategy abroad.
This has emboldened bad actors like Putin, who have used our mistakes to fuel narratives that support wars like Ukraine.
We have the finest warriors on the planet and technology that looks like it was pulled from a sci-fi flick, but all that hardware is useless if the people at the top can’t decide what “winning” actually looks like.
Are we aiming for containment? Regime change? De-escalation? If you ask five different officials in Washington, you’ll likely get six different answers and a headache.
I used to judge high school speech and debate. I can tell you that most of the high school Gen Z kids understand foreign policy strategy better than 90% of the window licking politicians in Washington, who are too busy insider trading to give a sh*t.
This lack of clarity is where things get dangerous.
America is at the nadir of our foreign policy plan (nadir: the lowest or worst point of something).
When leadership fails to provide a roadmap, they often fall back on tough guy remarks that resemble Colonel William “Bill” Kilgore in Apocalypse Now .
We’ve seen figures like Pete Hegseth lean heavily into the “pray for our troops” rhetoric.
Hope, and praying are not strategies.
Don’t get me wrong—as a veteran, I appreciate the sentiment and the support from the American public. But let’s be brutally honest, prayer is a personal comfort, it is not a national f’ng security strategy.
Relying on divine intervention to fix a geopolitical quagmire is an abdication of responsibility and absolutely absurd.
Our troops deserve leadership that matches their level of discipline and the incredible defense technology at their disposal.
They need clear objectives, realistic milestones, and a deep understanding of the historical complexities involving Tehran.
Iran is a sophisticated actor with a long memory. You don’t navigate that kind of tension with vague intentions and well-wishes.
And Americans need to understand what the hell the plan is. Full stop.
The “figure it out as we go” approach has been a recurring theme from the mountains of Tora Bora to the streets of Baghdad.
Operation Epic Folly is a pattern of strategic drift that leaves our service members holding the bag while the policy-makers back home try to poll-test their next move.
If we are going to commit the blood and treasure of this nation to another conflict in the Middle East, we owe it to every person in uniform, and the American taxpayers who’ve funded it (at the cost of affordable health care, etc.), to have a plan that goes beyond the next news cycle.
A real strategy requires a sober assessment of our interests and a transparent explanation to the American people.
It requires diplomacy backed by credible force, not just force looking for a reason.
Until we stop treating foreign policy like a game of reactive Whac-A-Mole, we will continue to find ourselves in “forever wars” with no finish line in sight.
We have the best defense tech and operational experience on the planet and our troops are ready to do their jobs; it’s time for Washington to start doing theirs.
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