its well past time for some of these folk to realize this; 

 

Our military establishment in America has been so mentally destroyed by the privilege of hegemony that they can’t even comprehend what defeat actually looks like.

A concise definition: Victory is when you impose your will on the enemy. A military advisor told this to Trump once because he used that exact phrasing when discussing the war with Iran early on.

 Has the United States and/or Israel imposed their will on Iran? No, we failed to accomplish almost every objective we set forth to accomplish. I set this out at length earlier this week.

Have the Iranians imposed their will on us? Yes, absolutely. They drove the United States from the Persian Gulf, seized control of the Strait of Hormuz, deterred Israel from taking any action against them without full American backing that will not be forthcoming, and broke the US Navy’s blockade of their global commerce. That isn’t just victory, it’s an unqualified, decisive victory that is already reshaping the Middle East around Iran’s rising power.

The first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem, and yet I see nothing but cope on this website and in the broader public sphere from the American camp. I had imagined that in any war with Iran we would see a similar dynamic as that playing out between Russia and Ukraine – one in which Iran would put up a stiff struggle but ultimately fall to superior force.

The notion that the United States would suffer a catastrophic failure of resolve, abandon the Persian Gulf without firing a shot, poke at the Iranians with standoff weapons until we ran out six weeks later and then sue for a ceasefire and prove to not even be able to enforce a blockade is a level of collapse that I actually find offensive as a veteran.

But this collapse is, however, the natural and inevitable result of the toxic morass of soft corruption, safe promotions, stupid politics, indiscipline, careerism, phoned-in planning, half-assed training, incuriosity and macho gym bro hubris that the US military has absolutely FOUNDERED in since the end of the Cold War. And the people in charge of said military – trust me, “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth is very much a symptom and representative of a broader culture here – are currently being allowed to spin this debacle as a victory instead of being purged from the ranks en masse as they deserve and as they must should we wish to restore American power going forward..............https://www.theburningplatform.com/2026/05/02/when-you-believe-your-own-bullshit/