alternative or even some kind of bar, and fully agree with you on the disastrous Iraq decision. That no one has been held to account on both Iraq and Afghanistan and the lies we were told in both over the course of 2 decades shows that politicians protect themselves. But on Iran, the strategy of engagement has only worked to fill their coffers to fund their deadly mischief, and prior to that engagement I read credible reports that their terrorist proxies were being picked up on wires complaining that the mothership was no longer funding them at the necessary levels. Obviously we're funding their various wars as well by continuing to buy their oil (election year I get it), but that will continue to have deadly consequences. The sanctions and pressure we had on them previously really did have a material impact on their cash reserves if you look at the trends over the years.

On Ukraine, what is the strategy there? We held off on tanks as some kind of red line, then decided to provide that. Same as the jets. We tipped our hand that a "minor incursion" wouldn't really be seen as a big deal. If the objective is to help Ukraine drive Russia out of its territory, we haven't really acted in that way by drawing lines in the sand (for a while at least) about what we would provide.

We really feared Putin escalating early on. We also feared Ukraine folding in the first month.

As to Tanks, we assessed that Abrams were not the tanks you wanted to start them off with. We ended up releasing our tanks to shame the Europeans into giving up the Leopards Ukraine wanted.

With the financial shortage (imposed by MAGA) we didn't want to focus on big ticket items in later packages to eat up the financial runway we have left.

I think the war likely goes into 2025 whatever happens with negotiations or an armistice. The terms will be decided by balance of power.

It's in our selfish interest to see Russia attitudes as much as possible. We don't want Putin to be able to sell this as a win and keep expanding into countries with Russian minorities like the Baltics. It's also in our interest to integrate Ukraine into the EU/NATO infrastructure to further deter Russia/reduce the need for American boots on the ground in Europe.

We need to fund them so they can hold the line this year and shame Europe into contributing what they really need to be doing. Our generals and theirs are painting a pretty dire picture of what happens when their ammunition/air defense shortage gets worse than it already is.