We had people planning this mission for 15 years. We dropped 14 of some of the highest tech weapons in our arsenal. We did know how deep it was, and how much concrete was used to build it. The amount of overkill used indicates that Fordro was a highly fortified target.

To say the strike just simply didn’t work… is beyond comprehension. I understand the incompetent idiots in the media wanting to believe it and reporting it, but I cannot understand anyone believing them.

Logic and critical thinking go a long way in situations like this.

Logically, we just turned that fortified mountain facility into a pile of rocks.

This was also step one. We will now demand that Iran gives inspectors unfettered access to all of their facilities. If they don’t we’ll embargo them back into bankruptcy.

Now that the line has been drawn, their nuclear dreams are over.

Trump did the right thing in unequivocally stating that we would bomb Iran again if necessary. If I was the Ayatollah, that statement alone would be deterrent enough not to try to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program, because he knows Trump means what he says, and Iran's secrecy isn't so secret anymore.

I'm glad we have a bias toward Presidents telling the American people what we did when we bomb other countries. But if "I" were president, it would be tempting to just keep radio silent, like we did that time when we took out the Syrian reactor. Or engage in some playful misdirection just to wind them up.

"Mr. President, we are receiving reports of strikes on the Iranian nuclear facilities last night that don't seem to have an Israeli origin. Did America bomb Iran?"

"Strikes in Iran? Last night? That's interesting. Any damage? Hm. I guess I need to go make some phone calls. Tell you what, I'll have to get back to you on that one. Anybody want to talk about Les Mis at the Kennedy Center? It was amazing! The new Board over there suggested The Merry Wives of Windsor, but then I had to remind them that Falstaff spends part of the play dressed as the old woman of Brentford and perhaps they'd had quite enough of that sort of thing for this decade? Anyway, next question?"

"But what about Iran, Mr. President?"

"Iran? No, I don't think they had anything to do with Les Mis. That one took place in France. You may be thinking of Othello, but he was a Moor, not a Persian."

That fantasy scenario leaves out Iran's access to media, and it paints a picture of a bumbling President who doesn't know what's happening; we just had one of those.

And just as bad, it would shatter the good record of transparency, and also the fact somebody would have leaked it, further degrading transparency.

Just be thankful it was as covert as it was leading up to it, and as transparent as it was afterward.

It’s okay to have some humor at times like these.

I would by far prefer this version! It's not like it would impede foreign relations as the messages we really intend them to receive are being sent via channels other than our press corps.

No, if you want to know what Trump wants you to think, ask him.

There’s a difference.

No, if you want to know what Trump wants you to think, ask him.

There’s a difference.

The good news is….he’s managed to stay out of the bushes.

I doubt there's much brain involvement: gut to mouth/twitter direct.

He must have great intestinal flora that helps his brain health.

The “no tax on tips” was said by no one hardly. It was such a good idea it passed 100-0. Even co-opted by his worst rivals.

That idea was Yhuge and brilliant.

Hitting Iran has been in the cards for years. No one has hit them this hard. Only one person had the bravado and courage to pull it off.

Others handed them money. That approach failed miserably. Probably directly led to a lot of deaths in the Middle East. He handed them their donkey.

He has been taking a victory lap this week. Yapping it up with reporters for an hour, whereas his predecessor could not handle even a single unscripted question.

What if this bold move proves to be a turning point in history?

These ideas are not mutually exclusive. I work with a lot of PhD's and I have to say that it doesn't take a genius to see a simple truth and take decisive action. In fact, people prone to over-analysis are probably their own worst enemy many times.

Trump does not appear to be overburdened with analysis paralysis.

No he doesn't, nor does he seem to be overly reliant on his staff or advisors...no doubt specifically because he didn't come up through govt.

How many MoH's during the recent 20 years were specifically because of poor ROE and, more specifically, analysis paralysis? I know of many times when fires were withheld because the leadership couldn't make a decision. That was one of the main contributions of ISR; overhead ISR enabled most air-surface engagements because leadership wouldn't approve unless they saw with their own eyes.

I'd say the toughest task I ever had was "operationalizing" intel folks. Given our role, I needed my intel folks to make real-time inputs to inform shoot/don't shoot decisions; that's very non-traditional for them, do you have any idea how much that goes against their instinct? They like days and weeks to assess and couched confidence levels.

General Officers are famously so hesitant to make bold decisions that their staffs resort to making the preferred COA so obvious amongst the 2 or 3 presented that it's impossible not to make the correct choice. When Gen Votel came back from a Service Chiefs talk where the Service Chiefs meet with the COCOM Commanders, he said "I didn't like what they had to say, but I understand why they said it, they had to toe the President's line." Even in a room full of nothing but 4-stars, they were afraid to speak their minds.

Another time, Gen Votel was asking us at a staff meeting why AFSOC wasn't operating their newly-acquired MQ-9 ERs, with their increased endurance, at the allowable higher gross weights so they could actually get the potential endurance and what he could say to the USAF CSAF to fix it. Our J3 (2-star) and acquisitons leader (SES) wouldn't speak up, so I did. I told him that AFSOC hadn't yet done official USAF testing to develop USAF-sourced TOLD at the higher gross weights, so, even though General Atomics and another agency that operated them had provided data, no one within AFSOC was willing to step up and authorize the higher weight ops based on someone else's data.....despite the fact these things were unmanned! One phone call to CSAF later and they were operating at the higher weights the next day.

During the around the table at the end of a 2016 meeting of our COCOM's 2, 3, and 4-star, a visiting Army 2-star spoke up and (speaking of President Obama's speech the night prior) said "the President said the word victory 8 or 9 times last night....there's not a damn thing we're doing that's going to get us to a victory".......then nothing but silence from everyone else. He was, needless to say, a very unique general for his time. The standard was NOT to speak up and rock the boat.

So, if the story of their first meeting is true, it makes sense why Trump likes Gen Caine. The story goes that current-CJCS Gen Caine came to Trump's attention because, when he asked the other generals how to fight IS during his first term, they hemmed and hawed and wouldn't give a straight answer, but when he asked Caine, he gave his honest direct assessment.