This war is unwinnable because there is no possible benefit that will outweigh the cost.
You don't win a war when you cause the most destruction to your enemy. You win when you achieve a political objective.
You don't win a war when you cause the most destruction to your enemy. You win when you achieve a political objective.
This isn't middle ages. Most modern wars have dubious cost-benefit at best. Doesn't stop them from being fought and occasionally even won, no.
If US sets its war goal at "secure the strait and the oil fields" or "dismantle the regime" or "dismantle the nuclear program" and pulls that off, doesn't matter how many billions they would have sunk into the affair and how much they would actually have gained from it. From a military standpoint: a war goal was set and accomplished.
Whether US can actually set such a goal and then accomplish it is debatable, but it is not in any way impossible.
You mean the strait that was perfectly secure before this war? Amazing objective.
"Dismantle the regime" is the only objective that is coherent with what the US did and it's very unlikely they'll achieve it at this point.
If US has a goal of keeping the global oil prices low, then those specific goals make sense.
"Dismantle the regime" can be accomplished with both direct action, and with a more long term "destroy the regime's income streams and supply chains and let it implode". Both are on the table, and the latter can overlap with "seize the strait and the oil infrastructure".
They were able to yet didn't because doing it was sure to provoke a response. In fact if Iran acted first to close the strait it would surely have pulled in all of the European powers.
The only reason they clode the strait is because the US struck first so they had nothing to lose anymore.
"Securing the strait" is completely incoherent as an objective for this war.
If you didn't achieve a political objective, you didn't win.
It's a really stupid stick to measure things by, in my eyes.
A war that doesn't achieve a political objective has no benefit, so any cost outweighs that and it is not a victory; it is just pointless destruction.