In Michael Gordon’s piece on The Battle for Hormuz, he wrote that

A stable peace appears elusive, some former officials say, as each side is calculating that it can win the long game in a test of wills….

A stable peace with terrorists is an oxymoron, and it’s time to put down that pipe dream. Green then closed his piece with this:

Former military officials say the US can weaken the regime if it is persistent but warn there is a long road ahead.
“The US will need to identify and pursue a longer term strategy that addresses Iran’s focus on controlling the Strait of Hormuz, threatening its neighbors with missiles and drones, and the nuclear weapons program,” said Joseph Votel, the retired Army general who led Central Command from 2016 to 2019. “This is going to be a long-term effort.”

The leaders of the Iranian government, the civilians in Tehran and the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, will never agree to limits on their nuclear weapons program or to giving up their aspiration to control the Strait of Hormuz. That doesn’t mean we should quit the struggle.

In fact, we can shorten it well within Votel’s implied time frame with a change in emphasis and a firmer drive to achieve the fight’s primary aim, the end of Iran’s nuclear weapons acquisition capability. Rather than seeking to “influence” or “coerce” those leadership teams, or “weaken” them into agreeing to a deal, it’s time to accelerate and broaden—escalate, if you will—the attacks on Iran, focusing on three target sets in all their breadth and (occasionally literal) depth: destroy Iran’s ability to fight at all by destroying not just some weapon sites and caches, but the means of producing replacements; destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities wherever they are along with their caches of purified uranium, including deepening the burial of those caches already hit; and killing Iran’s leaders, especially those running the IRGC. The latter has dispersed its command and control facilities and personnel, so that will be especially…tedious. Israel, though, has a demonstrated facility at this sort of activity; it would be good if we could enlist that nation’s aid here.

Only by completely disarming Iran and killing the terrorists reigning over it can there be a lasting, stable peace and one that includes a restoration of the Strait, and of the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, to their status as international waters freely usable by commercial shipping.