Re 104: Obama, if he is like other very liberal presidents of the past half century, may imagine that those warships can accomplish more than they really can.

Carter sent 8 helicopters on what would have been a suicide mission if they’d reached their destination. He and his military sycophants made no allowance for the inevitable attrition due to equipment failures, perhaps because the military dared not tell him the truth about equipment reliability and maintenance problems, or perhaps because he was told but chose not to hear.

For the intended (and grossly inadequate, had it reached its destination) mission, to get 8 copters there would have required 16 be sent. To get 8 copters there and back, assuming no losses to hostile action, would have required 30, 50, who knows how many? The raid would have been miraculously lucky had it escaped with an outcome no worse than what transpired in Somalia. (Another Democrat mission.)

War with Iran, now, to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program, would not be a matter of a few helicopter raids and a bombing run or two. While we have the military resources to invade, ferret out any nuclear weapons programs, and destroy them so thoroughly that only a fresh start could reconstitute the program, that would take a full blown war. There is no stomach here for such a war. (That this could change if Iran went nuclear and used nukes is an understatement!)