General Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, had proposed a prolonged 8–10 month campaign to degrade Ansar Allah’s air defense systems and carry out targeted assassinations of key leaders—modeled on Israeli tactics in Lebanon.

So, open terrorism then. The “Israeli tactics in Lebanon” involved smuggling concealed explosives into civilian supply chains and detonating them in crowded areas.

I think most of Trump’s strategies come down to high stakes games of chicken. He correctly estimates that most world leaders are cowards who will accept any indignity the empire heaps on them, and that he won’t personally suffer consequences for anything he does. Given those two things, there’s little incentive for him to not at least try shaking down the entire planet just to see who capitulates.

The lesson the EU learned from WW2 is that whenever Nazis lose an armed conflict, the United States is supposed to be there to ensure they stay in power and dictate the terms of any superficial political transition.