Fmr Green Beret and political analyst Nick Freitas supports military action to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
He also believes the recent campaign inflicted real damage.
Iran's conventional navy has been badly degraded, its ballistic missile programme has taken significant hits, its proxy network has been weakened, and its nuclear programme has been set back.
But none of that solved the one problem that now matters most: The Strait of Hormuz.
Nick argues Iran only needs to retain enough missiles, drones and small boats to convince commercial shipping that the Strait is too dangerous.
And that gives Tehran leverage Washington still hasn't removed.
Nick believes the Iranian leadership understands something every major American adversary has learned since Vietnam.
You don't have to defeat the U.S military; you only have to outlast American politics, and that creates a big problem for Trump.
He believes the administration achieved partial success against several military objectives, but it may not have enough time to achieve all of them before domestic politics starts dictating foreign policy.
That's why Nick believes an off-ramp now makes more sense than chasing objectives that could take years to accomplish.
In his view, Trump should reopen the Strait, bring energy prices down, and refocus on domestic priorities, and only then pursue the longer-term challenge of containing Iran without becoming trapped in another endless Middle Eastern conflict.
Nick doesn't believe America's military has suddenly become weak; he thinks the battlefield has changed.
A cheap drone doesn't need to destroy an aircraft carrier; it only needs to threaten a commercial tanker.
That's the asymmetry.
America can dominate the battlefield while Iran still shapes the political outcome.
@NickJFreitas
