His entire analysis of the war on terror can be reduced to the notion that we stay “on offense”. Offense means anything aggressive, it appears. He wouldn’t rule out a nuclear strike on Iran, for example. He endorses “any methods necessary” to extract information from anyone who might seem like a terrorist.This is a big point, and it remains to be seen whether or not a Democrat is going to be able to elucidate it coherently. The concepts 'being offensive' and 'remaining on offense' are not synonymous. Or, if you want to be a bit more tactful, 'being aggressive' and 'remaining on offense' are different ideas.
Part of being tough is knowing which fights are worth fighting, and which ones are red herrings. A smart enemy, knowing that they are massively overmatched militarily, will try and draw you into conflicts where their actual exposure is quite low. Maybe they can get you to raise your exposure and inflict actual damage and casualties, but even if they can't, if they can just get you chasing them all over the globe, it's going to sap morale at home and make you look weak and pathetic abroad.
The last thing to do, in this situation, is actually run all over the world doing your enemy's bidding. And yet, there we are, with a depressingly-large portion of the conservative mainstream wanting to do it all over again en route to Tehran.
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