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What Victory Looks Like When Your Foe Won't Surrender
Commentary posted What Victory Looks Like When Your Foe Won't Surrender by Jonathan Schanzer on April 16, 2026, in its May 2026 issue. An American family should care because Schanzer says President Donald Trump wants Iran to surrender but does not want to occupy the country the way the United States occupied Germany, Japan, Iraq, or Afghanistan. Without soldiers holding ground, Schanzer writes, the remaining tool is more bombing. A parent needs to know whether "no occupation" is a decision or only a reluctance.
Evidence rating: MODERATE. This rates a named analyst's reading, in Commentary, that Trump is loath to put boots on the ground and that without forces "physically holding territory" his remaining tool is more bombing. Schanzer writes that Israel's aims, the downfall of the regime, looked larger than Trump's.
What the article says
Schanzer asks what victory over Iran would look like in the war then underway. He ties that war to Operation Epic Fury, which he says erupted in March. He writes that two weeks in, by mid-March, Trump seemed satisfied with killing top regime figures, setting the nuclear program back by at least half a decade, wrecking the defense industry, and thinning missile stocks, while Israel hit Iran's regional proxies. He writes that Israel's aims looked larger than Trump's. Israel's fighting partners, he writes, sought the downfall of the regime. Trump, he writes, did not set regime collapse as his test of victory, because many Americans do not want another long war like the ones after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Schanzer writes that Trump wants a full surrender, not only a battlefield win. He says no country has formally surrendered to the United States in that way since Japan in 1945. He writes that a long occupation, like the US presence in Germany or Japan after World War II, is also out of fashion, as shown by the turn in public opinion on Iraq and Afghanistan. For that reason, he writes, Trump is clearly loath to put boots on the ground. He then states the limit of that choice. Without forces physically holding territory, Trump's remaining option is to keep bombing from above. Schanzer presents this as the president's reluctance. He does not present it as a written decision never to send troops.
He argues that bombing may not produce an admission of defeat. He points to Hamas and Hezbollah refusing to concede after Israeli campaigns, and to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That comparison is his argument.
"But without forces physically holding territory and forcing the regime in Iran to its knees, Trump has few viable options other than to punish the regime with an unrelenting torrent of withering blows from above."
Jonathan Schanzer, Commentary, April 16, 2026.
What other reporting and posts add
What US officials said about occupation, in their own words. On 2 March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, as the New York Post reported: "You don't have to roll 200,000 people in there and stay for 20 years." He also said: "This is not Iraq. This is not endless." Trump told the Post: "Every president says, 'There will be no boots on the ground.' I don't say it." See Trump, defense officials keep Iran operation open-ended. (captures: twitter/t52__v617.md, twitter/t52__v618.md)
What another analyst said the job would need. On a podcast of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR, a New York foreign-policy think tank) on 18 March, analyst Max Boot said "the only way that the U.S. can be certain of overthrowing the Iranian regime is by marching on Tehran," while noting that only "very limited numbers" of special operations troops or a small Marine force for Kharg Island or the uranium were realistic. CFR, The President's Inbox, 18 March 2026. (capture: twitter/t52__v617.md)
Israel's leader on the ground question. On 19 March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "you can't do revolutions from the air" and "there has to be a ground component, as well," without saying whose. Just the News, 20 March 2026. (capture: twitter/t13__v147.md) That is the gap Schanzer describes between Israel's larger aims and Trump's.
What it shows
Schanzer states the choice plainly: without "forces physically holding territory," the only tool left is "an unrelenting torrent of withering blows from above," and bombing has not produced surrender anywhere he looks. He also writes that Israel's aims, the regime's downfall, were larger than Trump's. That is the gap this section documents: Israel wants the larger result, Netanyahu says it takes "a ground component," Israel's own press says its infantry will stay home, and the soldiers who would hold the territory are American. The President's reluctance is the only thing standing between those plans and a ground war, and the Pentagon was already preparing for weeks of ground operations (see Air War Is Not Enough and Israel Keeps Its Infantry Home).
Check it yourself
The essay is at https://www.commentary.org/articles/jonathan-schanzer/us-victory-without-iran-surrender/.
Status: Jonathan Schanzer is alive. Donald Trump is alive.
For a newcomer: the United States and Israel began bombing Iran on 28 February 2026. Commentary is a conservative American monthly with a strong pro-Israel outlook. Jonathan Schanzer is executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington think tank that has long pressed for a hard line on Iran. His question, how you win if the enemy never surrenders, leads straight to the choice families care about: keep bombing, or send soldiers to hold ground.
Research captures: twitter/t52__v617.md, twitter/t52__v618.md, twitter/t13__v147.md
Last Updated: 2026-09-26