Bombing Campaign In Search Of A Strategy: Pentagon Offers Trump Two-Week 'Go Bigger' Plan In Iran

"This is a bombing campaign in search of a strategy," Joe Kent, a former Trump administration counterterrorism official who resigned in protest of launching the Iran war, recently said in a post on X.

"We are choosing escalation when de-escalation remains an option, entrenching ourselves deeper into a broader war that we don’t have the capability or desire to sustain," he explained, adding: "There is not a military solution here that will lead to a win. More bombing will not convince Iran to open the SOH or to give us the deal we want, it will only harden their position."

Indeed, this week saw the conflict enter month number six since Operation Epic Fury was launched on February 28. President Trump and admin officials had promised a swift, limited campaign. Trump also seemed to actually believe there could be a quick in-and-out regime change based on the Venezuela model and recent Maduro overthrow.

But the Pentagon, and apparently some advisors at the White House, still have hopes of the US bombing its way out of this, at a moment the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, and as Red Sea shipping is also coming under strain from the Houthis.

The Wall Street Journal has newly revealed that Pentagon leadership is pitching a "two-week plan" for an escalated bombing campaign across Iran:

Also aboard the plane [Air Force One] in the impromptu meeting: Adm. Brad Cooper, head of the U.S. Central Command, who has been quietly directing the war from his Tampa, Fla., headquarters and who had arrived separately for the solemn ceremony.

The naval officer has often been eclipsed by Caine and Hegseth, who regularly brief Trump in the Oval Office and have been far more involved in the White House discussions on the war. But it is Cooper who has prepared an option for a punishing air campaign against Iran that could take up to two weeks, people familiar with the matter said.

Now, as Trump moves to strike back after Iran’s surprise missile attack Tuesday, the president will decide how far to go. He could greenlight Cooper’s option of 10 to 14 days of intensive airstrikes intended to cripple Iran’s missile capability despite warnings that the U.S. is running low on air-defensive munitions. Or, he could opt for a more limited military strike in the hopes diplomacy could be pursued.

However, it must be recalled that back in March and April, US officials were telling the American public similar things of "just two weeks more" etc. And yet here we are, over 150 days in. 

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has been insisting all along that this is not a "quagmire" - yet the conflict already seems entrenched and perhaps even permanent - set to possibly blow past the midterms. 

Yet now the solution is to just go bigger?...

If the U.S. wants military action to be effective, Cooper has maintained, the U.S. must step up its air attacks, significantly blunting Iran’s missile threat, to try to break the stalemate. This “go big” approach, which is among a series of options he has developed, would reduce the need for the U.S. to use defensive munitions because Iran would have less capability to attack, he insists.

Inherent in this is a clear admission, contrary to prior White House claims, that Iran's missile capability has not yet been seriously blunted even as the war approaches the full half-year mark.

WSJ reports CENTCOM chief Brad Cooper is pushing Trump for a two week escalation on Iran

I explain how Cooper has been secretly advised by Mark Dubowitz, the Israel lobbyist whose FDD helped design the catastrophic war on Iran, and whose predictions have all been discredited https://t.co/vnyBPxgSEx

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) July 30, 2026

Even the late Colin Powell had warned of the folly of thinking in terms of 'the next escalation will do the trick'... Washington is stuck in yet another Mideast war of choice, and it is finally beginning to dawn on the White House:

"Never send a force to do a job if you aren't prepared to give it the backing to succeed… Incrementalism, doing a little bit, seeing what happens, then doing a little bit more, is a recipe for disaster."

— General Colin Powell