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Reports of dozens of Iranian school girls killed in a bombing attack were confirmed by Monday, though the source for the bombing is unclear. Six American service personnel died in retaliatory attacks over the weekend. Nine Israelis lost their lives when an Iranian missile struck a synagogue in Beit Shemesh, a community located between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

It has only gotten more dangerous.

Where President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will take this war remains a state secret, literally. Trump has not ruled out sending troops to Tehran and elsewhere in Iran, and he probably needs to do just that to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat, free the Iranian people from oppression and let everyone live happily ever after.

If not, then Saturday’s missile attacks were a waste.

Military experts confirmed on the talk shows that bombing attacks are not sufficient to win a war. The government must send troops to the scene to clinch victory, they said. This tactic has been traditional. It makes perfect sense. After all, Israel has been unable to eliminate Hamas in Gaza despite deploying thousands of soldiers over two years, so how could they have won solely with airborne attacks?

It was Trump who urged Iranians to take back their nation, though he neglected to mention they could be gunned down by Iran’s troops. There is little evidence that Iranians are capable of seizing control.

“Hope is not a strategy,” said U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton of Salem, Mass., a Democrat and former Marine who did four tours in Iraq. He related this to an interviewer on TV on Tuesday.

Wednesday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said sending troops is not in the current plans, but it remains an option.

“We expect to have complete dominance of the air space over Iran,” she said. Dominating airspace? How does that help us, Israel or the Iranian people?

She added that Trump will be on this “until the terrorist threat from Iran is completely decimated.” With the half-hearted…er, half-way…strategy so far?

Advocates for this war correctly compile the Iranian government’s record for cruelty to its own people, development of nuclear weapons, intent to destroy Israel and America and all kinds of other abuses. They are right.

It would be a just war even if the threat is not imminent, but launching this war could take us to a more perilous place. Commencing any war is always risky, and Trump and Netanyahu have not even presented a plan for victory.

One member of Congress said an administration briefing convinced him that the missile attacks were intended to undermine Iran’s bargaining power in negotiations.

Why would Trump and Netanyahu operate this way? The pair is certainly trying to make it look like we are beating Iran, but is that how it will end?

Bear in mind that both Trump and Netanyahu face critical elections this fall, within weeks of each other, for control of Israel’s 120-member Knesset and control of Congress.

If the Iran war works to their political advantage, then eight months could be short enough to keep the momentum going. I believe that the war will make it even easier for Democrats to retake control of the House of Representatives and maybe the Senate. I do not know how to read Israeli voters.

Why would Trump care about democracy in Iran? He has come dangerously close to destroying democracy in his own country.

Questions remain over many related issues – Trump’s failure to let Congress decide on the war; his daily changes in rationale for the war; his lack of candour with members of Congress; and timing with criticism on the Epstein files.

Most of all, even if this war is the best course of action, how can we trust Trump and Netanyahu to manage it? They have both displayed destructive judgment; resisted democratic demands of their own people; are serial liars; and one is a convicted felon and the other is the current defendant in a fraud and bribery trial.

Yet Leavitt insists, “The press wants the president to look bad.”

Since when did this president need the press to make him “look bad?”

Bruce Ticker is a Philadelphia-based journalist and a regular contributor to JWire