In a sign of just how goddamned stupid everything is, a senior officer in US Central Command last week wrote in an email to what CNN describes as “a broad group of military analysts” that CENTCOM is “looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,” evidently because the top masterminds of 21st century warfare are out of ideas on what to do.

“At the end of the day, POTUS will want a deal, so he’ll continually look for ways to get tough and get out of this,” a source told CNN, adding “You need creative minds at times – especially if you’re running out of conventional options.” This of course assumes that any one individual officer in the Pentagon’s middle management ranks have the full picture and are actually aware of what resources that CENTCOM has at its disposal. Like any one idea could be legitimately great but at the same time be based on an incomplete understanding of the top echelons of the Defense Department.

That’s what leadership is supposed to do and if leadership cannot figure out how the hell to defeat an adversary and is now resorting to sending out an email asking to have a fucking brainstorming session and then it leaks to the media then that’s not really a great sign of how things are going.

In related news Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Monday denied that there were any talks underway between US and Tehran. The IRGC also shot down at least one US Reaper drone over the Strait of Hormuz, costing US taxpayers however many millions each unit runs for.