But why not also do the escorting?

I don't think we've learned how to defend against drones adequately to risk major assets like destroyers. I'm sure we'll get there. But we aren't there yet. Ukraine and Russia are still figuring out how to defend against land drones. Russia didn't have much opportunity to figure out sea drones before their Black Sea Fleet was decimated. They still don't get anywhere near the shores of Ukraine.

We don't want another USS Stark incident or a USS Cole incident. We can't spare the assets, and we don't have replacements on the way.

I think we need to live with the consequences of our actions. I'm unwilling to sacrifice the lives of sailors because of an obvious consequence of attacking Iran. We should probably shut off Iran's spigot entirely. Their economy almost certainly would collapse, and then -maybe- there would be enough support for an insurrection to accomplish the stated goal of regime change. If we let their oil flow, they'll just build more stuff that goes 'boom', and then use it.

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