Since the start of President Donald Trump's unilateral war with Iran, some advisors — and the MAGA community in particular — have speculated about how much wealth and how many lives Trump and his Secretary of Defense are prepared to throw at the faltering campaign.

Christopher Lee, a veteran campaign operative and founder of Foresight Strategic Advisors, said any proposal for a draft and ground invasion had best be kept off the table unless Trump wants to see his Republican Party decisively defeated for the foreseeable future.

"The reason is simple: invading Iran with ground forces has the same practical military sense as would building a house on top of an active volcano," Lee told the Mirror.

Lee's comments come days after Trump threatened Iran yet again and warned Americans in the region to prepare, writing in a Truth Social post that "the biggest attack of them all is waiting in the wings."

According to the Mirror, speculation about a draft intensified earlier this year after the Selective Service System proposed changes that would transform the draft from a self-registration system into an automatic registration system. The change could take effect as early as December of this year. The United States has not conscripted anyone since the Vietnam War era, with the last inductions occurring in 1972 and draft registration suspended in 1975 before being reinstated in 1980, which means any move toward actual conscription would be a generational shift with no modern political precedent for either party to run against.

For now, Lee noted that Trump's Iran conflict has largely been waged from the air over Gulf waters, using carrier-based aircraft or land-based heavy bombers, which has kept the draft and a U.S. ground invasion unnecessary. However, Trump has not been making progress with these "death from above" tactics, and he and his secretary of defense have rapidly depleted U.S. ammunition stockpiles. The invasion has also sharply increased U.S. debt. Combined with the resulting closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the subsequent rise in fuel and fertilizer prices for Americans and farmers, Trump is under pressure to end the war before the November midterms. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most important oil transit chokepoints, through which roughly a fifth of global petroleum liquids consumption normally passes, which is why its disruption translates so directly into prices at the pump for American households.

Declaring defeat could be one option, but it would leave a stain of impotence on both the 80-year-old president and the Republican Party that enabled and permitted his war. The only other real option is escalation — which would involve ground forces and, in all likelihood, blood and U.S. casualties. The Iran War has already caused the deaths of U.S. servicemembers. Additional coffins arriving at military airports would look bad for a president who himself repeatedly avoided the military draft during the Vietnam War.

More problemably, if Trump activated the draft, Lee said, the president would discover he has deported a sizable portion of the draft's most eligible young people.

"As is the case within any draft, it will be solely men ages 18-26. Again, the irony bites Trump hard here. The law passed in 2025 would require every male citizen to register. But, interestingly enough, the very people the Trump Administration wants to deport from this country could also be subject to any draft. This includes refugees, people seeking/granted asylum and green card holders," Lee said.