Gen. Dan Caine, Aug. 9 -- WASHINGTON - America's most senior military officer has been meeting privately with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe over recent weeks, urging the three officials to steer President Trump toward an exit from the Iran war, Sputnik reported Saturday, citing US media accounts. The sessions, undisclosed at the time they occurred, reveal that the military's private judgment about the conflict's trajectory differs substantially from the White House's public statements about its progress.

Caine is, as the account puts it, "looking for an off ramp."

The core of the military's argument concerns what air campaigns can and cannot accomplish against a country Iran's s...