Concur with your assessment, Life.

Course of Action #2 is a no go.

COA #3 is logistically insupportable, and puts too many heads in Russia’s noose, or Iran’s, or Jihadi Central’s, or China’s or Pakistan’s. It’s a hostage situation waiting to happen, and even though the hostages are armed, Xenophon has nowhere to march to. The groveling and sodomizing America would be forced to endure to extract the survivors would be the humbling billions around the world, including millions of our own fellow citizens, think we so desperately need. We would have lost more face than we did over the Fall of the Philippines, and would have to kill even more people than we did back then to get it back. We don’t have the stones to do that anymore, so there goes our time as a global hegemon.

COA #4 has all the disadvantages of #3, plus some. America makes even more promises that are so unlikely to be kept that the white beards in the remotest village call BS. We have neither the wealth, nor the employable elements of national power, nor the will, nor the competent leadership to carry out COA #4 for as long as it would need to continue to succeed.

That leaves us with a combination of modified COA’s #1 & #5. Do something rather than nothing, but don’t put much in that we can’t unilaterally evacuate in a hurry. Keep the lily pads for as long as possible, knowing full well how exposed and vulnerable they are. Take out a high value target over in Pakistan often enough to spoil their complacency. Hold the fort in an economy of force role, refusing defeat while waiting for circumstances to change for the better, doing what we can to expedite that change.