This is the way things are supposed to be done. The United States doesn’t need permission from the United Nations or the European Union or anyone else. When we determine that our people, our interests or our allies are in grave danger, we strike decisively at any peoples or targets that are creating the threat.
Iran is a revolutionary power which has bound itself to spread its hateful intolerance across the world.
As President Trump described it on Saturday night, American B-2 bombers, and probably other U.S. and Israeli aircraft struck several targets in Iran including the principal Iranian nuclear weapons development facilities at Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz. Trump said all were obliterated which may be an exaggeration. Nevertheless, all three sites were badly damaged.
All war, as Sun Tzu wrote about 2,400 years ago, is deception. According to news reports some of our aircraft approached from the West, some from the East. There were no leaks of the operation. A lot of credit has to go to our new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Dan Caine, USAF.
The last time President Trump gave Iran a deadline it was 60 days to come to an agreement effectively banning its nuclear weapons program. On the 61 day, Israel began dropping bombs.
This time Trump gave the Iranians two weeks to negotiate a deal, a deadline which would have run out on July 3. Too bad he cut it short and did what should have been done years ago. We had allowed the Iranians to lie, cheat, and steal about their nuclear weapons program for far too long. There needed to be a reckoning and now there has been one.
The ayatollahs have been enormously weakened and there are scattered reports about Iranian biggies fleeing the country. But, as Bing West asked in National Review, what is our endgame? What are we trying to do?
There is really only one choice.
We’re now back to those evil old “neocon” words: regime change. We may have been unwise to overthrow Saddam. But the ayatollahs are a vastly more serious problem that cannot be solved unless their regime is terminated.
The ayatollahs have been at war with us since they came to power in 1979. Too many have forgotten that they seized American hostages, that Jimmy Carter blew a rescue of them, and that the hostages were only released because Ronald Reagan came to the presidency and the ayatollahs didn’t want to risk his reaction.
This is a war we should have fought decades ago. The Israelis are fighting it for us and we would do well to remember that. The endgame must be the end of the ayatollahs’ regime.
Too many have also forgotten that Barack Obama bribed Iran into his 2015 nuclear weapons agreement with $1.7 billion in payments, some in cash, that went to pay for more terrorism.
Iran Is Not Iraq
Saddam’s regime was a thugocracy, existing only to rob Iraq of its wealth. The ayatollahs are a theocracy. When they chant “death to America” it’s a religious observance, not politics. They demand Iranian supremacy in the world. They will never cease trying to kill us.
Iran is a revolutionary power which has bound itself to spread its hateful intolerance across the world. I’m not entirely clear on how we can topple the ayatollahs’ regime. The Iranians themselves don’t have that power.
I have sat in Paris with Maryam Rajavi, head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. She is a very remarkable lady and a strong supporter of democracy. But the NCRI has no massive base of support in Iran. The same goes for Reza Pahlavi, the crown prince wannabe of Iran. The Iranian people have been so oppressed for so long — since 1979 – that there is no memory of any resistance movement.
As this column wrote very early in Trump’s second term, the president should have issued a secret “Presidential Determination,” the kind that leaves blood on the walls, and directed the CIA to form a group to overthrow the ayatollahs and kill off their regime. There may be no time to do so now but I bet the Israelis didn’t miss that trick. If they didn’t there may be a good switch to throw.
Otherwise, the ayatollahs may limp into the future. If they do, they won’t stop being dangerous. The best we can hope for is that the Chinese — wanting to keep their major oil supplier in business — could make Iran a Chinese satrapy. That would be bad but it’d be better than letting the ayatollahs remain and keep up with their nuclear weapons development.
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