The six-day long funeral for Ayatollah Khamenei began on July 4th, an apparent attempt to distract the world from the United States’ celebration of our 250th birthday. The Iranians called off further peace talks until the funeral is over. It provides them with a decent excuse for stalling. President Trump said we were halting further attacks to be “nice” to Iran.
The regime’s new “supreme leader” — Mojtaba Khamenei — hasn’t been seen since his father’s death very early in the war. He may be dead as well. We, and the Israelis, killed perhaps a whole generation of Iranian leaders.
There is a permanent state of war existing between the U.S. and Iran. Demonstrators still chant “death to America” and “revenge, revenge” at Khamenei’s funeral.
The Iranians are not content to just let that be. They warned on Thursday that any ships that didn’t follow their planned routes through the Strait of Hormuz could be attacked. The state-run media reported that the Iranian military said that, “Any disruptive action in the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a threat to Iran’s national sovereignty and will be met with a rapid and decisive action.” That is not the act of a defeated nation.
France and the UK — working with Oman — plan to help open the Strait but all three nations lack the military force to open it.
The Iranians insist that they won the recent war. Not only did they not win it, the war is not at all over. We know bloody well that we — and the Israelis — will have to go back over Iran and finish the job when they appear to be ready to deploy nuclear weapons. The only question is whether a Democrat president will even do that or leave the world with a nuclear-armed Iran.
Meanwhile our Qatari “allies” have proclaimed that Iran won the war and gained major concessions from the United States. The June 18 Memorandum of Understanding seems to reinforce that by relieving Iran of major sanctions and promising to remove U.S. forces — and our blockade — after further negotiations. Iran has promised to end their nuclear weapons program but achievement of nuclear weapons is a religious obligation to Iran’s leaders.
Iran continues to attack U.S. bases and civilians in Bahrain, Oman, and Kuwait. Those are not the actions of a defeated nation.
We need to go back to figure out who “won” the unending war with Iran.
We know that the Iranians won’t stop their nuclear weapons development despite the fact that they agreed to end it in the MOU.
The regime obviously cannot be trusted, although Mr. Trump seems inclined to do so. He continues to insist that the Iran regime fervently desires a peace deal. Negotiations will continue over the next sixty days but the Iranian regime will continue to stall. Iran means to win the “peace” having been defeated in the war.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said, at the beginning of Operation Epic Fury that, “The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser-focused: Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure — and they will never have nuclear weapons.” That operation continued for about five weeks.
Some have argued that Operation Epic Fury was not a winning strategy because those objectives have not been achieved. Iran’s offensive missile and drone capabilities have not been completely destroyed as evidenced by their continued attacks on U.S. bases in the Middle East and further attacks on Strait of Hormuz shipping.
War is a binary function: you win or you lose.
So what do we do — what can we do — now?
Mr. Trump can resume the war with attacks on Iranian capabilities as he has done, in some respects, in the past few days. If he resumes the war, Congress will almost certainly oppose him with a War Powers Resolution action intended to shut down the war.
The Israelis have continued to pound Lebanon with air attacks designed to kill Hizballah operatives and take out their drone and missile capabilities. We should do the same to Iran and Mr. Trump can dare Congress to intervene, but Mr. Trump is disinclined to do so.
The Iranian regime has always sought to delay any agreement and will continue to do so. They will never give up their “peaceful” uranium enrichment with the intention of developing nuclear weapons.
There is a permanent state of war existing between the U.S. and Iran. Demonstrators still chant “death to America” and “revenge, revenge” at Khamenei’s funeral. As this column has stated repeatedly, no permanent peace can be made with the Tehran regime. It must be toppled by force and without that, there can be no peace between the two nations.
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