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| The president and the ayatollah: Who’s really winning the war? |
This has always been my view. Long before the U.S. targeted
Iran with its most recent military action in late February. When the US and
Israel struck, I thought – or at least hoped that this was the beginning of the
end of that terrorist regime.
The thinking then was that Iran’s murder of tens of
thousands of its own citizens, combined with the degradation of its military
capabilities, would generate an internal revolt that would overthrow their
government and restore the freedom its citizens lost when Iranian Islamists
forcibly took over the country 47 years ago and transformed it into an Islamist
dictatorship. A regime that ruled through iron-fisted terror rooted in a
theology that sees the murder of protesters as a religious obligation, since as
they saw it - those protesters pining for freedom represented a rebellion
against God!
While it is difficult to imagine the current Iranian
leadership surviving the military devastation at the hands of the US and
Israeli military, they have in fact more than survived. if Iran is not brought
to complete surrender, and allowed to survive through some negotiated
settlement, then it will have effectively won. They will surely continue to
pursue their goals, and any agreement they make will not be worth the paper it
is written on.
Furthermore, if allowed to survive, Iran will retain the
ability to cause havoc whenever it chooses. It has already demonstrated that
despite its military setbacks, it can still threaten international commerce. In
effect, the Strait of Hormuz is their atomic bomb - an economic weapon that can
be deployed at a moment’s notice. Its ability to disrupt shipping has inflicted
economic hardship on much of the civilized world.
If the president ultimately makes some kind of deal with
these terrorists, then his critics will have been proven right. He will have
accomplished little. Even if a new agreement appears better than the one
reached by President Obama, which is at best - debatable , it will be a major
victory for Iran.
Any other regime that had suffered Iran’s level of military
devastation might have conceded defeat. But not a regime whose motivation is
fundamentally theological. The only way it will surrender is if its terrorist
military arm, the IRGC, is completely destroyed. That will require a major U.S.
military invasion.
There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that the danger
Iran poses to the civilized world justifies such action, even though it would
almost certainly result in American casualties.
I do not say this lightly. Every human being killed in war
is a tragedy of immense proportion. In a sense, an entire world dies with each
individual death. The reverberations spread far beyond the immediate family and
strike at the core of the collective American conscience.
America’s appetite for war soured long ago after more than
40,000 American soldiers died trying to preserve democracy in South Vietnam and
prevent the spread of communism throughout Southeast Asia. After years of
fighting, a peace agreement was reached, U.S. troops withdrew, and South
Vietnam fell shortly thereafter. The country was reunified under communist
rule.
Subsequent wars have often produced similarly disappointing
outcomes. It is therefore easy to understand why the American people are deeply
skeptical of military intervention. The idea of losing even one soldier in a
conflict that achieves little if anything is something no American parent wants
to contemplate.
Many Americans look at the world before the attack on Iran
and remember relative peace and a thriving economy. They see those conditions
now threatened and therefore prefer that President Trump make whatever deal is
necessary to restore stability.
What many Americans fail to understand, however, is the
existential danger Iran poses to our own security if it is allowed at any time
in the future - to enrich uranium toward weapons-grade levels. They do not
fully appreciate that Iran’s theological goals are real, nor that its support
for terrorist proxies was part of a broader strategy to advance those goals. If
the regime survives, those ambitions will survive with it.
Without understanding that danger, I too would oppose
further military action.
But there is another aspect of this issue that is rarely
discussed…
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