Some folks did not realize before last week that we have been at war with Iran for 47 years.
It wasn’t always a shooting war; sometimes we were attacked by Iranian proxies, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Sometimes it was kidnappings endorsed or undertaken by Iran itself. Then there were bombings, like the Marine barracks in Beirut, and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Different presidents tried different methods of appeasement while some actually sought peace. There was the whole Iran-Contra fiasco, a ridiculous screwup that was supposed to help prevent the spread of communism in the western hemisphere while keeping Iran quiet, if not quiescent. Then there was delivering pallets loaded with billions of dollars in cash to the Mullahs in hopes of preventing a war. That’s called extortion in most places.
Former President Barak Obama even apologized, repeatedly, for the fact that America had previously bombed the daylights out of terrorist organizations funded and supported by Iran. The Biden and Obama administrations that sent literal cash to Iran, cash that was used to equip the Taliban fighters who were killing Americans in Afghanistan, as well as building the drones used to swarm our forces right now.
Some of that money was used to produce drones and weapons that were used against our allies, as well as being sold to Russia and China. The Russians have been using Iranian-manufactured drones since the very start of the war in Ukraine. There was always the threat that Russia could use them against other countries just as easily.
For decades, business and government leaders have had to worry around the clock that someone would decide to block the Straits of Hormuz and shut off 25 percent of the world’s crude oil supplies. Those of us who work for a living and pay attention recognize that if someone in Iran burped the wrong way toward the Straits, gas would go up 25 cents overnight.
A lot of that worry has been washed away – or rather, blown to smithereens – with the joint efforts of Israel and the United States.
Whether or not your support Israel is none of my concern.
The fact of the matter is that one Ayatollah or the other has been encouraging and funding attacks on the west since the hostages were released in 1979. No, we didn’t always see dramatic evidence of the attacks like we did on 9/11, but for decades the leadership in Iran was literally holding Death to America rallies. One might have thought they were friends of some members of Congress.
I am no strategist, just someone who reads a lot and has seen a few things. Not enough to be an expert, by any means, but even a newsstarved Amish farmhand or the average illiterate cave hermit could tell you that financing people who hate you and want to kill you while they take over the world is a bad thing.
If a coyote is stalking the edges of your chicken pen, you don’t let it continue to do so, much less encourage him to bring along some friends. You don’t ignore that he’s stealing your neighbor’s chickens. At some point you need to eliminate the threat, or your chickens will be history.
You skin that coyote and hang its hide to dry on the wall as a warning to other coyotes.
Whether Iran was days, weeks or months away from a nuclear weapon, the exact timeline doesn’t matter, since a group of wombats like their leadership can’t be trusted with a BB gun, much less a nuclear arsenal. Iran was in bed with Russia and Communist China, neither of which can be considered a friend to the U.S.
And the things done by the Iranian government to its own people far exceeded the horrors perpetrated by the predecessor, the Shah.
Throwing homosexuals off rooftops. Measuring how much facial skin was visible on a girl, then imprisoning her to be raped and tortured if her veil was too small. Women beaten to death for being outside their homes at the wrong time. A woman stoned in the street, because Iranian Morality Police didn’t believe she was married to the man in the driver’s seat of a car.
No, it is not the job of the United States to police the world, even though we always seem to end up in that position.
But folks, if someone is evil enough to pour acid on a small child because they think the child might be the product of adultery, those type of people should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
The newest phase of the war in Iran has just started, and thankfully we have a president who prefers turning terrorist regimes into rubble rather than financing them.
The people of Iran will have their chance in the coming weeks to begin again. America doesn’t need to be in the nation-building business – that proved to be a disaster in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere – but America does sometimes need to be the burly assistant principal that provides last resort discipline for unruly school kids.
Other presidents tried bribes and diplomacy.
America has a president now who is willing to use other methods.
Will it work? Maybe. I’d even call it likely, considering that technology and American firepower have been unleashed as they should have been unleashed 47 years ago. We have a military that is once again being trained to fight, not salute a man in a skirt and panty hose and call him “Ma’am.” We have a military for whom the rules of engagement no longer involve lawyers and politics, but bullets and objectives.
If Iran’s people decide to adopt another terrorism-supporting extremist religious leader, and that person becomes a problem, we must hope that whoever succeeds Donald Trump also shares his willingness to release the hounds of hell when our nation is threatened.
Defeating and destroying a radical Iran will accomplish much more than just removing a corrupt regime. It shows every potential corrupt regime down the line what America can do when we have a president without fear.
Some will say it’s easy for a backwoods dwelling country newspaperman to support a war, especially since I never served in the military.
It’s not.
I’m no armchair general. I have plenty of kin who left their blood on foreign soil at the behest of their commander in chief. I’ve been to funerals for young men who died in places most folks couldn’t find on a map.
But it’s much harder for me to think of what would happen if those who hate our country and what it stands for to continue to be left unchecked and unrestrained.
If the president didn’t turn our war machine loose, it’s entirely possible we would someday be the ones in chains.
Pray for peace. Pray for our military and their families. Whether you like him or not, pray for our president. And pray for the people of Iran that they can help teach the world a lesson.
It’s about time our country skinned some coyotes, lest there be no chickens left for our children.
