Less than a week before Israel launched its attack on Iran, Tucker Carlson, and other cheerleaders for the Islamic State, warned that the conflict could “easily” lead to a world war in which Russia and China would come to the aid of the Islamic clerics and thousands of Americans would die for the Jewish state.
The war is now five days old, and Iran, with its top military brass joining Qassem Soleimani in a fiery afterlife, is already “urgently signaling” via Arab intermediaries that it wants a ceasefire and return to nuclear talks to try and preserve its power, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Not one American has perished for Israel, which keeps the historic total at zero.
That hasn’t stopped isolationists, joining progressive Democrats, from engaging in scaremongering about an imaginary “neoconservative” push for a large-scale American invasion and occupation of Iran that will put troops in danger. The specter of another Iraq War is endlessly raised to frighten credulous audiences and those understandably anxious of embroiling the United States in another long conflict.
Iran is nothing like Iraq. Indeed, the failures of the Iraq and Afghanistan adventures shouldn’t hamstring the U.S. from exerting its legitimate power.
First off, despite popular rhetoric, we won the Iraq “war.” We annihilated the Iraqi army within weeks. The U.S. could atomize Iran, as well, if it pleases. The decadelong disaster that cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars in Iraq was not a war but a misguided and mishandled social engineering project that was meant to install “democracy” in an Islamic-majority state. And no one has proposed anything of the sort in Iran. Notwithstanding the isolationists’ habit of accusing anyone who believes in wielding American power against our enemies of being a “neoconservative,” there is no appetite for nation-building within either party. That’s good news.
When news of the Israeli strike first broke, the isolationists began accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “embarrassing” President Donald Trump, undercutting peacemaking efforts, and ignoring the president. This was wishcasting. Anyone who has followed the Middle East situation for more than five minutes understands it was improbable, to say the least, that the Israel Defense Forces would unleash a widespread strike on Iran without the president’s endorsement, much less knowledge. As it turned out, Trump, after being shown intelligence revealing Iran’s nuclear weapons program was perilously close to the point of no return, had not only endorsed the operation but participated in the misdirection and deception that allowed our ally to catch Tehran by surprise.
Trump had given Iran a 60-day ultimatum. Israel attacked on day 61. The U.S. has engaged in diplomacy with Iran for decades now. The notion that peace was just on the horizon is deeply unrealistic. Iran was, as always, biding its time.
It should be noted that Israel’s “Operation Rising Lion,” unlike the U.S.’s Iraq invasion, wasn’t even “preemptive.” Iran launched the largest ballistic missile attack in history against Israel last October. For decades, it has armed a three-front proxy war that’s cost thousands of Israeli lives. Iran has threatened Israel with nuclear annihilation. It was one casus belli after the next. No responsible nation on Earth would continue to exist under these conditions. Israel, with the help of the U.S., had spent decades slowing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Unlike Iraq, we know Iranians have advanced centrifuges used to enrich uranium up to high grades of purity. These facilities are buried deep underground for a reason. And time was up.
A military operation of this scale and precision is likely unprecedented in warfare. The Hezbollah pager operation was just an appetizer. The Israelis took out the entire general staff and most senior nuclear scientists in the opening strike. Mossad had built a drone base within Iran, smuggling in launchers and other weaponry that were synchronized to destroy surface missile systems as aerial attacks began. Israel did the world a favor.
Iran, of course, has been an enemy of the U.S. for over four decades, regularly taking American citizens hostage, hatching assassination plots against U.S. leaders, undermining U.S. interests in the Middle East, and threatening Gulf allies and international shipping lanes. Iran is responsible for the death of over 600 American troops, or approximately 1 in every 6 combat fatalities in Iraq, maiming thousands of others. Imagine how fundamentalist Islamic leadership would conduct itself with nuclear warheads.
It is, in case anyone has forgotten, the longtime position of the U.S. that Iran should not possess nuclear weapons. This was, ostensibly at least, the purpose of former President Barack Obama’s deal with the mullahs. Remember that Ben Rhodes’s “echo chamber” narrative was conceived to gin up support for the failed Iran deal. Trump, who backed out of that disastrous agreement, has on multiple occasions not only unequivocally stated that Iran would be denied nuclear weapons, but that he would allow Israel to take out the program. “Hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later” does not sound like the sentiments of a neoconservative nation builder but a pragmatic Western leader.
Though Israelis have likely funded and employed public relations efforts to boost the prospect of internal opposition groups, not one leader has ever expressed any interest in landing troops on Iranian soil for any occupation to make it happen. If Iranians want to depose the Khamenei regime, and they have shown repeatedly that they do, they will have to do the hard work themselves.
For Israel, the strategic goal is clear: degrade, hopefully destroy, Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear bomb. Israel is trying to win a war of survival, not remake the Middle East. Numerous outlets have reported that Israel has asked the U.S. to participate in strikes. This might be true, or it might be information warfare. Perhaps the story was planted to scare the Iranians into surrendering. Perhaps Israel could use help destroying the Fordow nuclear facility, buried deep under the mountainside. Doing so would be in our best interests as well.
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As of this writing, however, there is no evidence that the U.S. has engaged in any combat missions. The Iranians, thus far, haven’t attacked any American bases in the region because the last thing they need is further pulling us into the conflict.
And it’s about time rogue terrorist regimes were terrified of the U.S. again.