America Should Attack Iran Now

One would think that the easiest thing for the United States and Israel to agree upon would be that Iran would never be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. The United States knew that Israel would respond to Iran’s barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles launched against it on October 1, 2024.

Biden made it very clear to Netanyahu that Israel could not strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.  How dare he?  Yet Netanyahu felt that he had to obey.

Netanyahu had asked Obama years ago for bombs that could penetrate Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.  Obama refused.

On October 7, 2023, America should have said clearly that unless American hostages were returned immediately, the United States would attack Iran.  Yes – go to war against Iran!  It’s November 2024 and Iran is still holding four American hostages.  Beyond embarrassing to a so-called great power.

The United States should have attacked Iran years ago.  The Shah of Iran had been an ally of both America and Israel.  A lot of silly Americans were criticizing the Shah’s record on human rights, acting as though he would be replaced by a democrat.  He was replaced by Khomeini, a much worse dictator, with a pathological hatred for both America and Israel.

In 1979, the regime took 52 Americans hostage and kept them imprisoned for 444 days.  Iran finally released them on January 20, 1981, during Reagan’s inaugural address.  They figured that Reagan would be tougher than the hapless Jimmy Carter.

The hostages were all civilian embassy personnel.  Of course, it was idiotic for America to have maintained an embassy once the radical regime took over.

The United States inflicted no punishment on Iran for imprisoning American civilians for well over a year.

The worst was yet to come – perhaps the most humiliating day in American history.  On October 23, 1983 (a date which should live in infamy, but a date of which Americans are ignorant), Hezbollah, a proxy of Iran, blew up a Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 241 sleeping Marines.  Young, healthy, patriotic Marines.  The best of the best.

What were the Marines doing in Lebanon?  They were there on a fool’s errand.  A civil war had been going on in Lebanon, caused mostly by the presence of the PLO – Christians and Muslims were killing each other by the hundreds of thousands.  The 15-year civil war didn’t end until 1990.

The Marines were not sent to Lebanon to fight.  They were there on something called a “presence mission”.  They had no ammunition in their rifles.  A horrible, sickening loss of valuable lives for no rational reason.

How did the United States respond?  Unfortunately, at times, it is embarrassing to be an American.  We did nothing militarily against either Hezbollah or Iran.  And guess who was president?  Ronald Reagan.

Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, negotiated with Iran for many months to obtain a meaningless promise that they not pursue a nuclear bomb. We continued to negotiate as Iran continued to shout – “Death to America”. Iran refused to agree to any limitation on their huge arsenal of ballistic missiles.  Obama and Kerry hailed the deal as a great achievement.

During President Trump’s first term, he rejected the deal, calling it horrible, and reimposed most of the sanctions that Obama had abandoned.  Obama had caved to Iran’s demand that we release 100 billion dollars in frozen assets.

Obama very cleverly labeled his great achievement as something other than a treaty so that he could close the deal without the necessity of obtaining Senate ratification.

When Biden became President, he begged (yes, begged) Iran to return to the Obama/Kerry deal.  Iran gave a firm NO, even after Biden said he would drop the sanctions that had been reimposed by Trump. Iran knew that Biden and his Secretary of State, Blinken, would never invade.

Biden and Blinken were obsessed with their idea that there be no escalation of the regional war.

America’s pathetic policy had become appeasement. By late October 2024, Blinken had made eleven trips to Israel to pressure them not to pursue total victory against Hamas. Kamala Harris was advocating for a Palestinian state never mentioning that the Hamas mass murderers are all Palestinians.

I am convinced that if America did go to war against Iran, the regime would collapse soon thereafter.  Millions of Iranians despise the theocracy.

In the March 1, 2024, parliamentary elections, millions refused to vote.  In the capital, Tehran, the turnout was a mere 25 percent.

A young woman died in police custody, a death which resulted in massive protests in 2022 and 2023.  Her crime?  Although she had been wearing the hijab garment, a tiny part of her body might have been exposed, leading to her arrest and possible torture.  Over 500 Iranians were killed during the protests; there were thousands of arrests.  All of the protestors, as well as the relatives of those killed and seriously injured, would welcome an American invasion.

So would many Arab countries. It rankles many secular regimes that this Persian-speaking Shiite country has become so dominant. Saudi Arabia in particular despises Iran.

SOME OTHER REASONS WHY THE UNITED STATES SHOULD ATTACK IRAN 

Of course, the main reason remains preventing them from acquiring a nuclear bomb. The regime can avoid most sanctions by cooperating with their various allies. They have been enriching uranium for years. Iran probably has a bomb already or can create several very quickly. The greatest sin of American presidents like Obama and Biden is to be naïve.

Iran has become dominant in Iraq where Iran-backed militias prevail. Those militias have political wings which dominate parliament. Some have directed rockets and missiles at American bases in Iraq and Syria. American soldiers have been killed and wounded. Does America say to Iran stop those attacks or we will attack you? Of course not, America simply engages in some tit for tat responses with the terrorists. Embarrassing!

How about another Iranian proxy – the Houthis of Yemen? They have shot rockets and missiles at the Red Sea striking naval vessels and commercial shipping. They have prevented normal use of the Suez Canal causing hardship both to our navy and commerce. More tit for tat exchanges but America does not threaten Iran with dire consequences should the Houthis persist. They have been persisting for over a year.

Iran is very nervous with the Trump victory. His response to Bidens putting their nuclear facilities off limits to Israeli retaliation – “That’s the thing you want to hit, right?” At the Republican Convention Trump warned:

“We want our hostages back, and they better be back before I assume office or you will be paying a very big price.”

Will Trump actually follow through? Who knows? He proved himself to be a friend to Israel during his first presidency. His daughter converted to Judaism; her children, his grandchildren, are Jewish. But Trump is erratic and impulsive and can be swayed by flattery. Yet I expect him to be solidly behind Israel. Kamala Harris would have been a disaster for Israel.

Iran took in more than 40 billion dollars in extra oil revenue during the Biden years. A truly insane policy. Hopefully, during a Trump administration, the United States will no longer prop up the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.