The Challenge is Defeating Iran’s Evil With Our Own Crazy Regime
Few are intellectually honest enough to admit it, but the war against Iran is full of complexities. There certainly was a compelling reason for U.S and Israeli military strikes. Iran was rapidly expanding its missile and drone production—in an effort to make intervention to stop their unacceptable nuclear program too dangerous to achieve.
Their nuclear threat wasn’t imminent—but is it wise to wait for a psychotic nation like Iran to be weeks or even days away from having “The Bomb”? I guess, if one is suicidal, albeit the United States certainly could have waited longer to act.
Iran is the globe’s leading sponsor of terrorism. It regularly threatens the annihilation of Israel, it menaces the Gulf Arab States, which negatively impacts the world economy and is a brutal imperial power that leverages military domination to subjugate Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
The theocratic regime is morally monstrous—having recently slaughtered 30,000 pro-democracy protesters. It imprisons, and sometimes beats women to death, for showing too much leg or hair. The bloodthirsty mullahs hang LGBTQ people from cranes for sport and often use social pressure to force gay men into having unneeded and unwanted sex changes so they can fit into the Islamic Republic’s sex binary.
So, any westerner who supports, defends, apologizes or deflects from Iran’s malign behavior ought to be deeply ashamed. At best these folks are misguided hypocrites who hate Trump or Israel so much they are willing to overlook evil for political expediency. At worst they have little concern for Iran’s domestic victims or the foreign nations that Iran holds hostage.
Thanks to Iran, for example, Hezbollah has destroyed Lebanese politics—and after firing 16,000 deadly rockets at Israel since 2023, has embroiled Lebanon in a war that few Lebanese want.
So, let’s be unequivocally clear that there is zero good coming from Iran. It takes quite the delusion for one to think the Islamic Republic was negotiating in good faith over their nuclear program before the war—although, in fairness, the I can’t imagine Tehran trusted Trump, who stupidly ripped up the nuclear deal in his first term.
This hateful regime is so zealous that they have long impoverished the Iranian people, subjecting them to harsh sanctions, in order to build an arsenal to destroy Israel—a nation that neither borders nor threatens Iran economically or militarily. Iran wouldn’t hesitate to end “The Great Satan” (The USA), if they ever had the opportunity.
Yet, for all the genuine reasons to defang Iran, I am against this war because giving President Donald Trump, and his sad coterie of sycophants, the green light for bombing anyone, is inevitably a tragic mistake. I liken Trump to an emotionally disturbed, crack-addled toddler entering an old west saloon with a belt of grenades and a bazooka. How could this end well?
Perhaps, Trump destroys a few bad guys in his wake (aka the ayatollah), but eventually the saloon will burn to the ground—because Trump turns everything into a facsimile of his failed Atlantic City hotels. He will walk away, leaving everyone else holding the bag. That’s what he does, it’s who he is, and this has been going on his entire privileged life.
It remains true that “character is destiny” for presidents of the United States—and Trump has no character. He and his bootlickers are devoid of decency, untethered from reality, ignorant of history–with no intellectual curiosity to learn–fouled by greed, and fueled by egomaniacal religious zeal.
Unfortunately, Trump’s speech last night did not assuage mounting concerns. It sounded like an unhinged Truth Social rant, with no tangible vision for victory. The administration still seems shocked that Iran bombed its Arab neighbors and closed the Strait of Hormuz, choking off a quarter of the world’s oil supply. Experts have predicted this for decades—but the Trump regime doesn’t do experts, and rules our nation by gut feelings, vibes and childish online memes.
Eliot A. Cohen perfectly captured my equivocal sentiments in The Atlantic:
There is a reason that even those of us who fully recognize Iran’s menace and are pleased with the elimination of much of its military capabilities, and who hope for the eventual fall of this brutal and dangerous regime, find it impossible to advocate for what is, in many ways, a just war.
With political leadership so feckless, so dysfunctional, so incapable of planning, so willing to betray friends and allies for short-term advantage, so willing to lie and advocate criminal behavior, our military is simply not in responsible hands. It may yet succeed, and even succeed greatly, but that will be a tribute only to the lions, not the donkeys.
Cohen also points out how deranged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is by trying to turn the war into a religious crusade:
The civilian leader of the Department of Defense, in a war with an Islamist power but in which the U.S. has partnered with other Muslim states, has decided to place his own, peculiarly militant Christian beliefs at the center of his public rhetoric, a decision of unconscionable stupidity.
A key argument for attacking Iran was that it was part of a dangerously authoritarian military axis that included China and Russia. Iran provides China energy and Russia with drones to strike Ukraine, thus threatening the freedom of western Europe. If Iran could be removed from the geopolitical chessboard, it would strengthen liberal democracies against revanchist strongmen.
But Trump inexplicably eliminated that key argument when he threatened that the United States may leave NATO. Even if this is empty rhetoric, it sends a reckless message to Russia that they can harass their neighbors and dominate their “sphere of influence”.
So, instead of making the case that defeating Iran is strengthening democracy by depleting the Russia/China/North Korea/Iran partnership, Trump is instead leaving the United States weaker, more vulnerable and less secure. He has saddled us with recriminations between friends and rapidly faltering alliances. To make matters worse, Trump strengthened Russia’s hand by lifting sanctions on oil, so Putin could fund his “special military operation” that has left more than one million casualties.
Why does every action Trump takes ultimately help Russia? What kompromat does Putin have on this man? One day we will know the truth, and it’s likely going to be a national humiliation.
American isolationists in MAGA like to believe that we can militarily go at it alone. But European Union countries spend $414 billion per year on military expenditures—vastly amplifying American power, not to mention providing foreign bases in which attacks can be launched against adversaries. By wrecking alliances, we are making the United States exponentially weaker, which defeats the entire purpose of Trump’s Iran misadventure.
Now the planet is left to helplessly grapple with a mercurial president who may blow up Middle East oil infrastructure based on a mood swing, which could potentially collapse the global economy.
A worst-case scenario is Trump “obliterates” Iranian desalination plants—and Iran responds by wrecking the water supply in the Gulf Arab States.
In case people need a reminder, this war is occurring in a harsh desert environment that can’t support modern human life without desalination plants. Perhaps, Trump and Hegseth believe the Arabs and Persians can saddle up camels and head down to the oasis to fill up canteens?
In the real world, Iran and the six Arab Gulf States have a combined population of 156 million people. Of this group, roughly 100 million people are critically dependent on desalination plants for their daily water supply. If Trump is moody on Monday and incinerates these water stations, he could instantly create a mass die-off and the largest refugee crisis in world history.
The U.S. and Israel’s military campaign could still succeed—and it would be a bonus for the world if Iran was cut down to size and could no longer afford to concern itself with imperialism and terrorism. I certainly hope the U.S. and Israel prevail and the world is a better place as a result—with the Iranian people achieving a measure of freedom and democracy.
However, with Trump nothing is simple and success has its own risks. An emboldened Trump may come to see himself as invincible—the same way he did after he successfully attacked Venezuela and plucked Nicolas Maduro out of Caracas. This victory set the stage for Trump’s Iran gambit.
An overwhelming win in Iran would likely empower Trump to finally try to overrun Cuba or seize Greenland—putting us in a potential war [cold or maybe even hot] with our European allies. Any action against Greenland would permanently shatter NATO and relationships with our traditional European friends would be over. The United States would end up like Iran—a feared, isolated, unstable rogue nation.
Trump could also be more emboldened, with an Iran victory, to increase his already robust efforts to steal the midterm elections. We are not talking about a rational person who abides by norms, institutions, or personal restraint.
If we aren’t exceedingly very lucky, Trump will break the world—like he destroys everything his stubby, grubby little fingers touch. The sooner we get this deranged toddler—and his fanatical friends–out of the international saloon the safer humanity will be.
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