No One Can Say Iran Wasn’t Warned

Well, it’s on, for better or worse—though how it could result in something worse than the last 47 years of constant Iranian terror, war and destabilization is a mystery to. . . Well, to never-say-die neocon Senator Graham of South Carolina. The joint operation between the United States and Israel being called “Operation Epic Fury” could just as accurately, and perhaps more viscerally, have been called “Operation Make Lindsey Graham Ecstatic.” The long-awaited overthrow of the ayatollahs in Iran is literally Graham’s biggest wet dre—er, I mean, fondest wish, probably since 1979.

Look, all decent people want the current Iranian regime gone and something better for the beleaguered people of that hapless Islamic dictatorship (if that phrase isn’t redundant). But we also have cause to be skeptical after decades of forever wars and interventions that, to say the least, never seemed to turn out well. Take Iraq, for example. It was easy to make a moral case for the removal of the mass-murdering Saddam Hussein, but the problem was what came next, which was basically chaos and ultimate failure, all of which Trump criticized going back to his first presidential campaign.

Somehow, though, this feels different and even more morally justified. Nobody wants nuclear-armed ayatollahs. And it doesn’t feel like the Iranian hinterlands are crawling with suicidal Islamic radicals the way Iraq was, which could destabilize the country indefinitely. And it doesn’t feel like there’s going to be boots-on-the-ground in a massive invasion/occupation.

Major caveat: I could be totally, monumentally wrong. Possibly out to lunch and naively foolish.

If I am naive, what I want in my naivete is for the Iranian people to rise up and take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to overthrow the Supreme Leader and his inner circle who have ruined that country. How did they ruin it? By being monomaniacally focused on one stupid thing above all else, something that couldn’t possibly bring anything good to the country: destroying Israel.

For 47 years, if you asked the elite Iranian leaders what they were going to do to bring prosperity and a decent life for their citizens, their basic reply, in not so many words, was, “Don’t make us laugh! Until Israel gets smoked, nothing else matters!” Well, that dream just went up in smoke. It turns out, however, that ain’t happening. Israel is here to stay and the Great Satan is finally settling decades-old scores.

I’m going to be cautiously optimistic until given cause to be otherwise, which I fully understand, in a situation like this, could come very soon. But if it works out the way it’s supposed to. . . Well, it’s not impossible that Lindsey Graham’s fondest wish could coincide with a far better geopolitical and geostrategic situation in the Middle East.

Pray for our soldiers and pray for the citizens of Iran, who deserve so much better than what they’ve had.