By Steve Levy
It was truly remarkable watching a CNN debate show where the Democratic pundits were trashing American efforts to neutralize Iran’s ability to obtain a nuclear weapon. It’s almost as though they wanted America to fail so it could politically damage the president they so loathe.
Interviews with 20 different Democratic officeholders gave you 20 different reasons to oppose President Trump‘s efforts to defang Iran’s nuclear program and to take out its top leadership.
They lashed out against the administration, arguing, among other things:
- There was no evidence of an imminent attack from Iran.
- There was no congressional approval obtained for the attack.
- We don’t want another forever war.
- The administration was acting as stooges for Israel.
- The attack goes against Trump‘s claims that he would end, not start, wars.
Getting back to the CNN show, the Democrats assailed the actions taken by Trump, but none of them presented a plan as to how they would deal with the possibility that Iran was on its way to reconstructing its nuclear program to have a bomb that they would most assuredly use against Israel and America.
Had I been on the panel, I would’ve asked these questions to the Democratic supporters:
Do, or do you not, agree that Iran is run by a lunatic theocracy that poses a tangible, existential threat to our nation, and we can simply not allow them to obtain a nuclear weapon? If you disagree with this criticism, the discussion ends there. You are simply dangerously naïve.
If you agree that they are a threat and cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon, the next question is: How do we prevent Iran from obtaining this bomb?
Do we repeat the failed policies of the Obama administration that sought to stop production of a nuclear bomb by giving Iran billions of dollars on pallets and entering into a 10-year deal that slows the movement toward nuclear enrichment, but thereafter allows them to get a bomb after the 10 years expire? (By the way, that expiration date was 2025.)
Do we follow the Biden model that removed the sanctions on purchases of their oil, thereby making them rich and allowing them to spread their hegemony and terrorism throughout the region? Or, do we seek negotiation with a hard deadline (as Trump sought) and once thwarted, work with the Israelis to counter the Iranian threat via any means possible? If you believe Iran must be denied nukes, you must agree that we will, at some point, need the option of employing our military superiority to accomplish that goal.
So now that we agree they must be stopped from getting a nuke, and military intervention will at some point be required to do it (unless there is regime change), when do you pull the trigger and take action?
The bottom line is this: Being a day early will have little consequence, but being a day late will relegate the children in New York City, Washington D.C. and Tel Aviv to be evaporated into puddles of goo after the Islamic-fascist zealots carry through with their promise to bring death to America and Israel.
Some continue to insist that there was no proof that the threat from Iran was imminent. We can only rely on the intelligence that is garnered from the CIA and the Mossad, the two most prominent agencies in the world. Yes, we obliterated their nuclear bunkers in June, but it was clear the mullahs didn’t learn their lesson. They were rebuilding both their nuclear capabilities and their ballistic program designed to construct missiles capable of reaching the U.S. They even bragged to Trump officials that they had enough enriched fuel to construct eleven nuclear weapons.
If we conclude we will need military intervention to finish off Iran’s build up, the next question is: Do we go pull the trigger now when the Iranians are at their weakest, or wait for them to regain their strength? Iran was on its heels in the first Trump administration when sanctions suffocated their economic pipeline. But then, Joe Biden reversed things by lifting the sanctions. The oil money flowing into Iran funded their military buildup.
Soon thereafter, the Iranians helped mastermind the October 7th massacre of over 1,000 innocent Israelis, in part to prevent the Abraham Accords from extending into Saudi Arabia. That would have furthered peace in the region and aligned Israel with the Saudis, just as they earlier brokered peace with Egypt, Jordan and the UAE. The attack backfired on the Iranians when the Israelis not only carried out their response against Hamas, but went to the source by eviscerating the Iranian defensive shield. That has given the Israeli and American forces total air domination. The reason we’ve been able to decimate the Iranian Navy and bomb wielding capabilities while losing less than ten American lives is because of this total air control.
A military operation carried out months or years down the road might have been both too late to thwart Iran’s nuclear goals and too late to take advantage of this limited window where Iran’s anti-aircraft response unit is in tatters.
How do we best seek regime change? The best scenario in Iran would be to attain regime change so military options aren’t needed. But it’s foolhardy to believe such change could come about without the US first weakening the mullahs.
It’s rare to accomplish regime change with an air campaign only, but it has been done, as in Kosovo. Moreover, no one, neither Democrats nor Republicans, wants boots on the ground. So why not at least let this air campaign proceed, create internal chaos in Iran (assisted via an incursion by the Kurd) and lay the seeds for the Iranian people, to take matters into their own hands, while hoping contingents within the Iranian Guard would rise up and allow for change, as occurred in Egypt after the military quashed the Muslim Brotherhood’s ascendency.
Taking out Maduro in Venezuela doesn’t guarantee regime change in that nation, but it increases the chances to some extent. Isn’t it worth a try? The same applies to Iraq.
If a foreign government, namely Iran, hires a hitman to assassinate the president of the United States (as confirmed by our intelligence sources), just what exactly should our national response be? Should we ignore it? Does it not justify us to retaliate by taking out their leader in order to deter any such assassination attempt in the future?
Where’s your plan? When the critics of Epic Fury say it’s doomed to fail, ask them this simple question: What’s your plan? They don’t have one. They would just continue to punt the ball down the road just like every previous administration had done. We’ve been lucky until now that Iranians haven’t yet gotten their hands on nukes, but without regime change or aggressive action as taken by the president, it would otherwise simply be a matter of time. Doing nothing is not an option.