So, I feel like I’ve been down this road before. I remember when George W Bush said we had to go into Iraq. And I was gung-ho. We’d blitz Saddam and drag him off and then give Iran the same treatment and the world would be peaceful and quiet from then on. And we’d do it by remote control like some big old video game where everyone comes home in one piece and that would be the end of that.
Well, that’s twenty plus years ago and we’re all a lot older and wiser now, I thought. So, what the hell does Donald Trump think he’s going to do with this Iran thing? Iran is bigger and uglier than Iraq was. Sure, half of its people hate their own government and are celebrating the bombing of the Republican Guards and the death of Ali Khamenei. All of that sounds great but when the missile launchers and the other long-distance weapons have been neutralized but the bad guys are still the ones with all the machine guns killing civilians what happens then? Are we going to send in the Marines? And what happens when the body bags start coming home? That would be the end of the Republicans for another decade.
What occurred to me was that maybe the CIA and Mossad can funnel guns to the people who want to get rid of the Islamic State. If they have enough actual men who are willing to go head-to-head against the Republican Guards then a small team of trainers from these intelligence agencies could stand up a credible force within Iran to overwhelm the Islamic State with the help of targeted aerial attacks from the Israelis and Americans. But is that really going to happen? I’ve read that Mossad is already on the ground in Iran and has been for years. That explains how they’ve been able to sabotage things like the Iranian nuclear program and Hezbollah’s cell phones. Maybe they really will be able to topple this regime in the next few weeks. It’s definitely possible and Israel has an existential reason for wanting the Iranian regime to disappear. If the Islamic State were toppled tomorrow, Hezbollah and Hamas lose their paymaster and greatest ally. Most of the violence in the Middle East loses its sponsor. Without the mullahs it’s even possible that Lebanon could become a normal country again. And a peaceful and prosperous Iran would change the whole balance of power in the Middle East and might even stabilize the whole region. Think of the amount of misery that would disappear from that tortured region.
Well, those are all the good words I can think of for a situation that is fraught with peril. I just hope Trump knows exactly what he is doing and what to do in every one of a thousand scenarios that could happen in that insane corner of the world. When I think of all the possible ways things can head south very fast and very badly It makes my head ache. Okay, Khamenei is dead. Good. Now what?