The First Week of Mission: Iran
The war with Iran is now in its second week. We — in the company of our Israeli allies — have made enormous progress toward the goal of regime change in Iran but we’re not there yet.
President Trump hasn’t made clear our objective other than to say we want freedom for all the people. How that differs from regime change only he knows.
So far, we and the Israelis have combined to kill Ayatollah Khamenei and 30 or more of his closest advisers in an initial raid. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian survives as well as too many of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), though the IRGC’s commander is reportedly dead.
The IRGC and what is left of Iran’s other military force have managed to launch drone strikes at about a dozen Middle East nations. Tehran has said that they won’t continue to strike neighboring nations as long as they don’t hit at Iran. If the Iranians run low on drones and missiles they’ll stop attacking their neighbors, but not until then.
Our attacks on Iran continue as they must. We have deployed B-1 and B-2 bombers as well as hundreds of aircraft from our carriers in the vicinity. When the carriers go into “surge mode,” they can launch one aircraft and recover another in the space of about one minute. I have seen it from the deck of the USS Harry Truman. It’s an awesome sight to see.
How long will that take? At this point nobody knows. But it must go on until the goal of regime change is accomplished.
The Kuwaitis mistakenly shot down three of our F-15s which doesn’t say much for the F-15’s defensive systems. Or for the pilots’ situational awareness. There was a photo of one of the F-15 pilots, a woman, smiling broadly at the Kuwaitis who rescued her. What she had to smile about is not obvious.
Israel has, as we should expect, suffered hundreds of missile and drone attacks but they have been pounding the Iranians relentlessly.
We have to understand that this is our fight as much as it is Israel’s. Iran has been our enemy since its 1979 revolution put the ayatollahs in power, when they took American diplomats hostage and held then until President Reagan was inaugurated.
Iran was responsible for the 1982 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut which took hundreds of American lives. The were also responsible for the Khobar Towers attack, the 1998 African embassy bombings and many other terrorist acts that took American lives.
We also have to remember that Iran — despite its lies to the UN’s agency responsible for monitoring its progress to nuclear weapons and despite the Obama 2015 agreement with the U.S. — was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. If they did, they would certainly use them on Israel, Europe, and the United States. By attacking Iran and setting a goal of regime change, the president did the only thing he could to prevent that from happening.
Iran still has the ability to attack nearby countries with drones and has effectively closed the Straits of Hormuz through which about twenty percent of the world’s oil used to flow, as well as about 30 percent of the world’s liquid natural gas. When the Straits will reopen is anyone’s guess, but it shouldn’t be long.
The Navy has premiered the use of a brand new weapon system, “Project METEOR,” which sends out a directed energy beam that burns out the guidance and weapon systems of drones. It’s a very good solution to the drone swarm problem.
Israel has also used its new laser system to shoot down drones and missiles. Nevertheless, some drone and missile attacks are getting through and killing Israeli civilians.
We have pretty much destroyed the entire Iranian navy which consisted of about 35 ships. One was taken out by a submarine’s torpedo while cruising off Sri Lanka, which is about 2,600 miles from Tehran. Sorry, submariners. You can’t claim the first torpedo kill since World War Two. The Brits sank the Argentine cruiser the General Belgrano with a torpedo in the 1982 Falklands War.
The butcher’s bill — our casualty list — has, so far, included only six names, which is no consolation to the families of those who died. Maj. Jeffrey R. O’Brien, 45, of Indianola, Iowa, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert M. Marzan, 54, of Sacramento, California, Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Fla.; Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Neb.; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minn.; and Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa are the casualties listed by the Department of Defense.
We should praise them and remember them. There will be more names to add to the list.
The Democrats are effectively supporting the Iranians, as are a few — thankfully very few — of our Republican squishes. Their effort to limit the president’s war powers failed to get the votes they needed. The most visible of Iran’s pals — Tucker Carlson among them — are shouting into the wind. As I’ve written before, they should all be cast out of the conservative movement.
President Trump has said that he would only accept Iran’s unconditional surrender, which the semi-functional government left in Tehran immediately rejected. As this column has said, repeatedly, the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran will go on for weeks or months. Once started, it must continue until the ayatollahs are dead and the IRGC and the rest of Iran’s military has been rendered powerless.
How long will that take? At this point nobody knows. But it must go on until the goal of regime change is accomplished. If the president calls it off before that objective is reached, he will have failed in his principal duty to keep American safe. He knows that and it’s a certainty that he won’t quit. So far, our war on Iran gets an “A,” but it’s not over by a long-shot.
READ MORE from Jed Babbin:
War With Iran: Justified Strike, Uncertain Horizon