A Bad Idea Whose Time Should Never Come: A U.S. War on Iran

The U.S. and Israeli regime-change op in Iran flopped in January, to the shock of Washington and Jerusalem. Tehran was reportedly on the brink of executing over 800 traitors – CIA and Mossad spooks presumably – when Donald Trump claims to have stepped in and menaced the Iranians into ditching these plans. But, per Lawrence Wilkerson on Judging Freedom, Iran’s back is up against the wall. The Iranians know full well what the Western Empire just tried to do to them, and they also know that, under Trump, that Empire will try to do it again and again and again.

So this time it’s different. It’s worse. And one casualty, as Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu knows quite well, could be his country, because Iran has enough ballistic missile firepower to obliterate the postage-stamp-sized acreage of Israel. Perhaps with this in mind, Netanyahu recently indicated that maybe this assault on Iran wasn’t such a great idea. In short, he blinked. But bad things have a way of snowballing, and with an American armada pugnaciously steaming toward the Persian nation, this time the lousy momentum could be unstoppable.

What that means is lotsa U.S. navy ships get holes shot into them, multitudes of ordinary Iranians die, numerous U.S. soldiers in the Persian Gulf die, Israel gets wiped out and Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, tanking the West’s economy – and don’t think for a minute that that closure will stop Persian oil from flowing to China. It won’t. The closure will be selective. The current Iranian regime may not survive, but in all likelihood the country will: it will not be balkanized per the fever dreams of its Israeli adversaries. And it’s also likely that any replacement regime will still champion the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese who resist Israeli domination.

‘“This isn’t about the nukes or the missile program. This is about regime change,’ said a former U.S. official,” Drop Site news reported January 30. “He told Drop Site that U.S. war planners envision attacks that target nuclear, ballistic and other military sites around Iran, but will also aim to decapitate the Iranian government and in particular…the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.” Apparently the IRGC and the military now rule Iran, as Ayatollah Khamenei delegated all power to them before, quite sensibly, taking to his bunker.

Israel, though insufficiently alarmed at what is likely in store for it, nonetheless wants Iranian ballistic missiles destroyed. Tehran will never agree to that. Its ballistic missiles are existential, all the more so because of the religious fatwa against developing a nuclear weapon. However, if a new regime takes control and the ayatollah gets the boot – what’s to stop a NEW ruler in Tehran from saying, “Well yes, it’s obvious. Like North Korean, Russia and China, we need nukes”?

Attempts at backchannel talks, per Drop Site, include “a trilateral meeting involving Iranian, American and Turkish leaders, aimed at forestalling an expected attack.” On January 27, Saudi Arabia, in a stupendous display of backbone, “ruled out the use of its air space for a potential U.S. attack on Iran.” Presumably Saudi ruler Mohammed Bin Salman wants to avoid volcanic Iranian bombing and incineration of Saudi oil fields. The day before, the United Arab Emirates announced a similar prohibition, including its territorial waters. “The scope of the war will certainly extend across the entire region,” Drop Site quoted Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia on January 29, speaking about an “American miscalculation,” to wit, any assault on Iran. “From the Zionist regime to countries that host American military bases, all will be within range of our missiles and drones.” The U.S. boasts between 30,000 and 40,000 troops with this big black bullseye painted on their backs.

Meanwhile, according to military expert Will Schryver on X January 30, the USS carrier Abraham Lincoln has “put considerably more distance between itself and Iranian anti-ship missiles.” No surprise there. U.S. Navy aircraft carriers are sitting ducks, especially when it comes to hypersonic missiles, which Iran has loads of. Bye the way, we don’t. We here in the U.S. have zero, zip, nada, zilch hypersonic missiles and, despite the Pentagon’ much-hyped efforts have failed to develop them. And while Tehran may lack the Kremlin’s super-duper Oreshniks, you may be sure, its defense allies Moscow and Beijing have supplied it with darn near the latest in every other sort of hypersonic missile technology; and of course, they’re no slouches in this realm either. The Persians have their own formidable hypersonic missiles.

According to Schryver: “Three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers accompany the carrier (96 Tomahawk total missiles). There are now 5 additional destroyers, 2 allegedly in the Persian Gulf (those guys are playing with fire) 2 in the eastern Mediterranean, 1 in the Red Sea. (160 total Tomahawk missiles). There is also assumed to be 1 Ohio-class missile submarine. (154 total Tomahawk missiles). There are also rumors that 1 Virginia-class attack submarine is in the region. (12 Tomahawk missiles)…I would still characterize this as a relatively modest array of naval power…On the other hand, U.S. air assets have been considerably augmented in recent days.” This bolsters Wilkerson’s and Col. Douglas Macgregor’s views aired on Judging Freedom that we are looking at a bombing campaign, as it’s virtually impossible for the Empire to muster enough troops for an invasion. Well, thank the Almighty for small favors, though the U.S.’s and its friends’ bombings are still infamously God-awful. Just look at the multiple Hiroshima-level detonations Israel inflicted on nearly defenseless Gaza, a territory it tried and is still trying to turn into a total graveyard.

Schryver also notes that the “U.S. has transferred pretty much all its available THAAD and Patriot systems to the region. They’re obviously trying to prepare as best they can for an Iranian counterstrike – although both THAAD and Patriot had abysmal success during the 12-Day War, and both the U.S. and Israel effectively exhausted their stockpiles of interceptors, which was the primary motivation for them begging Iran for a ceasefire.”

Iran was too nice. Many military experts think the Persian nation, which clearly had the upper hand at the end of the 12-Day War, should not have stopped bombing Israel. Indeed, this latest U.S./Israeli escalation proves their point. Israel begged Iran to stop bombing it, and Tehran’s compliance was taken as weakness, which in fact is standard operating procedure in the west. Any restraint, any forbearance or display of human decency is taken to be weakness and a green light for renewed aggression.

So the question of the hour, of course, is how will Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping react to a Trump war on Iran? Well, on January 29, it was announced that Iran, China and Russia will hold joint military exercises in the Sea of Oman and the Indian Ocean. Washington cannot feign shock. These three are allies, and Russia and China supplied loads of Air Defense to Iran, which – I repeat – will never give up its ballistic missiles. And again – when Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, you may be sure oil to China will still get through, while the west’s economy tanks.

But it’s tough not to be fatalistic about Putin and Xi putting the brakes on this trainwreck. Look at their non-votes in the UN security council last fall: they abstained from vetoing Trump’s atrocious Board of Peace for Gaza. The sad truth is that so far, when it comes to saying Nyet to the U.S. Empire’s depredations, in the past, both Putin and Xi have tended to hold their fire. Still, you can hope. Maybe this time, Washington has gone too far for its peer adversaries. Because there have been murmurings in recent months of a changed attitude in the Kremlin and in Beijing. Hints and whispers. With any luck, they will step in, make their views known and at last take action to stop this stinking, looming catastrophe.

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