Impending War

 This is one of those "special edition" posts I wanted to do because it is time to address the big elephant in the room - impending war.  As the tensions escalate regarding Israel and Iran, I feel there is a need to interject into the conversation a few ideas, and that is what I am doing this for. 

Let me upfront state that war is not a desire that anyone has unless they are so consumed with their own hatred they don't care.  A war is always a last resort measure, not a cure-all solution.  If things can be settled by peaceful means, then the effort should be taken to ensure that they are.  However, when all other options are exhausted, war may become inevitable.  This is an unfortunate reality, but it is true.  And, there is no real black-and-white to something like this either - a gray area always exists.  So, what do we do about Israel and Iran?  I have a few thoughts. 

Anyone who has followed me for some time knows that I am unashamedly pro-Israel, and always have been.  Israel not only has a right to exist, but there is a place in God's plan that necessitates it.  That being said, I also understand we live in a fallen world, so no one is perfect, and that includes Israel.  Despite my support overall for Israel, there have been some things that bother me over the years.  For one, I am a bit disappointed at Israel in regard to the Armenians - Israel is one of the few nations now that has not recognized the tragic reality that a genocide against Armenians was committed by the Turks in 1915, and even today, Israel's policies create some problems in that regard.  For one, Israel's continued support of Azerbaijan, which is openly conducting hostile operations against areas which are historically part of the Armenian homeland (Artsakh, or Nagorno-Karabagh, as others know it).  Israel supplies arms to these Azeri thugs despite what they are doing, and that is concerning.  For a nation of people like Israel who know what it is like to fight for their homeland, it seems somewhat bizarre that they would back an aggressor against other indigenous peoples of the region.  In all aspects, Israel and the Armenians should be natural allies, and in other parts of the world they actually work together - the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, for instance has an exhibit that highlights the tragedy of the Armenian Genocide.  So, if in other countries Jews and Armenians can work together and recognize a shared tragedy, why can't they overseas?  A result of this stupid move on Israel's part to back Azerbaijan has actually pushed the Armenians closer to the Palestinian cause, and Israel may have shot itself in the foot because they are sacrificing a group of people who could be potential allies.  So, how does this relate to Israel's current situation with Iran?  

There is no doubt that Iran's ruling class are some of the most evil and despicable people ever to walk the planet.  The ayatollahs who have locked Iran in an ideological prison for almost 50 years are demonic in all honesty, and the nasty stuff they do is beyond reprehensible.  The ayatollahs are in reality a dark blemish on what is a great civilization - Iran, the home of the Persian people, has a rich history and has been pivotal in shaping Western civilization for millenia now.  Yet, the radical, perverted ayatollahs have almost driven the country into the ground with their repressive regime.  Oddly, when Iran had the Shah as its ruler, they were actually close allies of Israel - the late Shah was very friendly to Israel then and also was a benefit to his own people.  When you listen to the "mainstream" media on this (and they are often terrorist sympathizers themselves), to them the late Shah was this iron-fisted autocrat who oppressed his people, and at one time they tried to compare the demonic Ayatollah Khomeini who overthrew the Shah as a new Gandhi or something. Yet, it was Khomeini who caused his own nation to regress over centuries of progress, and it was Khomeini who was a violator of basic human rights to his own people.  I remember the day the Ayatollah took over - I was 9 years old at the time, and to celebrate his seizure of power, the Ayatollah took a number of Americans hostage as our week and spineless President at the time (Carter) let him get away with it.  However at the time Reagan was elected, those hostages were released.  Then, to cause more problems, Iran picked a fight with Saddam Hussein, an equally despotic tyrant but at least sort of a secularist, and a nasty war ensued for many years between them.  The US, of course, backed Saddam Hussein in that war, and in time we would regret that too as Saddam would be complicit to a degree in the 9/11 tragedy as well as invading a peaceful neighbor (Kuwait), which would lead to his ousting by the US and its allies.  The Ayatollah in Iran not Khomeini, who died years ago, but his regime in this case  - has outlived several other tyrants in the region - Saddam, the Assad family in Syria, Kaddafi, etc. Many of those individuals were the Ayatollah's rivals except the Assads, and although they were as ruthless as the Ayatollah's regime, they represented a different branch of Islam although many dictators in the region were nominally Muslim and had their own scuffles with Sunni radicals like Al Qaeda.   In time too, the Communists would lose power in the old USSR, and in a boneheaded show of bad politics, we would prop up a regime in neighboring Afghanistan - the Taliban - which was as bad if not worse than the Shias in Iran, and the foibles of our own State Department in that region created a huge mess we are still seeing fruit of today.  I often question the collective wisdom of bureaucrats in our own government with this as well, as we do some boneheaded things in that region that we should not be even involved in.  For some reason for instance, Carter was instrumental in the overthrow of a perfectly stable monarchy in Iran - the Shah - and allowed Khomeini to get control and then turn on us.  So, to counter Khomeini, we propped up Saddam in Iraq, and we later regretted that too.  Same in Afghanistan - we funded the radicals like the Taliban against the Soviets, and once they were in charge, they aided and abetted terrorists like Osama bin Laden to attack us.  In other words, much like our British predecessors who did similar boneheaded diplomatic moves, we failed in many aspects and many suffered as a result of our bumbling in that region.  And that leads to what is happening there now. 

The hostilities between Israel and Iran go back to the 1979 Revolution in Iran, when the Ayatollah basically declared war in the West and began to provide backing to Palestinian terrorist groups like Hezbollah.  In the interim, especially during the conflict between the Ayatollah and Saddam back in the 1980s and 1990s, Iran was beginning to play around with nuclear energy.  Oddly, as quasi-Luddite as the Ayatollah was about modern civilization, he had no problem messing around with WMDs.  So, over the past few decades, Iran has been experimenting with ways to arm itself with nuclear warheads, and they vowed to obliterate Israel from the map.  To the Israelis' credit they have understood the gravity of the situation, and have been trying to keep Iran in check through covert means, but in the past couple of weeks Israel has "poked the bear" and actually attacked Iran, and many question the wisdom of that move. While it could be seen - as the Israelis understandably see it - as a strategic move to prevent a bigger threat, it has sparked debate over whether this was a good idea or not.  In the US, it has almost split Republicans, as the hawkish group (mostly Establishment hacks) want war, but several conservatives say it is dangerous to provoke Iran because she has powerful friends (Russia and China).  To President Trump's credit, he is staying rather nuanced about the whole thing, and he has more or less taking a "wait and see" approach while also making sure we are ready if it is deemed necessary.  For that, he has caught a lot of flak from both sides, but personally his approach is probably ultimately a wise decision.  So, how do we break this down?

Israel has had some success in crippling Iran, and thankfully has not pulled the US into the struggle.  However, the bad news is that Iran is still nuclear-potential, and has a remote facility that can only be breached with a certain type of nuke we have but Israel doesn't.  In my opinion, Israel has done what it needs to do for now, and it has also fostered some anti-Ayatollah sentiments among the Iranian people.  If you want this to play out well, let the Iranians settle this themselves internally now, and let the opposition overthrow the evil Ayatollah and install a new government that could de-escalate things.  The Crown Prince, the surviving son of the late Shah, is eager to step in if there is regime change, and to be honest I would love to see the Shah's throne regained again.  Iran under a Shah would be more stable for sure, and perhaps it would lead the way to lasting peace in the region - or, at least as much peace as possible.  Israel for its part has done what it set out to do, so instead of launching more offensives at Iran, let things take their course now.  And, the US and other powers would do well to just stand back and see how it plays out before committing to anything.  A little common sense can go a long way in diffusing a possible global conflict.  But, do we listen?  That remains to be seen as American diplomacy in recent decades has often done more harm than good, and we have a group of career politicians who are bureaucratic boneheads in charge of things they probably have no business being in charge of.  But, that is the price of not completely "draining the swamp" in the Beltway, and as long as we have boneheaded self-serving politicians, even the best President will be limited by their control.  

More could be said on this, but these are just some casual observations.  I plan on keeping my own close eye on things there, and as things unfold I will comment more later.  Thanks again for allowing me to share.