(10:10 PM Dallas Time)
Like the rest of the world tonight, I am watching the news footage of the incredible strike by the United States Air Force which destroyed three of the nuclear sites in Iran: Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. If the news reports are accurate, the operation was almost perfectly successful in its execution, and especially with its secrecy. No one in the Press, nor in the government of Iran had any inclination that this military strike was coming until the aftermath. The strike was carried out by a fleet of B-2 Stealth Bombers with a cluster of 30,000 pound “Bunker Buster” bombs called the MOAB (MASSIVE ORDINANCE AIR BLAST/aka MOTHER OF ALL BOMBS).
More details are scheduled to come out in a press conference given by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan ‘Raising” Cain (USAF). But the more important question is ‘What now?’ What happens next?
In my last article about the Israel’s strike last week on the 13th, I mentioned that if it was possible to remove the specter of nuclear weapons from Iran, and any negotiations with that country in the future, then I believe the strike is justified. North Korea, Pakistan, and even the People’s Republic of China are examples of what happens when rogue regimes acquire nuclear weaponry. They become almost unassailable while increasingly belligerent and incendiary. All the treaties of the past made by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council from the 1950s onward mean nothing.
In the course of the last few years, particularly during the Russia/Ukraine war, rumors of “suitcase nuclear weapons” started to come into the discussions-not as a theory, but as a possibility. Imagine terrorist, suicide bombers with such a weapon strapped to them! I am reminded of an observation that God made about humanity at the building of the Tower of Babel, “…this they began to do, and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do.”
As I mentioned in the last article, Iran’s threats against Israel and the United States, should be taken seriously, especially from its Shiite leaders. When they say they intend to “wipe out Israel from existence”, no Prime Minister of Israel or President of the United States can hold the false idea that Iran is just “saber rattling.” Whichever leader does so is taking a very big risk. Those who do so underestimate the history, theology, and practice of Shia Islam. (I will cover this subject in later articles.)
There are those who are now focused on Iran’s retaliation and the chance that Americans may be put on in harms way throughout the Middle East. There is a fear that this is the beginning of a military conflict to affect regime change in Iran. While this situation is fluid at present, I do not believe it will get to the point of all out war. And I pray that it does not. And regarding regime change, that need not be done by foreign powers armies.
In the aftermath of Qasem Soleimani’s death, the more that I studied his assassination and his life, the more I thought that he was a serious threat to people in power in Iran. The late Tom Clancy (author of several spy novels that were number 1 in the New York Times Best Sellers list) once said that for any Communist regime like the former Soviet Union, the most dangerous person in government was the person who was in charge of security and intelligence. If that individual became too powerful, then everyone else was in danger. This was true not only of Communism, but virtually any regime and government anywhere, but especially in rogue regimes like Iran. Solemani was too powerful and too dangerous for his own government and almost certainly some of his colleagues in Iran passed on the information that led to his death.
Regarding the question of “regime change”, Iran’s theocratic government is despised by the majority of Iranians. There is a President in Iran who is the head of the government, but he, and the parliament, and the judicial system answer to the Shiite clerics who make up the spiritual leaders. They are led by the Ayatollah Khamenei. Khamenei is the one with the real power to make decisions, everyone else is nothing but rubber stamps. If the Ayatollahs do not like a bill made by parliament, they will just command them to make a new law or “correct” the law that was made. No questions will be asked.
It is a remote possibility, but I am fairly certain that there are people in government who are sick and tired of answering to those clerics, for one reason or another. And that group would be willing for the United States or Israel to do the dirty work and remove Khamenei and his theocratic cabal out so that Iran can become a more secular country.
Dr. Victor David Hansen made the conclusion that regime change in Iran is essential to peace in the Middle East. In one sense he is right. This regime is hell bent toward world revolution. That is essential in Shiite theology and eschatology. The choice is between peace for the short term, or lasting peace for the long term. If the ayatollahs retain power, they will be nothing but an influence toward evil. If they are taken away and replaced by more open-minded leaders, it could be a different end which will be better for the Middle East and the world.
(Once again, it brings into mind, the words of President Harry Truman to Dr. J Robert Oppenheimer: the world does not care who made the atomic bomb. The care who dropped it. That factor is the most important in the equation regarding weapons of any kind.)
As I said in my last article, I can understand why people in the United States do not want involvement in another war. But I would caution everyone from going into panic based on worst case scenarios. The world should be grateful! I do not discount that there are numerous things that can go wrong, but there is also the possibility that some things can go right.
I trust President Trump and the decision that he took today. I do not say that lightly. War is not something that he casually would enter into. President Trump did not strike Iran out capriciousness. Something was wrong and if Iran was as close to having nuclear weapons or the capacity to make those weapons as many agencies have assessed, then as President of the United States, he had a duty to act on behalf of this nation and her interest. And I trust his judgment on that point. I believe that he would do everything in his power not to put the sons and daughters of this nation in harm’s way, particularly in foreign battle fields.
No one knows what tomorrow may bring or what situations can come up in the future. But I have hope for better things.
President Trump closed his four-minute address to the nation in a prayer, thanking God and expressing this nation’s love to God. I say Amen.
I close with words from a poem called ‘I would be true’, written Howard Arnold Walter, which was made popular on the 1960s television program, The Twilight Zone; in an episode called “The Changing of the Guard”:
I would be true, for there are those who trust me,
I would be pure, for there are those who care,
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer,
I would be brave, for there is much to dare.