America has a winning hand to play in containing Iran. Sanctions have tightened the noose around the Iranian leadership, leading to widespread economic hardship and discontent. Ayatollah Khamenei is a one-note singer, intent on confronting the Great Satan to fulfill an end-times Shiite apocaplytic vision. He's in power thanks to the Revolutionary Guard - theo-kleptocrats who have been stirring up trouble from Yemen to the Straits of Hormuz. The majority of ordinary Iranians do not support this and even the Iranian President admits he has no control over foreign policy anymore. The religious rulers are sitting on a powder keg and their only strategy is to try and focus Iranians on an external enemy. Their greatest fear is that the Iranian people get fed up and organized enough to take them on. If the Iranian leadership got close to testing a bomb, the Israelis - perhaps with Saudi assistance - would address the issue on our behalf. We don't need Iranian or any other Middle East oil - we're a net exporter now. The rest of the world still needs oil shipped through the Straits of Hormuz however and might be willing to deploy some of their naval resources for a change if there are more attacks. All we need do is sit tight and let this play out.
We have an unfortunate history of shooting first and asking questions later, only to find that we had either deceived ourselves or been hoodwinked into launching or expanding a war. Think Gulf of Tonkin or Weapons of Mass Destruction as recent examples. There might be something like that going on in Iran at the moment. It is very strange that two Japanese supertankers were attacked even as the Japanese Prime Minister was in Iran trying to broker some sort of a deal between America and Iran. Sure there were likely Iranian mines and an Iranian PT boat involved but is it possible that the right hand was trying to slap the left here? Is the Iranian theocracy solidly behind this or could there be two factions fighting each other; one trying to ease the sanctions through diplomacy and another with a vested interest in keeping the Iranian people focused on war? You can be sure that if a rogue faction launched this attack that the entire Iranian government would close ranks and cover this up to face down the Great Satan.
So - no Americans have been killed and our vital interests aren't threatened. What's the rush to launch?
It is really refreshing to hear voices speaking up forcefully about this, pointing out the price we will pay if we launch another war. It is especially comforting to hear people considering the lives of our service personnel before raising the war flag. Two in particular strike me as worth following.
Tulsi Gabbard is running for the Democratic presidential nomination. She spent two tours in Iraq and is making the issue of staying out of foreign wars her campaign theme. This clip describes where she comes from and why we need to think carefully of our troops and price they will pay before pressing the button:
The other voice of caution is Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host who is credited with convincing the President to climb down over an armed response to the Iranian tanker attack. His scathing denunciation of the war party in Washington last week pulls no punches:
We used to be fussy about declaring war and our founders wisely vested this power with Congress to ensure that it had the full support of the American people. Not anymore; it's all in the hands of the President and some of his advisors are a bunch of bellicose back seat drivers pushing him to launch at the slightest provocation from enemies on their hit list. It is to his credit that President Trump counted the cost before pressing the button and had the courage to face down the war party.
-- Mike Power
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