First off, I’m writing this before President Donald Trump speaks to the nation tonight, where I expect him to declare victory and announce something about when we’ll be done in Iran. Good. That doesn’t change my opinion about what comes next, so the submission deadline does not negate what follows.
The Iranian regime wants to die; help them with that. Whatever shell of a government is left is launching rockets randomly at its neighbors, which indicates they’d rather fight until they’re dead than reconstitute itself into something that isn’t threatening to the rest of the world, so we should facilitate that end.
How do we do that? Well, we’ve weakened them to the point that the people of Iran could rise and rip them apart – pull a Mussolini and string up their oppressors. I hope that happens, as there is something cathartic in the oppressed having a hand in ridding the world of their oppressors. I mean, real oppressors, not the weak, wussy stuff college kids are taught, are oppressing them somehow, and the Iranian people have really been oppressed.
But what if the people don’t rise? What if they’re still gun-shy over the last time when low estimates have it at 35,000 slaughtered? Too bad. We can’t continue a war that is all won but the clean up because the people are afraid. If they won’t carry their freedom the last mile across the finish line, then they don’t get it.
As long as whatever is there isn’t throwing money around to terrorist organizations and despotic regimes, they can be as nasty as they want to be to their own people. They have their chance now and I hope they take it, but if they don’t…
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
That being said, if the people of Iran aren’t going to step up, throw the country to the wolves.
Iran hasn’t always existed; there’s no reason that it needs to going forward. Tell the neighboring counties – the ones Iran is firing rockets into – that they can divvy it up any way they want, just as long as they give up the nuclear material and never choke off the Straight of Hormuz. Whatever else happens, who cares?
If all the countries around it want to take a piece and annex it, go for it. If they want to install a puppet government, knock yourself out. I don’t care. The people of Iran have their chance right now, if they don’t take it….
I realize this is controversial and will be wildly unpopular among the very same people who’ve insisted my whole life that we couldn’t possibly upset the status quo in the Middle East or else we’d risk being attacked, but we’ve been attacked by proxies of those very same Middle East countries my whole life, too.
Government might be the only industry where people fight desperately for complacency – there’s a lot of money in doing nothing. Power, too. But is there anything good, provided you aren’t on the end of one of those fat checks?
No, there is not.
I applaud President Trump for finally punching back against the monsters who’ve solidified their power by killing their own people and Americans. He’s liberated 95 million people, and that’s an amazing accomplishment few human beings can claim. But all he can do is open the gates of the prison; he can’t make the people leave it.
The national interest of the United States is already served by the destruction of the Iranian government. It could and would be better served by a stable, friendly government that treats the Iranian people well would be ideal, but it is not necessary.
US foreign policy has to be the interests of the American people first, everything else second. I get that that sounds cold and mean, but it’s true. If good things for others can happen within that framework, all the better. But it is not, and cannot be, a priority.
So, if the Iranian people aren’t willing to stand up for themselves, that should not be a reason for the involvement of the US military one day longer than is necessary to secure our interests. To avoid the area falling into chaos, let its neighbors, who are friendly to our needs, have at it and figure out what will come next for what is currently called Iran.
Derek Hunter is the host of the Derek Hunter Show on WMAL in Washington, DC, and has a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.