Iran
After an escalating series of provocations, Mr. Trump delivered an effective counter punch. He was widely criticized for doing so. Not a surprise. Trump could serve meals at a homeless shelter and he would be criticized for serving the wrong food at the wrong shelter. In fact, and in this instance, his actions were more than justified. Bad guys can do good things every now and then. The thug he took out was directly responsible for the killing, maiming and traumatizing of thousands of American soldiers and Marines. I would have considered it a privilege to launch that missile myself. Justice was served.
In the long run, our most serious national security threat is China. It has the educational, industrial and military heft to be the world’s dominant power and its ambitions are global. Its economy is now (on a PPP basis) larger than ours and it is growing faster than ours. I continue to believe that an open society which welcomes legal immigration will be better able to innovate than a closed society with a shrinking/aging population, but the outcome is by no means preordained. We could end up being China’s indentured servants.
In the short run our most urgent problem is Iran.
Some would argue that it’s North Korea, which already has nuclear weapons and probably an ICBM capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. I would disagree. Kim’s ambition is to stay alive and in power. He is not contemplating an attack. He is attempting to render the perception of the pain of attacking him so great as to be a disincentive to such an attack.
Iran has major ambitions. It wants to dominate the region, seize control of one third of the world’s oil and annihilate Israel. It uses proxy militias, assassinations, hostage taking, cyber sabotage, support for terror groups and direct military action to advance its cause. The notion that we can talk it out of its ambitions is naive in the extreme. Once it has control of enough oil, the blackmail will begin in earnest.
If Iran is allowed to build nuclear warheads and long range missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia will scramble to get themselves nuclear armed. None of them have the infrastructure to compete, but they can buy warheads from Pakistan and engines from North Korea. The whole region will literally be a time bomb.
We don’t need to go to war with Iran. That would be a bloody endeavor. We can, however, contain its mischief. Iran’s leaders are ruthless but rational. If we selectively respond to their aggression with firmness and force, we can moderate their behavior. Obama’s problem was that he dealt with the Mullahs in 21st century terms. We need to deal with them in 10th century terms. We need to take our own hostages. That’s the way 10th century leaders kept the peace. The ability and willingness to take out the lead thugs is a suitable hostage.
