There has been a rise in rumors of war between the United States and Iran ever since the President pulled out of the silly Iranian Nuclear Deal that heavily favored the regime without establishing clear safeguards against Iran’s march towards nuclear weapons. It was the right move, but tensions have been escalating ever since.

Once the President started laying more sanctions against Iran and compelling other nations to fall in line, it became clear the mullahs were getting desperate. Their people are suffering despite a financial windfall that came to the Iranian government because of the nuclear deal and actions by the Obama administration to fund them. They squandered their good fortune on military advancement and supplying their terrorist proxies instead of aiding their people. Now, they’re to the point that they can no longer sustain anything of substance.

Fast forward to April of this year and a meeting held with top Iranian military and intelligence officials. Nobody knows exactly what happened at the meeting, but Brigadier General Ali Nasiri stormed out of the meeting before it ended after getting into a physical confrontation. Within two days, he was at an undisclosed U.S. Embassy with a cache of military intelligence and a desire to defect.

I’ve speculated that this is the source of the information that prompted the United States to ramp up our military presence in the Centcom AOR to a level that makes us ready for all-out war. The ships and bombers now in the region are capable of wiping out Iran entirely, including a region-dominating aircraft carrier and at least 600 cruise missiles. To put it into perspective, around 50 cruise missiles were all that was required to cripple Syria’s entire air capabilities in less than a day.

That’s the background. We know very little, but now some on Capitol Hill have a better understanding of the situation following a briefing by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford earlier today.

Lindsey Graham’s reaction

The Republican Senator from South Carolina took to Twitter following the briefing to express support for the administration’s efforts to be prepared for an Iranian attack.

The Trump administration has shown amazing restraint in the face of escalating aggressions from Iran. The Iranian-directed attacks on four ships, sabotaging other nations’ pipelines, and the firing of rockets into the Green Zone in Iraq have not yet led to a military response. — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 21, 2019

I’m confident that if the Iranians harm one American – in Iraq or anywhere else – they will pay a heavy price. The Trump administration will respond militarily and in an overwhelming fashion. — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 21, 2019

The only way to protect Americans serving overseas is to have their back. I am proud President Trump is standing up for those who are serving in harm’s way — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 21, 2019



Graham may have a reputation of being a neoconservative hawk, but he’s also demonstrated restraint in recent years when it comes to continued wars in the Middle East. He may not be one who normally objects to military actions, but it’s telling that he is framing this discussion against a backdrop of a clear and present threat to Americans. That’s very different from old narratives of maintaining strength across the globe.

In other words, Graham came out of the briefing believing Iran is clearly poised to attack.

How (and why) Iran will attack

In the coming weeks, we will very likely see activity in the Middle East directed at the United States and possibly Saudi Arabia and Israel. But we won’t see these attacks come from Iran’s military. Their standard operating procedure is to maintain a degree of separation between their targets and their actual forces. They prefer to use their proxies to do their bidding for them, allowing them to pretend to be innocent in the eyes of a world that is sympathetic to their efforts.

Israel is the most hated nation in the world followed closely by the United States. Saudi Arabia is somewhere near the top as well, and while Iran is not viewed as angelic, their status as enemy to the three most hated nations gives them the benefit of the doubt, especially within the United Nations body. This is why they operate through proxies. They want plausible deniability when the attacks come. They want to be able to say with a wink and a nod that they aren’t responsible even while sneering at their enemies with a daring stare of complicity.

They want us to attack them. Then, they will tell the world they were victims and will proceed to “defend” themselves and their interests. Anyone and everyone should be able to see through the lies they’re cooking, but most of the world will be willfully blind to their machinations.

Their desperation is clear. They do not have enough time to mount a slow trickle of propaganda through their Endless Mayfly disinformation efforts, nor can they wait for another President to take office for them to manipulate as they did with President Obama. They might be able to stay afloat through the 2020 elections, but another four years of Trump would destroy them. They would be forced to take action, whether by forging illicit trade relationships that put them and others at risk or taking military action to destabilize the region and force oil prices to skyrocket.

Or both.

The most logical course of action (at least from the perspective of a radical regime with their backs against the wall) is to poke and prod at the United States until we attack, then calling for international aid.

No more pointless wars

It’s at this point that we must reiterate something massively important. We do not need to go war with Iran over their provocations. The only valid reason to go to war is if they truly attack us, and even then the response should not be an invasion but rather a measured military response that will cripple their abilities to attack.

If (when) they attack through their proxies, the United States must respond appropriately and not fall into the trap of regime change. It’s enticing to want to remove those who intend to do us and our allies harm, but doing so would propel us into a continuation of what has been happening for nearly two decades in Iraq and Afghanistan. We do not need to be in Iran. We need to defend ourselves appropriately, and nothing more.

War with Iran must be avoided. We have the capabilities of striking them definitively when they attack, but we must not allow our defense to turn into regime change. It’s tempting, but recent history has shown us it is ineffective.

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