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NT! I have some thoughts on this latest brouhaha over Iran, and our response to it. First of all, some of you weren't even born yet, so a little history for you. In 1979, the then current ruler, the Shah of Iran, was overthrown in a coup ...
Led by radical Muslim extremists, and in the process of this coup, these same extremists assaulted, and invaded our embassy in the capital city of Tehran, capturing most of the embassy staff and their Marine guards ...
Holding them for 444 days. Let me repeat that. Our people, US citizens, were held by a hostile government, and yes the people who did this were operatives of that hostile government, for four hundred and forty four days. *444* days.
That's a little over 14 months, in case anyone was wondering. During this time, many were subjected to torture, paraded blindfolded before the cameras, and basically humiliated. Remember, an embassy is considered the territory of that nation.
This incident, and the feckless hand wringing response by then President Carter, as he dithered about what to do, and the failed hostage rescue effort, resulted in his political defeat by Ronald Reagan. There were other factors too, but those are irrelevant to this.
Oh, and a side note. President Carter treated the former Shah, who admittedly wasn't a totally fine and upstanding guy in every way but better than the Ayatollah, rather shabbily after he was forced to flee Iran or face certain death.
Has that incident ever really been addressed? No. Our embassy in Tehran is now used as a museum of the revolution by the Iranian government as a semi-permanent reminder that they "belled the giant cat" in occupying our territory as an insult.
Since that time, Iran has engaged in one terrorist act after another, primarily aimed at both the US and the state of Israel, and have worked tirelessly to undermine stability in the Middle East.
Sometimes it's been through direct action, such as the several gun boat incidents in the waters around Iran over he years, but most often via proxies through providing them with funds and arms.
They constantly egg on their supporters to chant "Death to America" and "Death to Israel", and broadcast those "spontaneous" demonstrations to the world. And where have they received the funding to to all of this? Oil.
Because of our dependence on foreign oil in the past, previous administrations have tried the road of appeasement and concession to get Iran to try to modify their behavior, and have failed in that effort every time.
Even Reagan failed, although he had been the toughest on them since the over throw of the Shah, with his arms for hostages deal, which did get our people back, but caused other harm in the region. I say this as a staunch Reagan supporter - it was a bad idea.
Then, the Iranians announced that they were going to develop nuclear technology, ostensibly for the purpose of generating electricity for domestic consumption, despite sitting on one of the worlds largest natural gas reserves.
The world in general went into a panic, not knowing what to do, and immediately went into max appeasement mode, including the US, to try to get them to not do this nuclear thing. Did that stop them? Not for a second. It emboldened them.
They saw weakness from the world, and figured that they had the green light to further their nuclear aims, which as everyone now knows, was for developing nuclear weapons, not electricity.
Meanwhile, they sold a lot more oil to the world, as countries struck lucrative for Iran oil deals, pumping more and more funds into the entity that controls the oil industry in Iran, which is the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Council.
Guess what the recently designated terrorist organization did with those extra dollars? They supplied more arms to their proxies, expanding their influence in the region. Including Iraq, where they were directly responsible for killing Americans.
Then, the previous administration, in spite of Iranians killing more Americans, decided that it would be a good idea to do a deal with Iran, with the stated goal of "stopping" Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Did it? Not for a second.
They merely slowed down, but have never stopped. The previous administration also made several shady side deals that weren't immediately revealed to the American public that were to the direct benefit to Iran.
One of those side deals was the shipment that everyone knows about, of boat loads of US dollars in a midnight flight, supposedly to "repay" Iran for "economic damages" they'd suffered under previous sanctions.
Then, the current administration was voted into office, lifted onerous regulations on our fossil fuel industry, and as a result of that, we are now a net exporter of oil, no longer dependent on foreign oil.
They are testing us, to see how we'll react, and many people are wringing their hands about what a mistake it would be if we went to war with Iran. I don't want to see that, but we cannot, must not, try to appease them. It doesn't work.
If they are foolish enough to attack any of our assets in the region directly, we need to hit them back - hard. As in sinking their entire Navy. They need to understand that we're serious, and I think that would go a long way towards that end.
