On 19 March 2003 President George W. Bush dispatched American aircraft to enter Iraq airspace initiating a second Gulf War which displaced Saddam Hussein from power. Twenty-six days later Bagdad was captured. Ultimately, what that invasion accomplished was a change from strong Iraq leadership into revolving inept administrations leaning toward Iran. The Iraq State was weakened, and Iraq was eliminated as a viable military power. More significantly, the U.S. replaced Iraq’s role as the Middle East’s de facto counterbalance to Iran’s regional power aspirations.
U.S. General Tommy Franks commanded an invasion army of 466,985 U.S. military personnel. He was given eight objectives which were a mishmash of justification for the invasion. They featured CIA misinformation on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction development and the nation’s broken U.N. resolutions. Secondary objectives included breaking up Iraq’s terrorist connections, securing their oil resources, and bringing in humanitarian relief.
Since then, Iran has become an increasing irritant to U.S. peace objectives in the Middle East. America is described in Iran as the “Great Satan”, and “Death to America” is a shoutout for their radical supporters. Iran’s anti-American aggressive actions has included deaths of U.S. military troops in Iraq and Syria, supplying arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan, and recently supplying drones to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Israel is to be “wiped off the map” as Iran seeks to be the dominant power in the area. To weaken Israeli power, Iran surrounded Israel with hostile proxy groups in Gaza-Hamas, Lebanon-Hezbollah, and Yemen-Houthis. Iran was the guiding force, arms supplier, and banker for the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion and massive new missile attacks on Israel by Hezbollah.
The Obama Administration began appeasing Iran in attempting to delay Iran’s nuclear arms program; the Trump Administration shut off Iranian funds and enforced oil and monetary sanctions: but the Biden Administration reinstated the Obama program allowing money and Iranian oil to flow again revitalizing the Iranian economy.
The Israelis have recently untaken highly successful operations against Iran’s proxies in both Gaza and Lebanon. They have destroyed two massive, but ineffective missile attacks from Iran. Now the time has come to present Iran’s ruling Ayatollah with a lesson from the Old Testament when Moses presented the Pharaoh with his demands or face a series of nationwide plagues – from bloody rivers, frogs, ghats and flies, locust devastation, and the deaths of the nation’s firstborn.
A modern American stand-in for Moses should present the Ayatollahs with a progressive program of modern plagues to be imposed on Iran if they do not immediately cease and desist from pursuing their nuclear weapons development, from providing financial and arms support for major named Iranian proxies or other terrorist forces, and from supplying arms to Russia.
The phased timetable for the plagues, named the “Moses II Operation ”, might be as follows:
- Day One – destruction of all Iranian naval vessels, their ports of operation, and air defenses
- Day Seven – blockade of all Iranian ocean commerce to and from Iran
- Day Fourteen – destruction of all Iranian oil export facilities
- Day Twenty-One – destruction of all major Iranian oil producing areas
- Day Twenty- Eight – destruction of all electrical power generation capacity in Iran
- Day Thirty-Five – destruction of all major Iranian nuclear facilities
Within 48 hours Iran should give its answer and begin implementing the demands OR face the implementation of the first phase of the “Moses II Operation ”.
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What is missing from the above scenario is who is the American Godfather that can make the Ayatollahs an offer that they can’t refuse, and deliver the plagues if they refuse? Joe Biden? Tony Blinken? Jake Sullivan? Pamala Harris? Is there anyone with sufficient stature in the current administration that could deliver a demand to the Ayatollahs like Ronald Reagan’s 1988 admonition, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall”?
Much less, would the Ayatollahs even believe their rejection would be followed by immediate enforcement based on our recent appeasement record? When did appeasement become taught as a proper geopolitical strategy at our nation’s premier Military Academies?
Unfortunately, following Reagan and Bush One as the last political remnants of our ‘Greatest Generation’ of political and military leaders, our two political parties have both failed to develop responsible national and world leadership. The prosperity generated from 1945 until 9/11 was squandered as a Cold War Dividend solidifying the Washington politicians’ grip on power. They have escaped from any accountability for their actions by transferring federal actions into the unelected, tenured Administrative State bureaucrats.
Under Netanyahu, Israeli’s military efforts have greatly weakened Iran and its proxies. These Israeli actions have provided the U.S. with this unique opportunity in its history to eliminate Iran as a major power in the Middle East. The U.S. has already positioned in the area its largest military force there in years ready to strike. The Ayatollahs know they are in trouble. Now is the time for American to find a Godfather or a Moses to demand that Iran end their threats to peace in the region forever.
John Whitmore Jenkins
October 3, 2024
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