Anti-American Iran Will Not Go Away – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

It is a fact — an old, very old fact — that was long obscured by the 20th century’s Euro-centric battles with World Wars I and II. Plus, the resulting Cold War and various smaller hot wars in places like Asia’s Korea and Vietnam. All three of those centered on the United States’ battles with Communism.

Yet periodically bubbling out of the European hot war cauldron or its relative in Asia, was news revolving around war in the Middle East. The latter primarily focused on the emergence of the Jewish state of Israel, an emergence long, if quietly present, notably in the aftermath of the realization of the Holocaust.

On the cultural front, one of the out-of-the-blue movie hits of 1962 was Lawrence of Arabia. The film, starring English actor Peter O’Toole as the seriously real historical figure of British Colonel T.E. Lawrence, was centered, per today’s Wikipedia, around the young Lawrence, “a British Army officer, archaeologist, diplomat and writer during World War I.”

After the war, Lawrence wrote his memoirs, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the original title, which he eventually changed to Revolt in the Desert. The focus is on what Lawrence experienced firsthand during the so-called “Arab Revolt” against the Middle East’s British overseers during the war.

I was a kid when the movie version was released. Technology being what it was, it was viewable only in movie theaters. To say the least, it was a spectacular film, featuring the best movie technology of the day.

But for today’s purposes, what was notable was that the film based on Lawrence’s dramatic exploits was followed two years later by another vivid and big deal movie, Exodus. This film, also a huge hit with American audiences, was centered around the history surrounding the founding of the State of Israel.

In American style, it starred a cast of some of the biggest Hollywood stars of the day, featuring Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Peter Lawford (the latter, notably, the movie star brother-in-law of soon to be President John F. Kennedy), teen heartthrob Sal Mineo and rising star George Maharis, the latter then a major TV star in the weekly CBS series Route 66.

The point here is simply that emerging from the global catastrophe of World War II, which had movies and books aplenty filmed or written about the clash between America, the Brits, and French against Hitler’s Nazis, Mussolini’s Fascists and the Imperial Japanese, what was transpiring in the Middle East received comparatively little attention.

This began to change post-World War II. Gaining speed with the post-war founding of Israel in 1948. Ever after, until today’s 21st-century world, the wars of the Middle East have intensified, periodically with more intensity than at other times.

For the longest time, Iran was ruled by the iron fist of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the American-friendly Shah of Iran from 1941 to 1979. In 1979, during the presidency of Jimmy Carter, the Shah was driven from power by the seriously anti-American Islamic radical, Ayatollah Khomeini, and the rule of Iran by the decidedly anti-American, anti-West Iranian mullahs, the latter “an honorific title for Muslim clergy and mosque leaders” began.

All of which is the short-hand version of how the world got to this moment. A moment with the Mullahs, well on record with their views of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America,” accompanied by an obsessive drive to get possession of nuclear weapons. (RELATED: A Strong Case Against a Nuclear Iran)

All of the latter give both President Trump and his fellow leaders of today’s West the decidedly warranted belief that if in possession of nuclear bombs, the Iranian mullahs who repeatedly chant “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” mean exactly what they say. And that they would quickly make sure that if/when they have possession of those nuclear bombs, they would quickly be driven to use them. (RELATED: MOPping Up Iran)

Which is a long way of saying that understanding this, President Trump unhesitatingly authorized what was tagged, in military fashion, “Operation Midnight Hammer.” This was headlined as follows at Newsmax: Trump: US Has Struck 3 Iranian Nuclear Sites. (RELATED: No, Trump Didn’t Violate the War Powers Act)

Newsmax reported:

The U.S. military struck three sites in Iran early Sunday, directly joining Israel’s war aimed at decapitating Iran’s nuclear program in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe amid Tehran’s threat of reprisals that could spark a wider regional conflict.

President Donald Trump was the first to disclose the strikes. There was no immediate acknowledgment from the Iranian government. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that attacks targeted the country’s Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz nuclear sites. The agency did not elaborate.

Predictably, the Iranians responded, striking a U.S. base in Qatar.

So now the inevitable question: Where does the world go from here?

In this corner, it seems blindingly obvious that the reason Iran was seeking nuclear bombs was because they would — hello? — use them. Leaders who spend time chanting “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” and have unhesitatingly killed Americans in various places around the globe can be assumed to mean what they say — and that they would use nuclear weapons to achieve their objectives.

Again?

Where does the world go from here? We shall see.

But it must be said that radical Islam is not going away now or ever. And the only way to at least rein it in is with a strong president in the White House — Trump in this case. And without a strong president, Ronald Reagan’s wisdom of “peace through strength” will not be obtained.

Alas, as I have ended a few observations in this space in the past?

Buckle in.

And a few prayers would be in order as well.

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Iran’s Khamenei v. Trump — And the World

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