Ending the Ayatollah’s Nuclear Threat: No Better Time Than Now – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

“The important things are always simple; the simple things are always hard.”

— Murphy’s First Law of Combat

There will never be a better time than now to end the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. The Israelis have established air superiority over the length and breadth of Iran, and apparently are able to operate unimpeded to strike any and all targets of their choosing. The challenge for Israel lies in the choosing.

Continue an air campaign focused on eliminating Iran’s nuclear weapons program and its ballistic missile program, or expand the scope of attacks to undermine the Iranian economy and bring down the current theocratic dictatorship. Or, as part of a comprehensive regime change strategy, take on the task of eliminating Iran’s political leadership, up to and including the Ayatollah Khamenei himself. (RELATED: Iran Miscalculated. The Ayatollahs Must be Removed.)

We don’t need to make this complicated.

There seems little doubt that Israel could kill Khamenei and many among his wider circle, effectively decapitating the current regime. Donald Trump has said as much, just this afternoon on Truth Social, speaking of both Israeli and U.S. capabilities. But having this ability and acting upon it are two very different things. (RELATED: Basic Thoughts on Iran)

Those who favor a regime change strategy express an implied faith in the ability of the Iranian people to, in effect, step forward on their own initiative and create a democratic, peace-seeking alternative. There’s probably no other country in the Middle East better suited to building just an alternative, once the heavy hand of the mullahs is finally removed.

But it would have to be built — there’s no such ready-made alternative currently waiting in the wings, only inchoate political movements, none ready at a moment’s notice to assume power. And, likely as not, potential rivals for power rather than allies. It’s been very clear for a long time that the vast majority of Iranians yearn for something better than the Khamenei regime, but when the time comes, they will need to work things out for themselves.

Netanyahu seems to understand this. When questioned on this point, he’s insisted that Israel’s current campaign is not intended to bring down the Ayatollah, although he also readily allows that it could well create space for the Iranian people to rise up and throw the theocrats out. This is wise, and it’s a wisdom we in the U.S. should embrace, if for no other reason than to avoid being scapegoated by the usual suspects. (RELATED: Israel’s Greatest Hits So Far in Days Long War Against Iran)

We’ve been blamed, unfairly in my view, for the 1954 coup that replaced Mossadegh with the Shah. There’s no need to repeat the experience. The Israelis, again, seem to understand the need to walk carefully in this regard. We should do the same.

The Real Question: Nuclear-armed Iran?

The real choice, then, is a very simple one, and it’s our choice much more than Israel’s. If we are convinced that we cannot live with a nuclear-armed Iranian regime bent on promoting sharia supremacy throughout the world, bent on destroying first the “little Satan” of Israel and then the “Great Satan” of the U.S., then the moment of decision has come.

Israel’s air campaign has created the conditions in which Iran’s nuclear facilities can be destroyed, but Israel lacks the ability to deploy the one conventional weapon capable of completing the job. The MOAB deep-penetrator bomb is required, and only U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers can deliver it accurately. (RELATED: America First: Keep Our Boys Out of It, but Shoot Down Iranian Ballistics and Drop a MOAB or Two)

We’ve always said that we can’t live with a nuclear-armed Iran. Every president in recent memory has insisted on this, and Donald Trump has reiterated the point this very week. There have always been those who’ve scoffed at this, those who’ve maintained that an existential risk to Israel is no business of ours, and that we’re safely distant from any Iranian threat. But we once said that of North Korea, and now we find that Kim Jong Un has nuclear-tipped missiles that can reach our west coast, and perhaps soon the whole of the U.S.

Moreover, we’ve endured a decades-long postgraduate seminar in drug smuggling and human trafficking, replete with lessons in the difficulty of securing our borders against small packages smuggled by a dedicated adversary. Once Iran has the bomb, we are at risk, even if it lacks an ICBM to deliver it. If Putin can paralyze NATO — and Joe Biden — with the threat of deploying a few tactical nukes, then it’s painful to imagine what the Ayatollah or his successors might achieve. (RELATED: The Travel Ban Policy Overhaul)

By all accounts, they are close, anywhere from weeks to months away, certainly less than a year. That’s the threat. The opportunity lies in the fact that the Israelis have created a level of air dominance sufficient to permit the U.S. Air Force to come in and complete the job. This convergence of threat and opportunity has never existed before, and there are no guarantees that it will last indefinitely. Putin and Xi have proven themselves quite happy with the current Iranian regime; even now, they may be looking for ways to shift the calculus once again in the Ayatollah’s favor.

The choice facing President Trump is clear. Like as not, there will likely never be a bigger moment for him than now. He can make a decision for world peace, even if, ironically, such a decision requires an act of war. The risk, of course, is great. Even with Israeli air dominance, putting American bombers over targets deep in Iran means risking American lives. It also means risking a terror campaign in the U.S., when we already know that Iranian subversive assets have been infiltrated into the country. It means convulsions on U.S. campuses as the pro-Hamas demonstrators — who’ve always been pawns of the mullahs — come out in force.

But the potential reward is also great. A defanged Iran, no longer able to threaten annihilation to Israel, no longer safe to promote turmoil throughout the Middle East, no longer the inviolable patron of Islamist revolution across the western world, and, above all, on the streets and campuses of the U.S. A message sent that the time of feckless U.S. leadership is at an end, that when we say “America First” we’re prepared to back it with resolute action — all of this accomplished without the pretense of nation-building or of spreading democracy. Hard-headed, limited, decisive.

The choice, then, is simple, and no different from the choices that have defined the greatest presidents down through our history. Whatever choice President Trump makes, the decision will be challenging, and certainly one of the most important that’s ever faced an American president.

But the important things are always simple — and the simple things are very hard.

READ MORE from James H. McGee:

The ‘New Warfare’ Comes of Age: Are We Ready?

Mirrors Instead of Windows: America’s Failed Foreign Policy Perspective

Splitting Xi From Putin: A Comfortable Delusion

James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His 2022 novel, Letter of Reprisal, tells the tale of a desperate mission to destroy a Chinese bioweapon facility hidden in the heart of the central African conflict region. A soon-to-be-published sequel, The Zebras from Minsk, finds the Reprisal team fighting against Chinese and Russian-backed terrorists who’ve infiltrated our southern border in a conspiracy that ranges from West Virginia to the forests of Belarus. You can find Letter of Reprisal on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback editions, and on Kindle Unlimited.