President Trump’s war against Iran was inevitable – opinion

With each passing day, the Iranian threat grew. What did not change was their desire to destroy America.

By Michael Rubin, Middle East Forum

The End of “Kicking the Can”: Why War with Iran Became Inevitable After Decades of Negligence

On September 30, 1985, Shiite gunmen abducted four Soviet diplomats in West Beirut. While seven Americans were already hostages in Lebanon, it was the first time pro-Iranian militias had taken Russians hostage. A

A month later, their captors released three; the Soviets had recovered the body of the fourth from a field just a few days after the kidnapping.

Release by Brute Force

To secure the release of their diplomats, the Soviets did not pay a ransom, unlike Presidents Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.

Rather, according to press reports at the time, after the first Soviet diplomat was killed, “The KGB then apparently kidnapped and killed a relative of an unnamed leader of the Shias’ Hezbollah (Party of God) group.” Parts of the man’s body, the paper said, were then sent to the Hezbollah leader with a warning that he would lose other relatives in a similar fashion if the three remaining Soviet diplomats were not immediately released. They were quickly freed.”

It was the last time Hezbollah took any Russian hostage.

Idyllic Multicultural Ideology

When facing rogue regimes and their proxies, brute force matters more than diplomacy.

Americans pride themselves on being multicultural, but the universities that train the elite and the State Department’s interpretation of multiculturalism are rosy and positive.

In essence, it is about appreciating differences and ordering a mojito at a sushi bar. Political correctness and projection diminish the importance of different people’s ideologies.

Real estate developers can negotiate with each other because they share frames of reference, a desire to make money, and a sense of the rules of the game; religious zealots are a different matter entirely.

Diplomacy does not work unless all parties agree to the same rules of the game.

This is the major reason why diplomacy has failed for decades and across administrations and why the Iranian security forces and their proxies continue to target Americans.

The Islamic Republic always looked at diplomacy as an asymmetric warfare strategy with which to tie America’s hands while it pursues its own nuclear aims.

Even reformist politicians admitted as much in their internal debates.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was never going to forfeit his nuclear program because to do so would mean telling his base that their four-decade, trillion-dollar sacrifice was for naught.

Asymmetric Diplomatic Engagement

Under such circumstances, decades of engagement represented strategic negligence.

The Islamic Republic waged war against the United States for more than four decades, gleefully demanding “death to America,” taking hostages, and sponsoring terror and proxies.

In effect, every president since Jimmy Carter has kicked the can down the road until, with Iran’s nuclear and ballistic programs far advanced, war became inevitable.

They all put political ease above the necessities of leadership and strategic defense.

Critics can say war in this moment was unnecessary, that Trump might have waited a month or a year, but that misses the point.

With each passing day, the Iranian threat grew. What did not change was their desire to destroy America.

Had Carter or Reagan acted when Iran first attacked America’s embassies, kidnapped Americans in Beirut, or bombed a U.S. Marine peacekeeper contingent, they may have saved hundreds of lives.

In 1985, Soviet leaders showed Iranian proxies what happens when they pick a fight with Russians.

The ayatollahs and their terrorists internalized that lesson.

Today, Trump teaches them the same. The elimination of Khamenei and his broader family teaches a lesson long overdue.

Indeed, if there is any Trump doctrine, it should be this: Take a hostage or murder an American for political purposes, and what befalls the Islamic Republic today will be replicated.

A little deterrence up front can avoid decades of conflict and contentious diplomacy down the line. Such a possession would do more to bring peace and end terror than any previous Trump virtue signaling to lobby for a Nobel Peace Prize.