We are Iran's enemy. Let's act like mullah-run Iran is our enemy rather than a friend we haven't made yet.
Given the Biden administration's rose-colored view of mullah-run Iran, that's a dangerous notion to testify about:
Iran has thrown the Middle East into "a convergence of crises" with its military support of Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen, Army Gen. Michael Kurilla told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday.
My thanks to Kurilla. One might even say mullah-run Iran is the Gordian Knot of regional mayhem:
[Getting] rid of the mullah regime in Iran really could cut the Gordian Knot and improve a lot of our problems related to Afghanistan. Add in problems like Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gulf, and latin America--not to mention the nuclear issue--that would see improvement if the mullahs go.
Well, we lost the opportunity to help with Afghanistan.
But there are plenty more enhanced problems--including the new Houthi threat since I listed the problems--that might be alleviated with a proper understanding of Iran as our enemy and not a friend-we-haven't-made-yet.
Given Iran has ruined the great success the administration was implicitly claiming for a calmer Middle East up until the Hamas October 7, 2023 rape and murder raid and the subsequent Houthi anti-shipping campaign, is the Biden administration even a bit upset with the unrequited love of their life?
I mean, Sullivan surely offered a caveat that things could go off the rails. But the administration was continuing the insane Obama policy of reaching out to Iran as a so-called partner for peace as its means to prevent that derailing.
Cut the mullah knot.
UPDATE: I don't know why Iran has restrained its proxies in Iraq and Syria, but they chafe under the restrictions:
Kataib Hezbollah Secretary General Abu Hussein al Hamidawi said during a meeting with unspecified leaders in Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” in Tehran on March 20 that the current pause in attacks on US forces does not mark the end of efforts to expel US forces from Iraq.
The PMF originated as part of the effort to stop and reverse the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) from Syria into Iraq but has become largely a front for militias responsive to Iran. Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki formed the PMF in June 2014 by "institutionalizing” pre-existing and predominantly Shia militias that were engaged in the fight against ISIS. ISIS captured Mosul in June 2014, prompting prominent Iraqi Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani to issue a fatwa calling for Iraqi citizens “able to take up arms and fight terrorists...[to] volunteer and join the security forces to achieve this holy purpose” against ISIS. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) separately and simultaneously mobilized Shia militias responsive to then-IRGC Quds Force Commander Major General Qassem Soleimani. Many of the militias responsive to Soleimani came to comprise the PMF along with some of the fighters who had responded to Sistani‘s call and remained loyal to him. The militias responsive to Soleimani were — and remain — close to Iran, and several are US-designated foreign terrorist organizations that killed hundreds of US service members in Iraq between 2003 and 2011.[5]The 2016 PMF Commission Law formalized the PMF as an independent entity reporting directly to the Iraqi prime minister, separate from the Iraqi Defense and Interior Ministries.I had hoped formalizing the PMF would help Iraq bring them under control since disbanding them seemed too difficult.
Phase IX of the Iraq War continues. If we can't help Iraq disband the PMF, it will be more violent than I'd like.
NOTE: The image was made from DALL-E.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.
