Iran, the headless chicken
In 1979, who would have thought Iran would have a gay ayatollah?
President Trump called off launching a huge bombardment of Iran on Monday. He said he was talking to Iran’s leadership. Meanwhile, Iran’s leadership denies this.
Both statements are true because no one is really sure who is in charge.
Iran’s leadership is dead and has been since Operation Epic Fury began. Some may call the operation a textbook lesson of a successful military assault, but Operation Fury re-wrote the textbook by killing the leadership first and leaving the Islamic regime running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
World War II in Europe ended with Hitler’s suicide. What if the generals killed him when the war began on September 1, 1939?
On the surface, Khamenei passed the ayatollah turban on to his son. But no one outside of Iran’s inner circle and Mossad knows if he is dead or gay or both—let alone if he is in charge of the Islamic government. Some question if the old ayatollah was a figurehead, too.
The son has become a western joke.
The tweet of the day on Monday was, “Imagine being an Iranian hardliner in 1979 hearing this how it ends: The gay ayatollah is, at best, in a coma.”
The tweet was a response to a column by Erick Erickson.
In delivering a swipe at TV pundits—“right now, each of you is as much an expert on what the Iranian regime is thinking as every talking head on television”—Erickson revealed a harsher and larger truth:
The leadership is dead. The gay ayatollah is, at best, in a coma. The president of Iran is a figurehead, not talking to anyone else in leadership. The head of the Air Force is dead. The head of the Army is dead. The head of the Navy is dead. The head of the secret police is dead. The head of the Basij militia is dead. The Iranian IRGC spokesman is dead. In some cases, we are on the replacements of the replacements of the dead.
We’re on the C team now across the board—people without ties to the television analysts who have long pontificated on what the Iranian leadership is thinking. So much of what you are hearing about what the leadership might do or is thinking is based on pro-Iran analysts who are not talking to the present leadership, but only know the thinking of the dead leadership.
In other words, you know as much as them.
For Iran, the chickens have come to roost—and they are all chickens with their heads cut off.
Having no one clearly in charge is a dangerous situation but it is safer than the one that had Iran with enough uranium to make a bomb and an ICBM to deliver it.
But Iran’s military struggles because it is without its top commanders. That leaves military units on their own to wage the war. This led to Iran answering Khamenei’s elimination (as Mossad put it) by sending missiles to every Gulf state. This led to all of Arabia (Iran is not an Arab nation) to side with Israel, however covertly.
President Trump laid the groundwork for this possibility in his first term—which now seems so long ago. The Abraham Accords were designed to take on Iran someday.
The Gulf states own 350 to 400 American-made military jets, mainly F-15s, F-16s, and any F-35s. This is about the same number of fighter jets the USAF has in theater.
So the first move by the B Team was to double the size of the enemy—an enemy that just upgraded from air superiority over Iran to air supremacy.
The recent launch by Iran of a long-range missile at Diego Garcia was a similar strategic mistake in that it pushed Britain, France and Germany to stop blindly blocking America. Why, they may even send a boat or two to help.
Nick Arama reported, “NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte appeared on Face the Nation to talk about the Strait of Hormuz and the threats from Iran. Rutte explained that the good news was that 22 countries were coming together to make sure that the Strait of Hormuz was free.”
Besides many (but not all) of the NATO nations, Rutte said Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain are in. The best scenario is Saudi Arabia eventually takes over and ensures the strait will remain open.
So it looks like the missile launched at Diego Garcia turned and hit Iran right between the cheeks. The launch was a rookie error that weakened Iran.
But a weak and chaotic Iran is still a dangerous Iran. The Islamic regime is not about to roll over and play dead. Iran has 92 million people living in an area nearly twice the size of France and Germany. This is why we do not want to put boots on the ground: we do not have that many boots.
The struggle to control the Iranian military is a struggle to control the nation’s post-Operation Epic Fury.
Bush won Iraq and had purple-fingered voters decide their fate.
Unfortunately, Iranian-funded terrorists engaged in a post-liberation war, and soured Americans on both the war and Bush’s presidency.
The opposite will occur this time. None of our adversaries dare challenge Trump.
Everyone keeps pretending these are cute, isolated little plot twists:
Europe’s “not our war” tough talk collapsing into a 72-hour Hormuz surrender
The Palestinian Authority suddenly shanking Iran in public and cozying up to Saudi Arabia
Hamas quietly “considering” Trump’s disarmament offer like it’s not career suicide
Zelensky panic-dialing Washington negotiators after months of “never concede an inch”
These aren’t separate stories. They’re symptoms of the exact same brutal reality: Iran’s leverage is evaporating in real time, right in front of the world.
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And America’s strength multiplied by its willpower is shrinking sphincters in Beijing, Moscow and 2446 Belmont Road NW, Kalorama, Washington, DC. (One of Obama’s mansions.)
Trump’s pause was explained in a post Clarice Feldman tweeted:
Kharg Island is a coral outcrop about 25 kilometers off Iran’s southern coast, eight kilometers long, four to five kilometers wide. Its permanent civilian population is approximately 8,000 to 10,000 people, nearly all of them oil workers and their families. It is not a city. It is a company town built around a single industrial facility.
That facility handles 90% of Iran’s total crude oil exports, processing roughly 950 million barrels annually. Senator Lindsey Graham called it correctly when he said seldom in warfare does an enemy provide you a single target that could so dramatically alter the outcome of a conflict.
Two Marine Expeditionary Units are now converging on the region. The 31st MEU, around 2,200 Marines on the USS Tripoli, has been transiting since March 13. The 11th MEU, another 2,500 Marines on the USS Boxer, departed San Diego under accelerated orders shortly after. Nearly 5,000 Marines are approaching the theater simultaneously.
The critics who say taking Kharg is too dangerous are using Iran’s military as it existed on February 27. That military no longer exists in the same form.
Thus the 5-day pause in action forced Iranian leadership to negotiate—or else lose its oil industry.
Just who is that Iranian leader is anyone’s guess. Politico guessed, “The Trump administration is quietly weighing Iran’s parliament speaker as a potential partner—and even a future leader—as the president signals a shift from military pressure toward a negotiated endgame.
“Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the 64-year-old who has repeatedly threatened the U.S. and its allies with retaliation, is seen by at least some in the White House as a workable partner, who could lead Iran and negotiate with the Trump administration in the war’s next phase, according to two administration officials.”
Who knows if this is true?
But if I learned anything in the past decade, it is never bet against Trump. Ayatollah Donald has a nice ring to it.
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This tweet is too good to save for Saturday:
The Cadets from Old Dominion University who stopped an active shooter, received 8 Meritorious Service Medals. Two of them received Purple Hearts from the Sergeant Major of the Army and the Secretary of the Army.
When they enter the Army as butter bars (second lieutenants) the 8 ROTCs will already have Meritorious Service Medals and 2 of them will have Purple Hearts.
And is there a crustier sergeant anywhere? SMA Michael R. Weimer’s face reflects his 7 years in combat (Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria). We are not worthy.
No matter what the outcome, the Mullahs will not have nuclear weapons to hold the world hostage! Only DJT had and has the courage to remove such a scourge that the past five Presidents essentially hoped that the next guy would take care of it. How fortunate we and indeed the rest of the world is to have such a force of nature as our current President!
It seems like everyday I wake up and think what an amazing time to be alive! To see our President deliver head-spinning beat-downs to our enemies, to the lame MSM, to all of the “experts” who have ruled our lives, to lame allies who have to be forced into support, and to the terrorists of the world. And to the organizers and perpetrators of so much evil—Obama & his cretins Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Hilary, Nancy, Chuck, & Schiff. Revenge against that crew promises to be sweet if the South Florida grand jury produces the goods. And Columbus resurrected! Sanity returns. And yes Don, they hate him bc he brought Christianity to America.