Regime Change
- Bob O'Brien
- 8 hours ago
- 3 min read
As most people know by now, the Iranian state media has confirmed that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed, along with forty other senior leaders, when both Israel and the United States attacked Iran. Although a 40-day mourning period for the longtime Iranian leader was announced, there was literally “dancing in the streets” by the many Iranian people who celebrated, both in Iran and all over the world.
In contrast, most U.S. Democratic leaders were stridently opposed to the military action against Iran. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia was typical, saying the attack was unwise, in that there was “no imminent threat” from Iran. He also said that the President’s action was unconstitutional in that the President did not seek Congressional approval for a war against Iran.
We addressed the question of an unconstitutional war in our article That Ship Has Sailed. Back then we noted that “if you look at the military decisions over the last forty to fifty years, it is obvious that the Presidents of both political parties have broadly interpreted their “core powers” as Commander-in Chief to act unilaterally without the consent of Congress. It also seems obvious that the Judiciary has decided to stay out of what it views as a political question.”
A good example of past Presidential war making, and a good parallel to what is happening in Iran today, was President Obama’s approval of airstrikes against Libya, on March 19, 2011. As is currently happening in Iran, there was no involvement of U.S. troops on the ground; instead, there was a seven-month bombing campaign. The justification, according to President Obama, was that the “military action sought to save the lives of peaceful, pro-democracy protesters who found themselves the target of a crackdown by Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.”
I have to ask: If protecting the protestors was a good justification for war back then, is the recent mass killing of 30,000 plus Iranian protesters by the Iranian government a valid justification for Trumps’s war-like actions against Iran?
I also note that President Obama never sought Congressional approval for the bombing campaign. Instead, he relied upon a resolution passed by the United Nations Security Council that authorized military intervention in Libya. (That’s funny! I’ve never seen anything about the United Nations in the United States Constitution).
Finally, I might add, that the main goal of the Libya war was regime change. As with Ali Khamenei, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was killed. In fact, after he died, then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, joyfully announced: “We came, we saw, he died. Regime change, indeed"!
However, there is a big difference between the past war against Libya and the current war against Iran. In late 2003, Gaddafi renounced his regime’s weapons of WMD programs, and he accepted international inspectors to visit Libya to verify that he would fulfill his commitments. Gaddafi was never an imminent threat!
Contrast that to the Mullahs of Iran. According to Steve Witkoff, President Trump's special envoy for Middle East talks, “in the very first meeting before the military strike, Iranian negotiators opened by declaring their "undeniable right to enrich all of their nuclear fuel. Then both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly, with no shame, that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% [enrichment] and they're aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs, and that was the beginning of their negotiating stance. So that's — they were proud of it."
Getting back to Senator Kaine’s complaint that there was no imminent threat, we’d have to ask how imminent is imminent? How close would Kaine let Iran get to making 11 nuclear bombs before it became an imminent threat? President Trump obviously concluded that the negotiations with the Iranians was not going anywhere, and that the threat from Iran was imminent enough. He was not going to let Iran get anywhere close to producing nuclear weapons, and he is now wiping out their ability to do so.
I agree with the President’s decision. The big factor for me is the fact that the Iranian government is ruled by fanatical religious leaders. Death to Israel and the “Great Satan” (America) is their goal. They are happy to die as a martyr for Allah, and they want to kill all the infidels. Since 1979, they have supported war and unrest throughout the entire Mideast, and they have killed many Americans. I think there needs to be regime change in Iran so that these religious fanatics can never come close to achieving nuclear weapons and the missiles that deliver them.
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