You’ve got to think: if the US military can pinpoint one room in Teheran with a Grand Ayatollah and 39 other high officials in it, then the US military can figure out where Iran’s missiles are being launched from and put a stop to that, too. With no high command left, Iran’s missile batteries have been on their own since Saturday, desperately trying a kind of last-ditch “Samson option” to light up the whole region and bring the House of the Middle East down with Iran.

Firing on the Emirates, and Saudi Arabia especially, was maybe not such a hot idea. Saudi Arabian air defenses intercepted almost all the drones aimed at their giant Ras Tanura oil refinery. Falling debris started a small fire that was contained while the refinery shut down safely. Iran has reawakened the centuries-old rift between Shi’a and Sunni Islam and Saudi Arabia has been stockpiling war planes from the USA for fifty years without getting to use them much. I doubt they’ll pass up the chance.

Who does speak for Iran now? Just naming a successor to the Ayatollah Khamenei would put a target on his turban. Iran’s Intel Service building was blown up on Sunday, so that network must be dark. How is Iran’s government and its remaining military command communicating? And how would US and Israeli intel not be listening in on whatever chatter is out there?

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The world fretfully expects Iran to try to close the Strait of Hormuz, but how does that happen with tanker traffic halted and most of Iran’s navy blown up and its naval command headquarters destroyed? Without the ships to do it, it’s unlikely that Iran will be laying out minefields in the Strait. Or that any tankers will be around to sink in the channel.

President Trump has declared a four-week window for Operation Epic Fury. Sounds a little too generous. With no command structure left and no viable communication, you might give the Islamic Republic one more week, maybe. It’s a tossup whether they run out of missiles and drones before all their launch-sites and stockpiles get bombed. Meanwhile, a US / Israeli info operation that hacked Iran’s state-run TV seeks to persuade Iranian army personnel and government bureaucrats to turn on what remains of the theocracy and think about forming a secular government. Why would they stick with the loser regime?

Of course, the Trump-deranged political opposition in America is ululating over this effort to put the world’s leading fomenter of terrorism out of business. The New York Times is especially glum, claiming, “The American public’s appetite for an attack on Iran was low before Trump and Israel took action.” Maybe the Jacobin-Democrats they cater to feel that way, since the party has been increasingly synchronizing with the forces of Jihad since the Oct 7, 2023, Hamas raid. After forty-seven years of ayatollahs, what part of “Death to America” don’t they understand?

Not a few prominent figures on the Right also deplored Operation Epic Fury. The increasingly rogue Trump-hater and Israel vilifier, Tucker Carlson, called the action “disgusting and evil.” MTG called it “unnecessary and is unacceptable.” Blackwater founder Erik Prince colored it as “not serving America’s interests and inconsistent with President Trump’s MAGA agenda.” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) framed his objection in Congress’s prerogative to declare war — though the War Powers Act of 1973 permits the president to conduct military operations for 60 days after notifying Congress of his intentions.

You can understand why people are nervous about this, with so many commentators predicting World War Three and Biblical Armageddon. The Fourth Turning narrative asserts that a major war is inevitable at this moment in history. Maybe so. But Ukraine has already happened and is on a glide path to its conclusion. And Operation Epic Fury does not have to turn out badly for all concerned, including Iran. Other more sanguine observers see a more peaceful and prosperous Middle East emerging from the smoke, a fulfillment of the Abraham Protocols, and the termination of Iran-sponsored proxy wars, terror programs, and medieval social despotism.

Epic Fury looks like a turning point for Western Civ more generally as regards tolerating Jihadi insolence — its declared intent to destroy all its “infidel” enemies, meaning you and me and the remaining indigenous population of Europe. The strife Iran managed to stir up all around the Middle East and beyond for decades was largely responsible for the mass migration into Europe and the dispersion of millions into the USA during “Joe Biden’s” open border years. Citizens are now rising to oppose Islam’s aggressive promotion of Sharia Law and demographic replacement in Texas and other states. Expect bolder resistance to all that now, here and in Europe, too.

However this thing goes, Iran will not acquire a nuclear arsenal, and this was, after all, the main issue. Anyway, the Iranians must be sick of the rule of the mullahs. Mr. Trump told them some weeks ago that “help is on the way.” He meant what he said, he didn’t chicken out, and now it’s up to the people of Iran to sort out how they enter the future, starting now.

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