Trump can and should force Iran's unconditional surrender
Since the Mullahs seized power in Tehran in 1979, the U.S. has been playing for a tie in Iran. Now, it is time for President Trump to play for a win.
For forty-six years, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his predecessors have been waging a war against the U.S. and our allies in the Middle East. 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel' have not been just slogans but decades-long causes.
Iran's war against Washington has at times been overt, as when the regime sanctioned Iranian students storming the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. For 444 days, fifty-two Americans were held hostage. In the process, Iran also destroyed the second half of President Jimmy Carter's only term in the Oval Office.
At other times, the war has been indirect. On October 23, 1983, 241 U.S. servicemen were killed and another 100 wounded in the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. Although responsibility for the bombing was claimed by the shadowy Islamic Jihad Organization, it is widely understood that Hezbollah was behind the attack, and that it had been planned and funded by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The origins of Iran's proxy war against the U.S. and later Israel were born on that day. Other attacks would follow, including the June 1996 attack by Hezbollah Al-Hejaz — an Iranian-backed Shia terrorist group — on Khobar Towers in 1996 that killed 19 United States airmen.
In October 2000, a suicide bomber hit the USS Cole using a small boat carrying C4 explosives, killing 17 sailors. In 2015, a U.S. court found that Iran was part of the al-Qaeda attack.
Subsequently, Tehran's so-called 'Axis of Resistance' would repeatedly attack U.S. interests or allies. While Iran officially has been designated by the State Department as a State Sponsor of Terror since 1984, Tehran's proxies have actually been operating as paramilitary groups waging war on Washington.
Operationally, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been in command. Paramilitary groups under its umbrella of control include Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen. In Iraq, it controls Kataib Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al Haq, Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, Badr Organization, and Kataib Sayyad al Hamas Shuhada. In Bahrain, it controls the al Ashtar Brigades and Saraya al Mukhtar.
Washington's response across five administrations, between 1995 and 2022, has been to sanction Iran. It was not until Trump in 2020 that the U.S. responded in kind to Iranian violence by ordering, as he put it, 'a flawless precision strike that killed the number-one terrorist anywhere in the world, Qasem Soleimani.'
Soleimani commanded the Quds Force, the wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for funding, training and coordinating its 'Axis of Resistance Proxies.' Trump held that Soleimani was responsible for the Iraqi Shia militia that stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq and the Kata'ib Hezbollah rocket strike on the K-1 Air Base in Kirkuk, Iraq.
After decades of countless Iranian proxy-attacks on U.S. targets and allies across the Middle East, Oct. 7 changed everything.
Up to that point, Iran's nuclear weapons program had been viewed as the greatest existential threat to Israel. But suddenly, given Hamas's tactical surprise with aid from Iran and Russia, Israel was forced to treat Iran's decades-in-the-making 'Axis of Resistance' as an existential threat too.
The wolf closest to the sled was Hamas. Next came Hezbollah and the Houthis. Now, after eliminating Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control groups in Syria after the fall of Bashir Assad, Israel is focusing on eliminating Iran's Armageddon-like nuclear threat.
Getting to this point, however, has told us a lot about Iran's long-term intentions if left unchecked by Washington. Not only has Tehran expanded its partnership with Russia becoming a critical part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's Arsenals of Evil in his war against Ukraine by supplying Shahed drones, but Khamenei also ordered his militias to take the fight directly to U.S. forces stationed in the Middle East.
By November 2023 — just a month after Oct. 7. — those same paramilitary forces had attacked U.S. forces more than 50 times. This was on top of nearly 100 other attacks that resulted in Americans being killed by Iranian proxies since former President Biden had taken office in 2021.
So Iran is not only in a hot war with Israel. It is also in a 46-year-old hot war with the U.S. This war could get and has gotten worse, including when Kata'ib Hezbollah attacked Tower 22 in Jordan, killing three U.S. soldiers.
Tehran has long been a destabilizing force throughout the region. Alex Plitsas, an Atlantic Council counterterrorism expert, notes that a key element of Khamenei's motivation for backing Hamas and Oct. 7. was to scuttle the Saudi-Israeli normalization process.
In addition to undermining regional diplomacy, Iran has also destabilized the Egyptian economy by encouraging Houthi rebels to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Consequently, at times, Suez Canal traffic and revenues have grinded to a halt as shipping companies avoid the area.
Given Iran's nuclear ambitions, and given Khamenei's use of his ballistic missiles and drones to target Israeli civilians, it is time for Trump to demand the country's unconditional surrender. No more wash and repeats — rather, regime change.
This would not only eliminate Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile threats, but it would also, as make CENTCOM's task of ensuring the security of U.S. allies and interests in the Middle East far more manageable — especially given Beijing's rising economic and military involvement in the region.
If Khamenei's regime survives and Iran achieves nuclear breakout, CENTCOM's ability to safeguard both will become exponentially more difficult.
Why take that chance? Iran and its proxies have effectively been at war with the U.S. since 1979, and the possibility of a lasting peace in the Middle East is right there, dangling.
Why also risk letting Tehran entering into a grand alliance to create an 'Islamic Army,' as Mohsen Rezaee is suggesting — possibly involving a nuclear Pakistan as well — when this decades old U.S. and Middle East nightmare can be swept aside into the ash heap of history right now?
Trump must enable Israel to complete its mission.
It is time for Trump to say, 'no deal' — to put Khamenei and his regime down for the count. Trump can achieve that by providing Jerusalem with the munitions to destroy Fordow and to help Israel topple Khamenei's regime.
Doing so would transform the Middle East, putting wins on the board against Russia, and sending a strong message to China and our Asia-Pacific allies.
Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as an Army intelligence officer.
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