The liberation of Iran is underway. But just a week into this conflict, we are already hearing the voices of capitulation. The opponents expostulate as a reflexive response. They see the US-Israeli (now also Gulf nations) campaign against Iran as unwarranted and unjust. It’s not. It’s actually leadership that is seeing things as they are, not as they wish them to be. In that regard, over my career in the military and as a legislator, I learned a thing or two about leadership. There are three kinds.
The first type is on display with Democrats in Congress. Their florid rhetoric over this conflict is politically inspired. They have no vision of why it is very much in our national interest to crush Iranian nuclear proliferation, ballistic missile ambitions, and terrorism. They would have you believe that the US should have negotiated a nuclear agreement with Iran. Indeed, that is what they did under President Obama and attempted to renew under President Biden. An agreement—any agreement—with the former Terror Mullah of Iran was no different than a wolf discussing with a lamb what’s on the dinner menu. This type of leadership is the sort that former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted in Biden. “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” So too the Democrats in Congress fail to comprehend the resulting danger if we had done nothing. Their pining should be ignored, including their insistence on a war powers resolution. If they want one, then draft it and go on the record with where they are on this conflict.
The second type of leadership is similar to the one above. Except those sorts of leaders wait to see which way the wind is blowing on an issue and then race to the head of the parade to “lead” those they waited on to reveal the direction of march. These types should be avoided. They are doing most of the handwringing over Iran. Their questions are typical of people virtue signaling “deep concern.” They ask, “What are the objectives?” “What is the plan?” “What if (fill in the blank)?” If you spelled out the answers in two-foot billboard lettering, they would still be waiting for a political poll to know how they should lead. Their questions are not sincere, just manipulative. Besides, if you told them the “plan,” they would likely spill the beans to the press, thereby endangering our military service members executing the operation.
And then there’s the third type. Describing this sort 2400 years ago, Greek historian Thucydides wrote, “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.” This is the kind of leadership that sees clearly what must be done in Iran. We need bold leadership to accomplish what must be done, even if it appears at first to be unpopular. Thucydidean leadership necessitates revealing to the people that which cannot be avoided. It demands that leaders risk popularity in the pursuit of worthiness. These leaders don’t look for a parade to lead or search for a political issue to carp about to win favor. They meet the problem head-on and lead the people in righteous pursuit of it.
It is my firm conviction that America’s national command authorities are doing this. But they will be tested in the weeks to come. Some of the complaints will be quieted by action that is sure to succeed, steps that will defenestrate the Iranian threat we have endured for almost half a century. Chief among the complaints will be that America has engaged in nation-building and regime change. I very much doubt that will be the case in this operation.
However, I would point out a simple truth. There is only one thing worse than ignoring the lessons of the past. And that is to misapply them. Regime change and nation-building in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (2001-2021) were profoundly misguided and poorly executed. In both cases, we failed to understand the objective—destroy terrorists—and the limits of what can be done to bring a 7th-century culture into a 21st-century world. I do not believe we are doing that in Iran today. Rather, we are ridding the world of a ballistic nuclear missile threat while opening a door to the Iranians to sort themselves out in such a way that they can coexist with the rest of the world, absent maniacal terrorists at the head of their nation.
To that extent, regime change—the right kind—is needed. And that change must come from the Iranians themselves. We should encourage them to rebuild their own nation, but we cannot do it for them.
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