The conflict in Iran has, in a sense, united Americans across ideological divides. Liberals are rooting for the mullahs and are delighted that so far, they have been able to hang on. Not the original mullahs–they are mostly dead–but their successors. Conservatives are frustrated because we don’t understand why President Trump has allowed third-generation mullahs and the IRGC to stall for over a month, while ostensibly engaging in negotiations.
But the Democrats’ claim that our operation has been a failure is absurd. It has been a brilliant military success. Its objective was not to overthrow Iran’s regime, which, as everyone recognizes, can’t be done with air power alone. Rather, our objective was to degrade Iran’s military capacities to the point where it would not be a threat to us or to our allies for quite a few years to come.
Today, three witnesses from the administration, including CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper, testified before the House Armed Services Committee. This is the whole hearing; you can see how the Democrats cheer on the IRGC:
The New York Post sums up some of the testimony:
Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command, told the House Armed Services Committee that Operation Epic Fury, combined with the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure last year, set back Iran’s ability to wage war by more than four decades.
“Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis have been cut off from the decades-long flow of military supplies, thus mitigating and eliminating any chance of a future Oct. 7,” he said.
Cooper also estimated the US had wiped out roughly 85% of Iran’s ability to produce more ballistic missiles and drones.
The war so far has aimed to wipe out Iran’s “three pillars of intimidation and coercion: their nuclear program, their ballistic missiles and drones, and their proxies — especially Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis,” all three of which have been addressed in different ways.
While nuclear is currently being handled through negotiations, Cooper said the military since Feb. 28 has “significantly degraded Iran’s ballistic missiles and drones, while destroying 90% of their defense industrial base, ensuring that Iran cannot reconstitute for years.”
“Iran spent decades and billions of dollars arming proxies. Today, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are cut off from Iran’s weapons supply and support,” he said. “Said a different way, America, American military action derailed Iran’s strategy that was 47 years in the making.”
Iran has been by far the main source of violence in turmoil in the Middle East for nearly 50 years. Its ability to oppress its neighbors and attack Americans in the region has been devastated, and its effort to obtain a nuclear weapon has been set back by many years. We are living in a bizarre world in which the prospect of peace in the Middle East is being treated by one of our major parties as a trivial matter, as is the prospect of our most bitter enemy, located in a strategically vital region, obtaining nuclear weapons.
As for the Strait of Hormuz, with which the Democratic members of the committee were gleefully obsessed, its temporary obstruction by Iran’s regime is a relatively minor matter. The world has plenty of oil, and a temporary disruption of a single transportation route is of no enduring significance. The Saudis and Israelis are currently planning a pipeline across Saudi Arabia to Israel and the Mediterranean which will render the Strait more or less completely irrelevant.
In this whole picture, the most dispiriting element is the spectacle of one of our major parties enthusiastically cheering on America’s most vicious enemy.
