Do Not Sleepwalk Into War With Iran

During these very dangerous times, we must be cautious to keep in mind the guiding principle of putting America First.

Last week, the Islamic Republic of Iran was the subject of a surprise attack by Israel. With Iran’s proxies in the region weakened or defeated, the current moment presents a once-in-a-century opportunity for Israel to challenge Iran now and reshape the region in a way that is favorable to their security.

Israel executed its strike utilizing its C3 (command, control, and communications) doctrine which involves caring out covert operations and precision strikes, aimed at decapitating the enemy’s ability to coordinate a defense and retaliation, prior to principal attacks. Israel has employed these tactics many times in the past, both successfully, as with the pager attacks against Hezbollah last year, and unsuccessfully, such as during the 2006 war with Lebanon. This strategy temporarily worked to disable some of Iran’s air defenses and cause chaos by killing two high-ranking IRGC military officers and several nuclear scientists.

During the chaos, Israel targeted and damaged Iranian air bases, missile and drone sites, and nuclear infrastructure. However, Iran scrambled many of its jets, getting them off the tarmac in time to avoid destruction.

After Iran regained control of the skies, it initiated a massive retaliation in the hours following Israel’s attacks. Over the weekend, Iran first deployed hundreds of older drones and missiles to clog Israeli defense systems in the region, and then targeted and caused massive damage to cities such as Tel Aviv and Haifa with newer, advanced ballistic missiles. Notably, Jerusalem was spared from these strikes, which is a significant relief for Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

During the continuous back-and-forth exchanges between Israel and Iran over the past few days, Iranian and Israeli societies have been plunged into a frenzy of chaos caused by the fog of war. Israeli citizens have been shocked by attacks, and the Ayatollah and his remaining generals have been moved to a secure location. Back home in America, the rhetoric and debate around the conflict and the United States' role in it have hit an all-time high temperature. These tensions are unlikely to cool any time soon, was the conflict appears to be more existential than ever. Iran is vowing to never back down, and Israel is expressing the goals of regime change and denuclearization in Iran.

If you have been watching the news and the discourse on platforms like X, you know that American society is hotly divided over both the questions of what America’s involvement in the conflict is and what it should be. Many prominent neoconservatives across American society and the D.C. foreign policy swamp are foaming at the mouth for a Third Gulf War, and they are pushing hard to make it happen. However, most average Americans, and a large majority of Trump supporters, oppose any war with or intervention against Iran.¹

Despite this, it seems with each passing hour, neoconservatives are dragging the country kicking and screaming into what they hope to make an inevitable intervention in the conflict.

These people are not America First or MAGA, nor never have been. For that matter, they are also not the ones who will be fighting in this war. It is the average American and Trump supporter who correctly judges U.S. involvement in this conflict to be a catastrophic proposition, but they will have to fight this war. For this reason, the same American people supported and elected Donald Trump based on a noninterventionist, America First foreign policy program. The aggressive pursuit of war with Iran is antithetical to the interests of the American people.

This, of course, is something that the President understands. In pursuit of fulfilling the mandate laid out to him during his election victory, President Trump has appointed patriots such as Elbridge Colby as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Steven Witkoff as Special Envoy to the Middle East to help him pursue diplomacy with Iran and the Gulf States. Colby, in his book Strategy of Denial argues and is a proponent for a restrained U.S. force posture that prioritizes defense of key assets in the Pacific and nonintervention in the Middle East. This is the vision of America First, and Colby’s adherence to it is the reason why the President has placed him in the key position that he occupies.

Now, even with the President’s crack team of diplomats and strategists, there were, of course, challenges to this policy. Despite these challenges, negotiations were ongoing, and both sides continued to participate in diplomacy prior to the strikes on Iran.

It appeared that supporters of President Trump in the administration, such as Colby, had triumphed over the objections of lingering, subversive neoconservitives by pursuing a policy of détente in the Middle East. However, the strikes on Iran have been seized upon by the Neo-Cons as an opportunity to flip the tables within the White House and drag us into a war with Iran.

The neoconservatives know, and it is true, that U.S. involvement in a Third Gulf War would be a tragically defining moment of sabotage to the President’s administration, legacy, and the trajectory of the United States during this century. They have been biding their time and plotting towards their revenge ever since President Trump came down the escalator and declared an end to their era of George Bush and the forever wars. These neoconservatives do not care about President Trump’s reputation or the wishes of the American people. In fact, they wish to subvert both in order to fix the “people’s mistake” of 2016 by installing a neoconservative stooge to remake America in their Neo-Liberal, Trotskyite vision; in so destroying the MAGA movement forever.

Things looked bleak, almost as if the Neo-Cons had won in subverting the President’s diplomatic program. As of Tuesday evening, the National Security Council reportedly met in several emergency sessions to discuss military action against Iran. However, as far as we know, no military action has taken place yet.

It now seems likely that patriots like Steven Witkoff and Elbridge Colby within the President’s inner circle succeeded in exposing the neoconservative plot to plunge the United States into another forever war where American blood and treasure would be sacrificed in yet another conflict that serves no interest of the United States.

The President’s prudent choice of advisors like Colby and Witkoff, along with the wisdom of his instinct to seek no disastrous war with Iran, must be applauded. One can only hope now that the President can effectively use our leverage with our partners in the region to restore peace so that negotiations may resume and bear fruit. We support the President’s mandate from the American people and his conviction to avoid entanglement in another disastrous foreign war, including one against Iran.

During these very dangerous times, when the stakes for our country are existential and our view of what is in our interest is becoming blurred, we must be cautious to keep in mind the guiding principle of putting America First.

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1. Responsible Statecraft https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-deal/