A chorus of nattering nabobs of negativity is keening about Donald Trump pulling us into war. Supposedly, the weekend bombing of Iranian nuclear sites will start World War III. Or if that doesn’t happen, he must be impeached for doing the same “illegal” thing that Obama and Clinton did.
I have to ask, “In what universe are they living?” I can understand their complaint if they are firmly in the grip of Trump Derangement Syndrome. That psychosis tells them that everything that Donald Trump does is evil because he is the Devil personified. Thus, his every use of the instruments of war is an existential threat to the United States due to some (unspecified, choose this week’s version) looming apocalypse.
This is one of those cases where I find myself (again) wondering if those sparks from the left represent residual neural signals or the wind brushing electrical wires together inside a bombed-out building. Of course, many on the left are too young to remember President Peanut, who simply missed the warning signs of the Islamist assault on our Embassy in Tehran.
Iranians attacking the U.S. Embassy in 1979. Public domain.
When that attack materialized, he refused to allow our Marines to defend American property (Embassies are the sovereign property of the nation occupying them), leading to the Iran Hostage Crisis. Of course, he was of the same ilk as Hillary, who gave weapons to mullahs and then sent Ambassador Stevens to be (literally) a sacrificial lamb. Rinse and repeat with Obama and Biden’s gracious funding of Iranian terrorism. Since history classes in our schools are limited to the Pulitzer version of 1619, should we be surprised?
The Iran nuclear problem is simply one element of recent Islamist history. The whole story starts around 2,000 years before Christ, with the Hebrew patriarch Abraham. God promised him an heir (Genesis 12 & 15), but Sarah was sterile. So she told Abe (Genesis 16) to go party hearty with Hagar, Sarah’s maid. Hagar gave birth to Ishmael, and the usual family strife ensued. Hagar and Ishmael got kicked to the curb, and Ishmael ultimately became the father of the Arabs. Mohammed was one of those Arabs.
Historically, the Jews were a chronically oppressed people. They suffered through Philistine domination, the Babylonian Captivity, and the Roman government in Judea during the time of Christ. Even during the Dark Ages, they were reviled because they didn’t suffer from the Black Plague the way everyone else did. We now know it was their cleanliness laws from Torah that did the job, but back then, it was clearly “witchcraft!” They had to be eliminated.
When Mohammed rose to power in the late sixth and early seventh centuries, he was a brutal warlord. It’s likely that without a written legacy, he would have vanished into the dustbin of history. Instead, he solidified the putrid wreckage that surrounded him into a religious structure that empowers the worst impulses of men.
You want more women as sex slaves? No problem. You can have four, and if they tell you they aren’t interested, you can beat them. If Jews or Christians won’t convert, behead them. The world is supposed to be fully Muslim, so go ahead and kill all the infidels you can find. Take out your aggression on your enemies. It’s your duty. If you die in the process, then you get unimaginable sexual fulfillment in Paradise.
All this had its formal beginning in the seventh century. The Koran and its oral traditions in the Hadith unified small tribes into a force that kicked the Christians out of Judea and North Africa. Their pre-Enlightenment (but I repeat myself) high-water mark was the conquest of Spain by the Moors.
But even after Charles Martel defeated the Muslim invaders at the Battle of Tours in 732, they regarded every place they had once been as Islamic territory forever. This means that since there are Muslims throughout all of Europe and North America, in the Islamic mind, they are Muslim territory by divine right, as stated by the Koran.
In the simplest sense, Islam has been at war with the rest of the world since it was invented by Mohammed. One must ask how Donald Trump can draw us into war when we have been at war since before the United States existed.
Very early in our history, American shipping was being seized by the Barbary pirates, most of whom were Islamic. President Jefferson got from Congress “An Act for the Protection of the Commerce and Seamen of the United States, Against the Commerce and Seamen of the United States” (2 Stat. 129) in 1802. This Act authorized warlike action, but without a formal “Declaration of War.” This Act was tightly focused on a specific area and problem, so it ceased to be effective when that problem was resolved with the Treaty of Tripoli in 1805.
Militant Islam has never stopped its war against us. It has merely changed locations and tactics. Western societies are being infiltrated. And the impotence of Leftist politics creates opportunities for “no-go Zones,” “grooming gangs,” and explicit violence against civilization.
While governments stupidly prosecute people for promoting our founding values, militant Islam moves its war forward. Islamic jihad events such as the bombing of the Beirut barracks, the World Trade Center, and Khobar Towers are notable battles. 9/11 and October 7 are just the better-known ones.
The mullahs in Iran constantly chant “Death to America” and other slogans that indicate that “the Jewish entity” west of the Jordan must be obliterated. This version of the war formally began under President Goober and has not stopped, so it’s time to deep-six the fiction that we aren’t at war. We’ve been at war but simply failed to admit it.
After 9/11, Congress passed the Authorization for the Use of Military Force. Gregg Jarrett notes that “It granted the President exclusive and extraordinary powers to target those groups and nations that he determines ‘aided the terrorist attacks…or harbored’ the perpetrators of 9/11. The stated goal was to ‘prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States.’”
Unlike the 1802 Act that became moot once the Barbary Pirates had been defeated, the AUMF remains in force. We can debate the wisdom of that decision, but legally, President Trump is on solid ground. He even notified Congress before the bombs fell. That means that even the questionable requirements of the War Powers Act were satisfied.
Admittedly, Harvard Professor Jack Goldsmith, an expert on War Powers, isn’t so sure. But Iran clearly harbored the perpetrators of 9/11. They also support terrorism against the US, and were, before the bombing, close to having a way to mess us up pretty bad. So now they agree to a “cease fire” with Israel.
As of this writing, eleven Iranian nationals illegally in the US, including a Revolutionary Guard sniper, have been arrested. It’s quite clear that DHS Secretary Noem is vigorously going after those non-Orthodox-Catholic terror cells inside the US. It also seems likely that the mullahs will use the standard “agree to one thing, change gears to another, keep the Jihad going” approach.
While the subject is debated, Jihadi Muslims are often noted to lie to infidels and break agreements, supposedly based on the Q’Uran. (Surahs 3:28, 8:58, 9:3, 16:106, and various from the Hadith) They interpret Islamic texts to radically justify violence, contrasting with formal Muslim theology’s emphasis on peace, law, and context. Decades of militant jihad indicate that the mullahs in Iran will continue this approach. They regard it as submission to ultimate divine authority.
This writer is not in possession of the facts that will determine the ultimate outcome of this episode. But two things are clear. Militant Islamists are like cockroaches that can never be completely eliminated. Their pre-sentient beliefs can only be beaten back from our door. They will rise again and will have to be crushed again. This is the never-ending war.
Many modern Arabs have come to appreciate the benefits of modern commerce. Militant Islam is anathema to them, and that is why they’ve tolerated Israeli overflight to punish the neighborhood bully. And now that Iran has thrown missiles at Qatar, they are all seeing a bit more clearly the wisdom of putting down this rabid dog.
We are in a forever war. But it’s not a war of our own making. Misadventures by multiple recent administrations have made it worse, but it remains survivable. Our thousand-mile moat helps, but ultimately only the precision application of irresistible force can keep our 250-year experiment in freedom alive.
The consequences of poking the American bear have to be far greater than any perceived benefits.
Ted Noel is retired physician who posts on social media as Doctor Ted. His occasional Doctor Ted’s Prescription podcast is available on multiple podcast channels.