At the risk of upsetting whatever fickle deities of fortune may govern current events, as of Monday afternoon we can take some relief from the fact that the response of the Iranian regime to this weekend’s large-scale air attack on its nuclear weapons sites by B-2 bombers dropping Massive Ordinance Penetrator bunker-buster bombs and submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles has been… not much.
On Monday, the Iranians fired a dozen or so missiles in the direction of Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which made for an interesting light show in the skies over Doha…
???? HAPPENING NOW: Air defenses seen activated over Doha, Qatar, after Iran fired a barrage of missiles at it, likely targeting the al-Udeid base used by U.S. forces pic.twitter.com/exG9nVGR1d
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 23, 2025
…but otherwise generated no real result thanks to the efficiency of Patriot missile batteries deployed near the base.
There is word that the Iranians let U.S. military contacts know the missiles were coming so as to avoid casualties, which would make the “retaliation” a purely pro-forma event intended for internal face-saving.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) June 23, 2025
That’s a dubious proposition to be sure, as Israeli jets were shortly filling the skies over Iran, endeavoring to wipe out the launch sites, as well as bombing Iranian security and military installations, leading to an obvious question…
Somebody has to explain to me how shooting a half-dozen missiles at a US air base, all of which get intercepted before the Israelis roll in and waste the missile launch sites, is “saving face.”
— Scott McKay (@TheHayride) June 23, 2025
The ordinary understanding of the Iranian regime would mitigate toward suspicion that those missiles lobbed at Qatar are only a taste of what the regime has cooking for America in revenge for the effective loss of its nuclear program — allegations that fissile material was already removed from Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan in advance of the strikes notwithstanding.
Except that in President Trump’s first term, a U.S. airstrike took out Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian general responsible for decades of terrorist acts committed against the American people and interests around the globe, and the response to that attack in 2020 was much the same as what we saw on Monday.
Has Iran been defanged?
It wouldn’t be prudent to assume so. As a previous column in this space noted, the regime running Iran is an enemy of the United States and has been for half a century. (RELATED: Basic Thoughts on Iran)
Iran has been at war with the United States of America since 1979.
This is incontestable.
Our response to their generational campaign against our interests, assets and people has always been timid and, frankly, shameful.
Anyone who has a problem with us bombing nuclear…
— Scott McKay (@TheHayride) June 22, 2025
We can breathe somewhat easier in noting that the sites at which Iranian uranium enrichment was taking place are now in ruins. But it goes without saying that so long as there are Iranians here who made their way across our nonexistent borders during the Obama and Biden administrations, and we know that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of those, the threat of a mass-casualty terrorist attack by an Iranian sleeper cell cannot be dismissed.
And such an attack could come at any time. Even despite this…
The only sure resolution to this problem (because let’s face it, so long as the mullahs run Iran, they’re going to find ways to make enough trouble that the Mahdi comes) is a new regime in charge in Tehran. Trump hinted as much with a Truth Social post decrying the political incorrectness of talking about that eventuality…
It’s not politically correct to use the term, “Regime Change,” but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!
— Trump Posts on ???? (@trump_repost) June 22, 2025
That sent a chunk of his supporters into hysterics. Even the wise John Daniel Davidson, writing at The Federalist, was peeved at the suggestion of a new Iranian government…
This is precisely the wrong view to take on Iran. The American interest in Iran is straightforward and strictly limited: that it should not be hostile to the United States. It can remain a repressive autocracy ruled by Islamic radicals — so long as they represent no threat to America. Whether the current Iranian regime is able to “make Iran great again” (whatever that means) is of no consequence to Americans. We don’t care whether Iran is great, middling, or riven by internal strife. All that matters for us is that Iran is not a threat. Here’s hoping President Trump has people close to him right now emphasizing that point.
But it turns out that Trump’s suggestion of “regime change” was not a harbinger of further American incursions into Iran but rather intended as a psy-op aimed at rattling the cages of the intransigent elements within Iran’s government.
???? JUST IN: Karoline Leavitt indicates President Trump is NOT interested in US-led regime change in Iran.
“The president believes the Iranian people can control their own destiny.”
“If the Iranian regime refuses to come to a peaceful diplomatic solution…why shouldn’t the… pic.twitter.com/fwNardahkV
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 23, 2025
Therein lies the crux of where we are.
It is not our place to create regime change in Iran. Iraq and Afghanistan proved that invading and occupying those countries did not produce an acceptable result, and Ukraine and the Arab Spring victims proved that “Green Revolutions” are terrible plans for producing something legitimate or functional at a productive level. (RELATED: Let’s Hope Trump’s ‘Spectacular Military Success’ Is Not Bush’s ‘Mission Accomplished’)
But such concerns, valid as they are, constitute something very different than Trump taking a stab at speaking a popular uprising into being among an Iranian people more than 80 percent of whom loathe their government.
There are estimates that mosque attendance on Fridays in Iran ranges from 1.5 percent to 12 percent, which would make a country run by apocalyptic Twelver Shiite theocrats the least religious country in the Muslim world.
With the Israelis daily exploding the human and capital infrastructure of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the hated Basij, and other parts of that nation’s internal security apparatus, there has never been a more advantageous time for the people of Iran to change that regime.
The regime is teetering. This is obvious.
BREAKING ????????
Report: Khamenei is currently unreachable. Top Iranian officials including former President Hassan Rouhani, MP Ali Larijani, and former Justice Minister Sadeq Larijani are seeking his approval to begin direct talks with the United States but have failed to make… pic.twitter.com/L9iRhVd1R2
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) June 23, 2025
The Iranians have got to do it themselves, though.
Davidson is correct that this is not our responsibility, and it cannot succeed if imposed from without. Iran is neither Germany nor Japan, and the conditions that created successful American-imposed regime changes in those countries do not exist in Iran.
But that responsibility does exist.
It exists within the Iranian people. At this point, it’s more than a responsibility; it’s a duty to their children.
For Trump to note this is not the same as the idiocy of, say, George W. Bush’s second inaugural speech.
Davidson is also correct that if the Iranian regime does not change, but it no longer threatens America, it no longer rises to the level of our concern over who’s in charge there.
It’s hard not to root for the Iranians, though. As it’s also hard not to root for the destruction of those thugs who have engaged in near-constant acts of war against us, our interests, and our allies.
The indications are that this weekend was not an Iraq but rather a Suleimani. Hopefully, that’s all it was, and that the events in Iran nevertheless produce something new and better there.
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