Iran's Eloi no more

The remarkable thing about the nature of Iran's war on the US is not Trump finally taking advantage of a perfect storm situation to remove one of the world's most destabilizing, threatening, and murderous elements. The remarkable thing is that no other President did, particularly after the collapse of the USSR.

The Iranian islamist regime was awash in American blood, and clear in its vocal thirst for more. The West has seemed content to play the Eloi to Iran's Morlock for nearly half a century. Cold war ties, new world order escapades, and Iran's possibly marginal total war capability undoubtedly dragged things out, but it seems like they've been allowed to punch well above their weight, terrorizing in their own region and beyond for too long.

I have to admit, I fully expected that we were about to witness another generation of Iranians die in a futile attempt to escape their tyranny, while we all just looked on hoping they would win, knowing they wouldn't. So many dead. Giving their leaders repeated offerings of ways to choose peace was a strictly western urge, and an insult to their victims. Their menu was always limited to fight now, or pretend now and fight later. They wrote the menu. Nothing we offered could change that. At least we didn't try the pallets of cash approach again.

Some things happen unilaterally, or they don't happen. Sometimes the time for that happening chooses itself. Hesitate, and it's gone for another fifty years. We must recognize the dangers of viewing everything from our biblically founded western perch and expecting reciprocation. We have a tendency to accept the suicide of the West as some kind of noble concession to history in an idealized misreading of our founders intent.

Observing the turmoil abroad, whether in the mullah's intention on our obliteration, the blooded self determination of the people of Iran, or the identity of the people of Britain, we confront our understanding of our role in existential crises. Embracing the asp to our bosom in the expectation that we will endear it to us is psychotic. We know it, but it was tried in all of these examples, and more. We are not generally prepared to deal with it as a people, and we don't seem to be learning from those who have. The ideal that results in surrender to evil, is not the ideal.