{"id":12777,"date":"2024-01-30T14:15:14","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T14:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=12777"},"modified":"2024-01-30T14:15:14","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T14:15:14","slug":"the-us-must-strike-iran-and-take-out-its-terrorist-commanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=12777","title":{"rendered":"The US must strike Iran, and take out its terrorist commanders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“After more than 170 attempts since October, the proxies of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have succeeded in killing three US soldiers and injuring 25<\/a> in on the Jordan-Syria border. The US must respond now, and it must hold the IRGC directly accountable. Washington should conduct targeted strikes against senior IRGC commanders \u2013 a course of action that would send a clear message to the regime in Iran and make it think twice about escalating further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For decades, the mainstream view among so-called policy \u201cexperts\u201d in the Washington and Westminster bubble has been that targeted strikes against the IRGC increases the chance of all-out war with Tehran. This popular narrative that such action will lead to \u201cWorld War 3\u201d  has shaped the Biden administration\u2019s reluctance to respond to Tehran\u2019s consistent acts of aggression since October 7, including sponsored attacks on US forces. But is the fear of what the IRGC would do in such a scenario worse than the reality? Past experiences seem to suggest so.      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since at least 2008 different US and Israeli administrations have conducted high value targeted strikes against the IRGC and its key proxies. The list of those struck reads like a terrorist all-star roster: Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah\u2019s terror chief, killed in 2008; Hassan Shateri, the Quds Force general suspected of being behind Hezbollah\u2019s underground missile infrastructure, killed in 2013; Qasem Soleimani<\/a>, the second-most powerful man in Iran, killed in 2020; Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the IRGC\u2019s nuclear weapons scientist, killed in the same year; and, more recently, Sadegh Omidzadeh, head of the Quds Force intelligence unit in Syria, killed last week.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In each case, Khamenei\u2019s regime has vowed \u201charsh revenge\u201d; in practice, each strike has degraded his regime\u2019s ability to inflict violence on America and its allies. Perhaps the best example was the regime\u2019s so-called \u201cOperation Martyr Soleimani\u201d. After the assassination of the IRGC commander \u2013 itself a response to a string of Iranian backed attacks on Western interests \u2013 Tehran launched a series of ballistic missiles at al-Asad Airbase and Erbil International Airport in Iraq. But as it pulled the trigger, it simultaneously announced that it had given advance warning to the Iraqi government, which in turn had passed this warning to American forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how Tehran responded to the killing of its most senior and valuable commander. Not the outbreak of World War 3, but a carefully choreographed display. And it was no exception to the general rule: whenever America and its allies have conducted high value targeted strikes against the Iranian regime, they have deterred further action rather than encouraged it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/us-must-strike-iran-terrorist-142731799.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“After more than 170 attempts since October, the proxies of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have succeeded in killing three US soldiers and injuring 25 in on the Jordan-Syria border. The US must respond now, and it must hold the IRGC directly accountable. Washington should conduct targeted strikes against senior IRGC commanders \u2013 a course of action that would send a clear message to the regime in Iran and make it think twice about escalating further.
\nFor decades, the mainstream view among so-called policy \u201cexperts\u201d in the Washington and Westminster bubble has been that targeted strikes against the IRGC increases the chance of all-out war with Tehran. This popular narrative that such action will lead to \u201cWorld War 3\u201d has shaped the Biden administration\u2019s reluctance to respond to Tehran\u2019s consistent acts of aggression since October 7, including sponsored attacks on US forces. But is the fear of what the IRGC would do in such a scenario worse than the reality? Past experiences seem to suggest so. <\/p>\n

Since at least 2008 different US and Israeli administrations have conducted high value targeted strikes against the IRGC and its key proxies. The list of those struck reads like a terrorist all-star roster: Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah\u2019s terror chief, killed in 2008; Hassan Shateri, the Quds Force general suspected of being behind Hezbollah\u2019s underground missile infrastructure, killed in 2013; Qasem Soleimani, the second-most powerful man in Iran, killed in 2020; Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the IRGC\u2019s nuclear weapons scientist, killed in the same year; and, more recently, Sadegh Omidzadeh, head of the Quds Force intelligence unit in Syria, killed last week. <\/p>\n

In each case, Khamenei\u2019s regime has vowed \u201charsh revenge\u201d; in practice, each strike has degraded his regime\u2019s ability to inflict violence on America and its allies. Perhaps the best example was the regime\u2019s so-called \u201cOperation Martyr Soleimani\u201d. After the assassination of the IRGC commander \u2013 itself a response to a string of Iranian backed attacks on Western interests \u2013 Tehran launched a series of ballistic missiles at al-Asad Airbase and Erbil International Airport in Iraq. But as it pulled the trigger, it simultaneously announced that it had given advance warning to the Iraqi government, which in turn had passed this warning to American forces.<\/p>\n

This is how Tehran responded to the killing of its most senior and valuable commander. Not the outbreak of World War 3, but a carefully choreographed display. And it was no exception to the general rule: whenever America and its allies have conducted high value targeted strikes against the Iranian regime, they have deterred further action rather than encouraged it.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/us-must-strike-iran-terrorist-142731799.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[552,53,553,272,355,1301,314,156,836,194,391,389,191,108,115,619,158,1151],"class_list":["post-12777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-conflict","tag-deaths","tag-drones","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-foreign-policy","tag-hamas","tag-international-relations","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-palestine","tag-strike","tag-terrorism","tag-terrorists","tag-united-states","tag-war","tag-yemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12778,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12777\/revisions\/12778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}