

BY DOC SPEARS
You cannot have a rational conversation with an irrational person. No amount of reasoning or parlay will ever make an emotionally disturbed person intent on doing you harm realize they should abandon their ill intent toward you. It’s a basic truth you need to absorb if you have any desire to protect those precious to you. This rule of mine is just as valid an aphorism when dealing with cultures with values diametrically opposed to ours.
One of the greatest lies ever perpetrated by modern education is the doctrine of cultural relativism. The idea that all people are essentially the same; that all cultures are equally valid, and that you’ll treat me the way you wish to be treated.
(Both of these are in Kel’s Rules from my Dark Operator series, btw. Science fiction imitates life, or vice versa.)
If by this dogmatic belief regarding the core of all cultures, you mean all human beings prefer not to be starved, tortured, and murdered, then I agree. If by that belief you mean we all wish to live in peace with each other, and be governed in a way that protects our liberties, then I do not. And any amount of honest observation about our world would prove you gravely mistaken.
So when it comes to a discussion regarding 46 years of failed U.S. foreign policy and the Islamic Republic of Iran, my adages regarding rationality and cultures apply as equally to the Iranian theocracy as it does to the Panicans screeching about forever wars in the Mideast.
I hold the same severe concerns as many of my fellow vets—because they’re absolutely correct. Our country has an abysmal track record of foreign military intervention. The waste of blood, treasure, and trust in my lifetime has been immense. America’s fighting men and women have repeatedly delivered the most decisive military victories in recorded history—performed one after another with honor and deadly competence—all of which have been inevitably followed by the destruction of those efforts by the most perverse political machinations imaginable. Worst of all, the ones perpetrating these perversions are never the ones who pay the price for our adventurism.
But what I ask for at this time is discernment. There are significant, objective, and concrete differences between our current situation with Iran and any geopolitical kerfuffle we’ve been in since 1941.
#1. We have never been at war with Iran. But, Iran has been at war with the U.S. and the West since 1979.
To anyone except the ideologically twisted who hate the West, this is an undeniable fact. Beginning with the Iranian Revolution and the Iran Hostage Crises, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, and virtually every terror incident all the way up to the barbaric October 7 attack on Israel, Iran’s fingerprints have been on the financing, support, and direction of all those organizations; Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and many others.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is the enemy of the West, because they have declared themselves so. And they’ve always proven true to their word. Their goal is your submission, or your death. If you don’t know that, you have a mind virus, and there’s no rational conversation to be had.
#2. Despite the crippling of their military, air defenses, and nuclear programs, there will be no surrender of rule by the supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It is an ideologic impossibility. The official state religion of Iran’s theocracy holds to an eschatology of an end time where justice is brought by a global Islamic government, ending with the return of the Twelfth Imam before the day of judgement.
Pusillanimous explanations that Iranians don’t actually mean it when they scream, “Death to America,” it would be laughable were it not so disgusting a display of mental aberrancy. It’s evidence of the suicidal empathy of those who revel in dreams of seeing your head chopped off in the pubic square (as is done regularly to Iranian citizens by their own government), believing they’ll be exempted from such because they share with the mullahs a hatred of all the West represents.
But despite the long overdue destruction of Iran’s nuclear capability, this is not the end of the oppressive Iranian regime, nor their missile attacks on Israel, nor their exporting of terror. This only ends with regime change, which is how I’m telling you it’s going to end. How it’s accomplished is the question.
#3 The Iranian regime has never been more unpopular at home.
During the last popular uprising in Iran, Obama had a chance to support the dissidents in destabilizing the regime but instead, he did nothing. Nothing, other than send them a couple of billion in cash of our tax dollars in order to fund their nuke program and the exporting of more terror—like the explosives used against our troops in Iraq.
The insidious and wonderful access by the oppressed citizenry to information going into Iran, and intelligence collected coming out of Iran from everyday Iranians indicate there’s never been higher sentiment for popular change from within.
#4 The most important difference defending my view that this won’t be a forever war is this: for the first time in my lifetime, we have a Commander in Chief who believes in America First.
I don’t care if you dislike or even hate our Commander in Chief. For those who have only a binary understanding of how the U. S. projects power and maintains our security—i.e., there’s only invasion-type-war, or no-war—they’re poorly equipped to appreciate what’s about to transpire. Our president is fully committed to not engaging in a U.S. land war in Iran, and has consistently eliminated the neocons from his circle who would advocate for such a thing.
What’s coming is NOT going to involve a ground invasion.
#5 There’s the only way this ends; regime change.
Israel and the U.S. already have this as a primary goal, I guarantee. There are two likely scenarios how this will occur, and neither involves a boots-on-the-ground invasion of Iran, à la the Iraq War. Both involve an air campaign to force an internal coup against the Ayatollah and his regime, and the only difference in my two scenarios will be the extent of destruction to Iran before the end comes.
This coup will be carried out by some senior leader well positioned within the Iranian military. That individual(s) is already in contact with clandestine support from Israel, the U.S, and the exiled Crown Prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi.
The easiest scenario (and preferrable one); the air campaign has already been successful enough to inspire this coup, and that it could happen at any time. If so, what could and should occur will be the return of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi to lead the formation of a new government. This is the hope of a lot of Persian-Americans. I firmly believe our CIA and State Department are at work, preparing the external and internal environments for that to happen (which for once, is actually a proper part of their job description, as opposed to promoting wokeism around the world through USAID).
The second scenario; if the coup doesn’t happen in a relatively timely manner (the president’s disinformation about “two weeks to decide” became two days before action, so consider that), bombings will escalate to further degrade the Iranian military. If necessary, Iran’s petroleum industry will be decimated by air. This would be a terrible blow to a rapid economic recovery of a post-theocratic Iran, but it may be unavoidable if that coup doesn’t occur.
As of this writing, there are unconfirmed rumors Iran is making noises about closing the Strait of Hormuz. Good luck with that. If you’re not familiar, Operation Praying Mantis is worthwhile for a YouTube search. When Iran tried mining the Strait in 1988, we conducted the largest naval engagement since WWII—and sank half of all the Iranian navy, a couple of oil platforms, some of their F-4 jets, and brought the Ayatollah’s plans to an end in a single work day. It was impressive because the U.S. was still in the grips of the post-Vietnam mentality, and there were plenty of proto-Panicans shrieking about a forever war—as many Rs as Ds—but they were quickly forgotten after the obvious success of the operation.
(Pay no mind to the Panicans yowling about your gas prices if the Iranians try to close the Strait. It’ll hurt China way more than us, so there’s that. But compared to 1988, we currently have many times the number of naval assets in the region, ready to prevent a shut-down of the Strait. And they’re just itching for a chance to scuttle the Iranian Navy, I know.)
But what about the Homeland? Here’s the latest argument by the Panicans: “Trump’s attack on Iran is going to activate all the sleeper cells—you know, the ones the last administration absolutely did not let across our border! And it’ll be our fault for making these perfectly peaceful Iranian’s mad!”
Yawn. Ignore them on this, too. The same Panicans cranking the fear siren about a Chuck Norris Invasion U.S.A. somehow were totally cool with Iran previously trying to possess nukes to use on us, because of the cultural equivalency thing; a nuclear Iran is no more dangerous than a nuclear Israel is to the world. Intent, history, and actions play no part in their worldview. Remember, you can’t have a rational conversation with an irrational person.
And if Iranian subversive terror cells do activate, they’ll have to fight for the privilege to blow up our infrastructure with the thousands of other military age foreign nationals also let into our country to do us harm. It’ll result in the “weapons free” order for us to wrap them all up, once and for all.
The fact is, the world today is safer without Iran having a nuclear program. And regime change in Iran is inevitable. But it’s not going to happen by a U.S. invasion.
Find something else to be a Panican about.
As always, your words are strong. If you choose, WHY are so many of us suffering this mind virus? Why might not be a correct question, perhaps, How, is more pertinent. How can so many thinking, otherwise, rational, beings be held in thrall by thoughts so obviously not anchored in reality?
I read all of this in your voice, brother. We’re on the same page with most of this analysis.