International security

Is the U.S. Prepping to Airstrike Iran?

This time it’s Iran, not Iraq, of course. But as 2018 closes, the U.S. is nearing the twenty-year anniversary of an oft-forgotten event in history: Bill Clinton’s airstrikes on Saddam Hussein’s regime in December 1998. The 42nd president explained the strikes , which killed over one thousand of Saddam’s Republican Guard, from the Oval Office: their mission was “to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs” but also “its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.” Their purpose was “to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.”  

As I’ve previously pointed out, the Trump administration officially maintains its policy is to seek change in the Iranian regime’s behavior, not necessarily change in the regime itself. But top hawks flying in the president’s orbit disagree. Ali Safavi of the National Council for Resistance of Iran (NCRI), associated with the MEK, has told me: “We welcome the call for the Iranian regime’s change of behavior at home and abroad as that would lead to its definite demise.”