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Forty years ago, there was a mini-series on ABC called The Winds of War. It was the dramatization of events leading up to our involvement in World War II. People tend to forget that World War II had been raging for a couple of years before the United States entered the war. Even though we were supposedly neutral, the mini-series showed how we were definitely on the side of the Allies, assisting them with goods and raw materials as much as we could. We didn’t enter the war until we were attacked by the Japanese on December 7th, 1941. Today, I fear we are now seeing the “Winds of War” happening again. The Middle East is a powder keg just waiting to blow, and I am afraid that you will see us involved in War again.

Israel has attacked Iran while it is still fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. This has led to concerns about a wider regional conflict. Hamas is partially funded by Iran and Qatar. Hezbollah is also partially funded by Iran. There have been tensions between Israel and Iran for years. In 2017, the Israeli Air Force began almost daily missions against Iranian targets in Syria. I have read that in 2018 they dropped 2000 bombs on Iranian targets in Syria.  Very rarely has Israel bombed targets inside Iran. This time, they are targeting Iran’s nuclear development sites. What does Israel fear? I think Israel fears that it may not be the only country in the Middle East with a nuclear arsenal.

Iran began their nuclear program back in the 1950s with the support of the United States under the “Atoms for Peace” program. Iran has also been a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since 1970, so legally it is bound not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons. In 2003, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a decree against the development of nuclear weapons. During the Obama Administration, Iran entered into an agreement with the United States and a few other countries about their nuclear program and how to monitor it. Trump withdrew the United States from the treaty because he said it was a bad treaty and he would negotiate a better one. Trump didn’t negotiate anything, allowing Iran to run its nuclear program unsupervised. In 2024, CIA Director William Burns was asked about Iran's nuclear program. He stated, “We do not see evidence today that the Supreme Leader has reversed the decision that he took at the end of 2003 to suspend the weaponization program”. He went on to say that Iran was in a much closer position to create a single bomb's worth of weapons-grade material, with a breakout time of “a week or a little more”. Trump's own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard testified before Congress that Iran was not building nuclear weapons and had not reversed the Supreme Leader's position.

Nuclear weapons in the Middle East have been a topic for quite some time. In 1981, the Israelis led strikes against the Iraqi nuclear infrastructure, and in 2007, they did the same with the Syrian nuclear infrastructure. Saudi Arabia has stated that if Iran develops a nuclear weapon, it will follow suit. They have insinuated that they could very quickly build a nuclear bomb from their nuclear program, which they have developed with the help of the Chinese. It has been written that more Middle Eastern countries would follow suit. The world does not need an arms race in the Middle East. Israel does not discuss its own nuclear program, but it is believed that they have up to 80 warheads that could be launched from missiles, aircraft, or submarines.

After 9/11, George W. Bush wanted to go to war with Iraq, so, using faulty intelligence, he invaded Iraq, insisting that they were manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. Over one hundred thousand people died, with some estimates being much higher, all because of the President of the United States using faulty intelligence. Because of that, we have destabilized the Middle East more than it was before; our actions made it worse. Donald Trump is now weighing the idea of going to war with Iran because he believes that they are developing weapons of mass destruction. Trump was reminded that his own Director of Intelligence testified that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons, he stated, “I don’t care what she said, I think they were very close to having one”. Where is Trump getting his intelligence from if not from his own Director? Why do we have an Intelligence Department if the president is not willing to listen to them?  If I were a betting man, I would be willing to bet that a lot of his information is coming from Israel, which would love to have us join them in a war against Iran.

Is this going to be a situation where hundreds of thousands of people will die because of faulty intelligence? Is someone pulling Trump's strings like a puppet? If we had gone to war with Iran after they stormed the American Embassy, that would have been proper in my mind. Today, Iran has not done a thing to the United States. Its nuclear program doesn’t look much different from Saudi Arabia's program, and Trump is not threatening to go to war with the Saudis. Most of the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia, and none were from Iran. When we invaded Iraq, I was one of the few who were against it from the very beginning. I stated we will wind up being there for 10 years. I was wrong because it has been over 20 years, and we are still there. If we go to war against Iran, I feel that it will just be a case of history repeating itself.

 

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