U.S. must inflict serious pain — not comfort — on terrorist state Iran

OPINION:

This week, President Biden’s coordinator for strategic communications, John Kirby, tied himself in knots trying to explain the inexplicable. He insisted that the $6 billion the U.S. provided Iran in exchange for American hostages had nothing to do with Iran’s connection with Hamas and its murderous assault on Israeli men, women, children, and infants.

Remarkably, the retired Navy rear admiral insisted that the $6 billion payout was firmly under U.S. control and did not support Hamas in the Gaza Strip or Iranian terrorists such as Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Mr. Kirby apparently doesn’t understand the fungibility of money. Somehow, he fails to grasp that Iranian authorities — who lie reflexively — will use the $6 billion to backfill other funds they will funnel to coldblooded murderers.

More shocking is Mr. Kirby’s gullible view that as long as the U.S. controls the dispersing of funds to Iran, that the U.S. is “holding Iran accountable.”

News flash, Mr. Kirby. The U.S. is not holding Iran accountable. We are giving this terrorist state an incentive through a fatuous arrangement. Indeed, the Iranian leadership is laughing at us.

That must stop. And it will stop when we undertake serious measures to hold them accountable.

With that in mind, how should the U.S. and Western allies hold Iran accountable? We must inflict serious pain — not comfort — on this terrorist state.

First, the U.S. should use the $6 billion to fund internal government opposition in Iran. It’s no secret that the Iranian mullahs preside over an unhappy population. The Green Revolution in 2009 that then-President Barack Obama failed to support was a significant challenge to the Iranian leadership.

That unrest continues among women and youth to this day as the mullahs and their stormtroopers — the Revolutionary Guards — continue their repression. Some will say that the U.S. should not be involved in regime change. That is true if a regime is self-contained within its own borders.

Iran, however, is a brutal, metastasizing dictatorship inspired by religious zealotry and hatred of Christian and Jews and other innocents. Its leaders could not care less for enlightenment principles of freedom, natural law and human rights. And that disposition notwithstanding, allowing Iran to develop and possess nuclear weapons is insane.

Second, the U.S. should form a coalition of like-minded nations to send Iran a clear message concerning the current war in Israel initiated by Iran-backed Hamas. Israel is more than capable of handling Hamas and will relentlessly pursue and crush it. U.S. support for Israel — despite the hateful soft-headedness displayed on our college campuses — is firm, at least for now.

But while Israel contends with its enemies at its front door in Gaza, it must not worry about who is available to confront the likes of Iran and its terror ally Hezbollah at Israel’s back door in southern Lebanon.

If Iran and Hezbollah enter this war from southern Lebanon, with thousands of rockets and missiles in their arsenal, Israel’s missile defense system could rapidly be overwhelmed. If that occurs, the U.S. and a Western coalition should undertake an air offensive in southern Lebanon and neighboring Syria to destroy Hezbollah and the Iranian forces supporting them.

And if Iran elects to attack U.S. forces directly, then the U.S. should immediately destroy strategic targets in Iran, including their nuclear sites and their oil production infrastructure. Iran’s leaders should not be spared kinetic treatment after the death and destruction they encouraged and paid for to murder Jewish citizens in Israel and many American citizens living there.

Finally, if Iran’s threats to enter the war between Israel and Hamas turn out to be bluster, we should still move for a complete embargo on Iran far beyond anything we have undertaken with current and past sanctions. We have the ability to crush their economy. And we should, including canceling or reprogramming the $6 billion the Biden administration stupidly agreed to pay to the mullahs for American hostages.

Unfortunately, the feckless Biden administration likely will do none of this. It lacks the will to seriously confront our enemies. Undoubtedly, Mr. Biden and his progressive advisers are eager to apologize for the pain caused Palestinians in Gaza, pain the latter brought on themselves though years of obeisance to Hamas.

Likewise, when the Iranian population feels the pain of real accountability measures — including military action if required — maybe they will awaken to remove their tormentors. You deserve what you preserve, especially when you sustain terrorist thugs in your government, be they Hamas or mullahs.

This war in Israel is a moment of moral clarity. It is a just war— jus ad bellum — and unlike the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, Israel fights justly, jus in bello. That is more than Iran and Hamas deserve.

But what is truly deserved is genuine accountability, not the faux version peddled by Mr. Kirby.

•  L. Scott Lingamfelter is a retired Army colonel and combat veteran (1973-2001) and former member of the Virginia House of Delegates (2002-2018). He is the author of “Desert Redleg: Artillery Warfare in the First Gulf War” (University Press of Kentucky, 2020) and “Yanks in Blue Berets: American U.N. Peacekeepers in the Middle East” (UPK, 2023).