OPINION:
Twice — first in August and then in early November — the Justice Department announced charges against an Iranian agent alleging Iranian plots to kill Donald Trump. The November charges were brought by a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Iranians, of course, denied they trying to kill him.
That announcement didn’t set the stage for the next step in the president-elect’s campaign against Iran, but it is an important part of the context.
The rest of the context includes facts such as that Mr. Trump was and will be a strong ally of Israel. For that reason, Iran considered him an enemy even before he ordered the 2020 killing of Iran’s chief terrorist, Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
The context includes that Mr. Trump was responsible for bringing the Iranian economy to its knees with his “maximum pressure” economic sanctions campaign. It also includes that Mr. Trump in 2018 revoked the deal that his predecessor, President Barack Obama, had made with Iran that — though Mr. Obama’s media cohort won’t admit it — guaranteed Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.
Mr. Trump’s reelection is terribly important to Iran because it means an end to the appeasement it has enjoyed for almost four years from the Biden administration. It may mean that Iran will accelerate its uranium enrichment and soon be able to deploy nuclear weapons.
The International Atomic Energy Agency — the U.N.’s purblind nuclear watchdog — isn’t allowed to inspect key Iranian nuclear development sites. Some are believed to be buried so deeply that Israeli bombs — even the deepest penetrating bombs we can provide them — can’t destroy those sites.
In 1996, retired Air Force Gen. Charles Horner, who had helped plan and conduct the 1991 Gulf War, published an article on the lessons of that war. In it, he quoted India’s former army chief of staff on the biggest lesson. The quote said, “The lesson of Desert Storm is, ‘Don’t fight with the United States without a nuclear weapon.’”
Iran has learned that lesson all too well.
Iran has the ability to deploy nuclear weapons soon, and when they do, they will change the strategic equation for the entire world.
Soon after Mr. Trump has been inaugurated, he will almost certainly renew the “maximum pressure” economic sanctions on Iran. Iranian leader Ali Khamenei is already very unpopular at home because of his perceived weakness against Israel. Mr. Trump’s renewed sanctions will increase the regime’s unpopularity.
One of Mr. Trump’s best and least credited actions was the creation of the Abraham Accords through which several Arab nations recognized and made peace with Israel. The biggest prize for the Abraham Accords would be for the Saudis to join them. But on Nov. 11, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, sided with Iran.
Mr. Salman warned Israel against striking Iran and accused Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. The Saudis have been greatly fearful of Iran, but Mr. Salman played into Iran’s hand in a typically Saudi-calculated manner. That means that unless Mr. Trump can change the Saudi prince’s mind, the Abraham Accords will not be extended to Saudi membership for years.
Mr. Trump has nominated former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to be CIA director and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence. That can work well if Ms. Gabbard, who has no intelligence experience, understands that she shouldn’t make any major decisions without first checking with Mr. Ratcliffe.
Mr. Trump can, and as my last column said, direct the CIA to help overthrow the terrorist Iranian regime. Thanks to my friends at the Middle East Media Research Institute, we see how that can be done.
The Farsi are about half Iran’s population, but other ethnic groups — the Balochis, Kurds, Ahawzis and Azeris — make up the other half. It is on them that we should focus.
As Yigal Carmon, founder of MEMRI, said in a video, the leaders of two of the major ethnic groups in Iran, Aref al Kaabi of the Ahwazis and Hyrbyair Marri of the Balochis, have published their pleas for independence and denounced the ayatollahs via MEMRI in separate videos.
Combined with the other two major ethnic groups — the Kurds and the Azeris — and given weapons, intelligence and funding, they could topple the Tehran regime. Yet as Mr. Carmon said in the video, the West is doing nothing to help them.
What Mr. Trump needs to do is to sign a top-secret presidential decision directive requiring that the CIA give the Balochis, the Ahwazis, the Kurds and the Azeris the help they need to overthrow the Iranian regime. Mr. Trump could thus propel a revolution against the regime and should do so quickly.
As Mr. Carmon said, the Iranian regime is a threat not just to Israel but to the entire West. Mr. Trump understands this. It’s up to him to give the oppressed Iranian people the help they need.
• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and contributing editor for The American Spectator.
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