Since losing complete trust in my government after the Iraq War, I believed anything they said about the Middle East was just another lie to justify imperialism. Every time I heard something about Iran, I always asked, “What have they ever done to us?” But even when I learned about the Beirut bombings, I assumed they were just another false flag carried out by the Israeli Mossad.
When I kept being told that Iran was a threat to the United States, I thought it was just more propaganda. Every time they said that any moment they would get a nuke and use it against us, I’d roll my eyes. It also didn’t help that Bibi Netanyahu and friends have been warning about an Iranian bomb for the last thirty years, with their “predictions” always being wrong. The cartoon bomb at the UN podium in 2012 was laughable to me. Indeed, it became an internet meme.
But recently waking up from RGB psyops that had captured me for twenty years, I realize that Iran does actually pose a threat to us and our allies in the region, and I’m not just talking about Israel. To just dismiss everything negative about Iran as Zionist propaganda means you have been effectively psyoped into submission.
Although Iran doesn’t pose a direct threat to the American mainland, the fact is that Iran has been killing Americans for forty years. That being the case, one may wonder: if Iran really is a threat to us, our way of life, and our interests in the region, why haven’t we done much about it? Why haven’t we treated them like the existential threat we’ve been told they are? We have the best military on Earth; why not send in the SEALs or Delta? Why don’t we put boots on the ground if it matters that much?
The fact that we haven’t seems to me like nobody believes their own narratives.
Since the massive GOP losses in the recent midterms, many people point to starting another “forever war” with Iran as the reason. But I don’t think this is the case. Had the operation worked as quickly as Operation Absolute Resolve, which dealt with Maduro in one morning, no one would be complaining. The issue is how this war was not finished as quickly as it was promised and how it has negatively affected our economy.
Despite this, I’ve seen many accounts on X telling Trump that he needs to “finish the job!” But how does he, or anyone else for that matter, actually do that? A ground war with Iran would be nothing like our invasion of Iraq: they have a bigger population and very mountainous terrain, and their military is much stronger than what Saddam had; occupation would cost us many American lives.
Okay, but why not send in special forces?
Sending in special forces teams could sabotage equipment, grab material, and eliminate a specific target, but they couldn’t occupy the country, dismantle its nuclear program spread across dozens of sites, nor hold anything. If we were lucky enough to get them in after the logistics hurdles, getting them out would be a whole other story, especially if something went wrong; it’s a problem in a country that size with so many security forces.
The real answer to my questions comes down to physics, and this war has just shown it.
There’s a tunnel complex near Natanz that people call Pickaxe Mountain. The Institute for Science and International Security says that the halls of this lie at least 100 meters below ground. Our powerful conventional bunker buster, the GBU-57, can penetrate about 60 meters. Analysts at RUSI believe that repeated strikes on a single target would mostly collapse the entrances, which would give Iran more time rather than destroy the complex.
Despite these challenges, we went and did it anyway—twice.
The first was Operation Midnight Hammer in June of 2025, which put B-2s over Fordow and Natanz and Tomahawks into Isfahan. Not one American aircraft was hit: the operation was flawless.
The second is Operation Epic Fury, which is still going. Since February 28th, more than 1,450 Iranian weapons manufacturing sites have been struck. We’ve had a naval blockade on Iran since April. As of the Congressional Research Service revision on October 5th, 81 American aircraft have been lost or damaged. The Congressional Budget Office put the Pentagon’s bill at roughly $38 billion through the first of August.
So what do we actually know? Not much, actually.
Trump said the enrichment facilities were completely and totally obliterated. A leaked Defense Intelligence Agency assessment reportedly put the setback at a few months, whereas Hegseth said years, and the Pentagon settled on one to two. Iran has barred IAEA inspectors since the end of February, so no one can verify where its stockpile of more than 400 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium is located.
Can we really trust the Trump administration? I’m not so sure.
Regardless, we don’t know what’s inside Pickaxe Mountain, and CSIS points out that bombing it again every few months isn’t sustainable, since every round brings back the same uncertainty.
This is why it never gets finished, and it probably can’t get finished without a ground invasion.
So if we never invade to finish the job, what would happen if Iran got the bomb?
The first thing a nuclear weapon gives Iran is the one thing that matters to any government: preventing regime change by ground troops. When I previously believed that Iran posed no threat to America, I really didn’t care if they developed one, because I did not believe—and still do not believe—that the first thing they’d do is launch it at us or even at Israel. In fact, I even thought a nuclear-armed Iran would end the conflict between Israel and Iran, forcing them into a stalemate.
But I realized that a nuclear Iran isn’t more dangerous because it might use the weapon. It’s more dangerous because it would then be free to terrorize the region more aggressively. They could increase their use of proxies and turn Hormuz into a valve they can close whenever they want something, holding the global economy hostage.
To make matters worse, if Iran got a nuclear weapon, proliferation would happen all over the region. The Saudis, the Turks, and the Egyptians aren’t going to sit next to a nuclear Iran. And if Saudi Arabia got nuclear weapons, what would they need our protection for? Suddenly, all the power dynamics in the region change—and they don’t change in our favor.
Considering all the above, the Middle East is much safer without a nuclear Iran, and we would still be able to maintain our dominance in the region.
I don’t appreciate when politicians use the doomsday narrative of Iran nuking us because they call us the Great Satan and they hate our freedoms when the honest narrative is that we would lose control over the region, allowing Iran to strengthen its position and continue its campaign of terror.
If we can’t bomb Iran into submission, and we can’t invade, and if the weapon is really about regime survival, then the only thing that actually settles this is regime change. Sanctions, sabotage, cyber, isolation, and strikes when necessary. But none of that is a solution, either; it’s all pressure applied in the hope that something inside will give.
And we’ve already done this.
In August 1953 the CIA and MI6 toppled Iran’s elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, restoring the Shah to power. But the Shah was removed in 1979 by the Islamic revolution, and the fanatics who took his place made hostility to the United States part of the country’s foundation. Then they built a multi-layered, coup-proof government to ensure something like that could never happen to them again.
It also answers the other question, the one people ask when they see video of security forces firing on Iranian citizens. Why doesn’t the military refuse? Because the shooting isn’t done by the military; it’s done by the Basij, who are chosen on ideology first and who supply more than seventy percent of the Guard’s draftees, closer to all of them in the big cities.
So why not just leave?
Why not just pull our navy out, lift the sanctions, close our bases, bring our troops home, and let the region sort itself out? I used to argue this myself. In a perfect world, this would be the way, but we don’t live in that world.
If we do what all the anti-war activists want and give Iran an inch, leaving the region removes our influence over it; sanctions relief will flow right back into terrorist proxies; and the IRGC will take advantage of the tolls in Hormuz, letting a fifth of the world’s oil run on their terms.
And here’s what my old following never thinks through: if we leave, Israel doesn’t stand down. Israel acts alone, with nobody restraining it, and it goes looking for whoever will deal with it. This is why I believe so much of the RGB psyops are aimed at anti-Zionism and antisemitism: Russia, China, and Iran want us out of the region, and American neo-Nazis are useful idiots helping them argue for it—I know because I did precisely that for fourteen years.
So what are we supposed to do about Iran? If we’re not willing to go all in, then we can’t really do much other than to keep applying pressure and hoping the change comes from the Iranian people themselves. Putting American boots on the ground is unjustifiable unless Iran posed a direct threat to the American people and their homeland, which it currently doesn’t.
I don’t know if that works, and I’d rather admit it than pretend otherwise. But I know we can’t bomb a nuclear program out of a granite mountain, and we can’t install a government in Tehran and expect it to hold, because we tried that already and we’re still paying for it.
Regardless, we can’t just sit back and do nothing. The moment we give Iran an inch, they will take a mile. I have been anti-war for most of my life because I was duped into believing we had no business in the region. But I now see the anti-American psyops trying to convince us that our containment policy will somehow lead to a ground war that will set off WWIII for Israel and the Jews, when that’s simply not true.
I’ve always said that if our government wanted to invade Iran and start WWIII for Israel, it had plenty of excuses to do so in the last forty years. In fact, our government has lied to start wars, so why not lie and just invade Iran? Because it knows exactly what I’ve written here: the cost is simply too high, and regime change has to come from within.
In summary, Iran must never get the bomb. Our containment policy is not a “forever war” as people are claiming. It’s what we must do to maintain our superpower status, protect our assets and allies in the region, and ensure the global energy markets are not at the mercy of a terrorist regime.
Other than Iraq's WMD's, what wars has our government recently lied us into?
Lucas, ditching Protocols logic has turned you into a superb analyst! When you can't yell "the Joos!!" at everything, the world becomes a much more difficult place to understand and create policies to deal with it.