End Game in Iran

What Is the Endgame of Intervention in Iran?

Imagine a world united against terrorism. The results would be transformative. Yet imagination may be all we have.

I am going to make a bold statement: It’s possible to abolish terrorism from the world. That claim is meant to provoke the usual skeptical response—and rightly so.

The truth is, there is no global will among free nations to unify and eradicate terrorism. If such resolve existed, it is likely that terrorism would already be nonexistent or vanishingly rare. Instead, Israel and the United States stand largely alone in confronting it.

Do we need World War III to finally unite allies and cure this plague infecting the world?

Because Iran has avoided overt, traditional acts of war, and because Israel and the United States initiated the current military actions, and because of weakness, NATO remains on the sidelines. Meanwhile, the United Nations and the European Union have proven either ineffective or counterproductive.

So, is terrorism simply an unavoidable fact of life? Must we resign ourselves to the grim hope that we can only manage it—never eliminate it?

Absent the pursuit of far more extensive actions, actions sufficient to create the logistical and political conditions for the Iranian people to reclaim their country under new leadership, the regime of terror will not only survive, it will regroup, rearm, and spread like never before.