This whole argument around whether or not Iran is an “imminent threat” is pretty dumb and entirely disengenous.
The question isn’t whether or not the threat from Iran is imminent. Everyone knows Iran has been an imminent threat for 47 years. If you declare war on America (as Iran has) and then kill hundreds of Americans, including civilians (as Iran has), how are you not an imminent threat?
Rather, the question should be what it is that you consider a threat.
Wasn’t the threat from Iran imminent in November of 1979 when the Islamic Republic stormed the sovereign soil of our embassy and held 42 of our hostages for 444 days?
Wasn’t Iran an imminent threat in April of 1983 when, unprovoked, its proxies killed 63 people, including 17 Americans, at the U.S. embassy in Beirut with a car bomb?
Wasn’t Iran an imminent threat when Iran-directed its proxies in Hezbollah to construct and detonate a truck bomb outside a U.S. Marine barracks that killed 241 U.S. servicemembers?
I could go on and on… 19 Americans dead in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, numerous rocket attacks on our bases in Iraq… Countless murders of Americans at the hands of Iran-backed terrorist groups… Plots to murder our presidents.
Unless you believe the apocalyptic clerics who run Iran have seen the light and entered community college to learn a new trade, the threat from Iran is and always has been imminent.
Iran is a constant threat to Americans. What, then, is the difference between constant and imminent?
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With its violent mischief in the Middle East, Iran is a constant threat to a way of life that depends on affordable energy.
So, I guess the real debate is not over the word “imminent,” but over the word “threat.”
How many Americans have to die or must be under threat of dying (or being kidnapped) before you consider it a “threat?”
Obviously, hundreds aren’t enough for CNN.
And yet, there is no question that Iran is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. No one disputes that, not even Tucker Carlson. And if Iran is successful, for the first time in human history, apocalyptic zealots who see it as their duty to Allah to murder or enslave non-Muslims, will hold the power to destroy entire countries; will hold the power to blackmail the world; will hold the power to stop us from stopping them from creating enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world.
And yet, there is no question Iran has already obtained the knowledge and infrastructure to build and launch ballistic missiles that could carry nukes thousands of miles.
And yet, there is no question Iran is at war with America. It says so every day. Their “Death to America” is like our “I Love New York.”
If Iran is two weeks away from obtaining a nuclear bomb, is that imminent? What if it’s two weeks and one day away? What if it’s three weeks, three months, or three years…?
What’s the difference? What does it matter? The sooner we stop Iran — and we must eventually stop them — the easier it is to stop them because that’s less time for them to build more defensive and offensive missiles and drones; less time to burrow into the mountains; less time to spread more terror and kill more Americans.
Here we sit 47 years later. They’ve killed us, bombed us, targeted us, declared war on us, are actively pursuing the means to destroy us (and the world), and every alternative to war has been tried and failed.
Are we supposed to continue with what we know doesn’t work to avoid paying 50 more cents per gallon of gas for a few months?
Decades of sanctions haven’t stopped Iran.
Pallets of cash didn’t work.
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Everyone knows that we have only two choices: 1) live with a nuclear Iran or 2) go to war with Iran to stop them from getting a nuke.
There’s no third option.
Honestly, there’s no option number one, because there is no “living” with a nuclear Iran.
Iran is not a China or a Russia or a North Korea.
Those countries are run by gangsters.
Gangsters want to live.
Iran is run by Jim Jones.