Notes to Consider…

I recently read a commentary about America’s three Persian/Arabian Gulf wars. The piece did a novel job of putting into perspective our involvements in and around Mesopotamia and Persia over the last nearly half-century. To recap: The United States ushered in the post-Cold War “New World Order” with our 1990-1991 splendid little war which reversed Saddam Hussein’s annexation of Kuwait. Often forgotten by Americans however was the dozen year post-Gulf War I involvement of US special operations forces in the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq and the air campaign over the north and south of that nation prior to Gulf War II. I found the most significant point of the article was the illustration as to how the Saddam Hussein regime was hollowed out between Gulf Wars I and II; a slow constriction which eventually led to Hussein’s spectacular collapse with our expedition of 2003.

Now for a bit of insider information; our current war with Iran (Gulf War III) is also on a much broader timeline than most Americans appreciate. We’ve dealt previously on this page with the shame of President Carter’s weakness during the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979-1980, but the most significant connection to our actions against Iran today traces to the direct involvement of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Forces in the Iraqi Insurgency (2004-2009). It’s not a stretch to designate President Trump’s 2020 assassination of IRGC Commander Soleimani on the Baghdad Airport Road as the real opening shot of this latest war.

How will Gulf War III end? As I type this, word of the most recent negotiations “breakthrough” is in the online headlines. Will this excursion end, as some have described, as a “haircut” (Iran’s military forces degraded for a few years, with the Islamic regime being further hollowed out à la Hussein’s Iraq from 1991-2003) so as to bring gasoline prices down prior to the November congressional midterm elections? (Let us now pause to recall, gas prices reached $4 per gallon in 2012 - equivalent to $5.80 today - during the Obama Administration in a maniacal effort to force you to buy an electric rollerskate of a car; not to end a rogue nuclear threat to this nation. Let’s keep perspective here.) Or is a still to come all-out onslaught from the air combined with clandestine operations on the ground going to once and for all end our decades-long cold war with Iran? There are big pieces still moving on the board (OPEC is crumbling) and, as always…Time will tell.

Next Week: Nation

Shane Morris is a retired soldier and teacher. Contact at sigm11@yahoo.com (Subject: NtC)