6-13-25

War drums are pounding again….I’ve been on the air now for four years…..and in

that four years I have commented multiple times on armed conflict around the

world…..Just since Rightside Radio went live in the Summer of 2021 I have

provided commentary on the debacle pullout from Afghanistan…..the onset and

continuation of the war in Ukraine…..the conflicts in Syria…..the October 7 th

massacres in Israel, followed by the wars against Hamas and Hezbollah……the US

bombing the Houthi rebels…..the Iranians launching major missile strikes against

Israel…..and in the last 24 hours the conflict with Iran took on a new and

devastating escalation as Israel began a bombing campaign to destroy the nuclear

capabilities of Iran……

And yes, this is a huge hairy deal….this is not some far away conflict with people

that we don’t identify with….this is not some effort by some tin pot dictators to

seize a little turf…..this is a full-on war in the most unstable region of unstable

regions…..let me tell you a few things to be aware of…..

First…..I’m not for war, but I do understand it…..anyone who has ever served in a

war will tell you that it should be the last resort but the first discussion….by that I

mean that appeasement and isolationism are what breeds conflict…..you have to

always be able to win friends, and kill enemies, all at the same time…..

Secondly, keep in mind that Israel did not launch a war last night…..they are

working to end one…..it is Israel that has endured decades of attrition of their

own people from the hands of Iranian proxies like Hezbollah to their north, and

Hamas to their east and west……funded by Iran, it was Hamas who committed the

atrocities of October 7 th , 2023 that had a higher per capita impact on the people

of Israel than 9/11 did on the US…..and it was Iran, that launched missile strikes

against Israel twice last year in April and October of 2024…..it is also Iran that has

screamed “death to Israel” and “death to America” for decades…..and it is Iran,

with all of that history, who the international community agrees was within weeks

of achieving nuclear weapons capability…….something that the Crown Prince of

Saudi Arabia recently said would require a Middle Eastern arms race as Saudi

Arabia would not be able to sit still and let Iran become the sole nuclear middle

eastern power…….we should not believe for a second that any additional

appeasement or efforts for containment would have deterred Iran from going

nuclear…..only a fool would ever believe that……so here we are……and bombs are

going off in Iran…..what does this mean?......what should we expect?......how does

it impact us?

Secretary Rubio issued a statement saying that the US is not participating……but

we are also not stopping it…..which means that Iran, who likes to claim that Israel

is a puppet of the US, will blame the US……so we’ve evacuated our troops….but

the all source intelligence was already there…..think back….we’ve been pulling

troops out of Syria for months….we’ve been bombing the Houthi’s to restore

freedom of passage for shipping……we’ve been working to firmly reestablish solid

relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar…..since Trump was elected the efforts

at bridging gaps, building relations, and currying favor with other middle eastern

nations has been a top-ranked foreign policy effort….they’ve known this day was

coming and we knew we needed a better posture than the one left for us by the

Biden team…….we’ve also assisted Israel in it’s efforts to degrade the proxy

fighters of Hamas and Hezbollah…..this was necessary to keep Iran off balance

and unable to launch a multi-pronged offensive and give Israel some geographic

buffer….what the military calls a “stand off capability”……Israel has also taken out

key Iranian generals and after last years missile strikes Israel also severely crippled

Iran’s air defenses…..

So why didn’t they wait a little longer?.....isn’t there a negotiation ongoing right

now….aren’t we trying to get Iran to walk away from nukes…..yes. but those talks

have proven fruitless…..and Iran was trying to get its air defense back online….and

Iran was also announcing that it just fielded a new and larger scale ballistic missile

that has twice the payload capability of their previous missiles…..and the

intelligence suggests that Iran may have already achieved nuclear capability

……with up to nine warheads……waiting would have allowed Iran to stiff arm the

world while it still ran for the goal line……

there is another old axiom that dates to fourth century Rome….. Si vis pacem,

para bellum …..it means “If you want peace, prepare for war”

That is not a warmongering overly hawkish view seeking a call to arms…..it’s

not…..it is a view of history and the knowledge that one cannot enter into a

playground filled with bullies and come out okay unless the bullies know that you

carry a big stick……History is replete with obvious parallels to where we are

now……let’s hope that history does not repeat itself…..History tells the tale…..and

I don’t ever want to be that guy who just spouts off with half-cocked assertions

and misplaced fact patterns….so last night I had to sit down and review the

sequence of events that led up to the onset of the two most epic wars in the

history of the world…..I wasn’t too far off the mark….But as I read over the

historical analyses I was struck by how much I could see in those events that

mirrored….or at least had the sense of similarity…..with events that we are

watching unfold right now…..You see, if I was to say to you: “feckless western

leadership emboldened the militaristic socialist leader of the reemerging

power”……would you think I was talking about the days leading up to WWII or the

days we are in now?.......exactly. that statement fits both…..you could apply that

phrase equally to then and now…..

How about this?.....western allies ”pledged their support to one another in a

posturing manner that nonetheless failed to stem the rising tide of war”…..would

that be the leadup to WWI or our situation now in Iran this very day?......

history dictates that rarely has broad conflict in either Europe or the Middle East

remained a non-issue for the North American continent….the Atlantic Ocean is no

real barrier it seems when either of those regions explodes…….And it always

seems to follow certain patterns……cross border rivalries……ethnic identities that

transcend borders…..aggressive posturing by a domineering figure……and then an

incident occurs that lights the short fuse on the powder keg…..always coupled it

seems by some measure of feckless leadership believing that it can reason with

the tyrant……only to find out that the tyrant cannot be trusted because

deceitfulness is in the very nature of all tyrants……

The leadup up to WWII was equally and ominously familiar…….as Hitler

determined to cause Germany to reemerge from the ashes of its downfall in WWI

the rest of Europe stood idly by hoping that they would not be drawn in……Prime

Minister Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain championed a policy of

appeasement……he literally worked to find any way possible to make Hitler

happy…..to mitigate his concerns….and yet Europe watched while Hitler grew his

war machine and annexed Austria much like Putin has annexed Crimea…..much

like Iran uses Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthi’s, Hitler’s new war machine first

fought a proxy fight in the Spanish Civil War in which many of their new weapon

systems were tested and puppet governments were propped up……..and Europe

stood by …..he won’t come here will he? He wouldn’t do that would he?......and

yet he did.

You’ve all heard the old axiom that if we do not study our history we are doomed

to repeat it…….Everything I’ve just described to you could simply have the names

changed and be applied to the current events unfolding before our very eyes…..A

reemerging world power….hungry for the glory days…..seeking to flex their

muscles under the leadership of a ruthless dictator……a dictator who feels no

shame in declaring the death of neighboring countries…..and a feckless leadership

who watched, and hoped and wrung their bony hands with the hope that this

time a policy of appeasement would actually work……

Again, I don’t want my family and friends who are currently serving in the military

to start moving toward another middle eastern conflict……but I will tell you this

with all measure of sincerity….we had better take it seriously…..we had better not

draw silly redlines in the sand ……we had better not get into such a reclusive and

isolationist mindset that we forget to ensure that our best defense is the

capability of force projection in overwhelming capacity…..Si vis pacem, para

bellum …..it means “If you want peace, prepare for war”….if your enemies tell you

they want you dead you should believe them….and then don’t let them follow

through on it…..That is not a warmongering overly hawkish view seeking a call to

arms…..it is a pragmatic view of history

History is replete with obvious parallels to where we are now……let’s hope that

history does not repeat itself….Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way…..