Running Out Of Mathematics.

 Often you have a critical task, but only bad options. So it has come to pass in Iran.

Vucovich (played by Clive Revill):What happened to you Piotr Ilyich?

Soviet Premier Piotr Ilyich Kamenev (played by Sir Lawrence Olivier): I will tell you. I suppose it happens to every man who sits in the center chair. I’ve come to the end of the book of rules. There will be universal massacre in a matter of months, and I have run out of mathematics.

The Shoes of the Fisherman 1968

I remembered this quote after reading an “analysis” piece in Sunday’s Pravda on the Hudson. Credit where credit is due, they did not call it “journalism.”

With Military Strike His Predecessors Avoided, Trump Takes a Huge Gamble

President Trump is betting the United States can repel whatever retaliation Iran orders, and that it has destroyed the regime’s chances of reconstituting its nuclear program.

By David E. Sanger

Over the past two decades, the United States has used sanctions, sabotage, cyberattacks and diplomatic negotiations to try to slow Iran’s long march to a nuclear weapon.

At roughly 2:30 a.m. Sunday in Iran, President Trump unleashed a show of raw military might that each of his last four predecessors had deliberately avoided, for fear of plunging the United States into war in the Middle East.

After days of declaring that he could not take the risk that the mullahs and generals of Tehran who had survived Israel’s strikes would make a final leap to a nuclear weapon, he ordered a fleet of B-2 bombers halfway around the world to drop the most powerful conventional bombs on the most critical sites in Iran’s vast nuclear complexes…

No, Mr. Sanger, Trump acted to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear device, something his predecessors failed in. Particularly the two immediate Democratic presidents. Barrack Obama signed an “agreement” that did not stop their program, relieved them of sanctions, then later gave the mullahs 1.7 billion in actual cash. Joe Biden on day one relived Iran from sanctions imposed by his immediate predecessor, Donald Trump. This gave the mullahs billions to fund their proxy groups and nuclear weapon research. How much has sanction relief helped Iran:

Iran GDP for 2020 was 262.19 billion US dollars, a 21.39% decline from 2019.

Iran GDP for 2021 was 383.44 billion US dollars, a 46.25% increase from 2020.

Iran GDP for 2022 was 394.36 billion US dollars, a 2.85% increase from 2021.

Do you think this helped them in the production of a nuclear weapon? Since 2020, they have spent almost 387 billion on a nuclear device, almost as their 2020 GDP. More than a third of a trillion dollars. The Manhattan Project cost us 2 billion dollars in World War II (about 45 billion today). For a country not technically (but openly at war with western interest worldwide), that’s an absurd amount of money. So the issue was obvious, Iran is driving to a nuclear device, no matter how we beg or bribe them.

This is not the first time an American president has had to deal with a major issue left to him by his predecessors. Abraham Lincoln came into office with the question of the peculiar institution of slavery. His predecessors accepted one agreement after another, pushing the matter on. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 allowed Missouri in as a slave state, Maine as a non-slave state, keeping the balance in the senate. It also  prohibited slavery in most of the Louisiana Purchase.

Over the decades, tensions between slave and non-slave states simmered until the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. This law allowed the citizens of the new states to decide the issue of slavery, throwing the balance of the senate (and house) into question. As matter was not solved by 1860 and with the election of Lincoln, the Civil War followed. Lincoln had a grave decision to make, and he made the correct one. In spite of significat opposition as the war continued, he was determined to save the Union. He did not want war, but Lincoln ran out of options and went with the least bad alternative. And insured the nation did not perish from the Earth.

President Trump, like Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, are out of options. In science and engineering, there is rarely a perfect fit. In politics less so. We are the end of options with Iran, but the goal is not negotiable. They cannot have nuclear weapons.

The West, led by America and Israel, used various negotiations, international pressure, and computer warfare to stop the mullahs. Limited sanctions (Obama and Biden) were worthless. Forceful sanctions (Trump) decimated Iran, but the pressure was removed in January 2021. Obama and Biden both tried to bride the Iranians to no avail. The Stuxnet Virus damaged around one thousand centrifuges but did not stop the mullahs. Earlier this month Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei refused any negotiations and said Iran would continue to enrich uranium.

Iran is not stopping weapons development, and depending on who you ask, the time to production has moved from days to weeks, the adults need to decide. And Trump did. Arguably not the best, or even a good option. But as Jim Kirk told Spock about his solution to the Kobayashi Maru test, “It had the virtue of never having been tried.”

Or as Mr. Kamenev said, Trump and Bibi “Ran out of mathematics.”

Michael A. Thiac is a retired Army intelligence officer, with over 23 years experience, including serving in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the Middle East. He is also a retired police patrol sergeant, with over 22 years’ service, and over ten year’s experience in field training of newly assigned officers. He has been published at The American Thinker, PoliceOne.com, and on his personal blog, A Cop’s Watch.

Opinions expressed are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of current or former employers.

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