The Importance Of Moral Clarity In War

U.S. Schooner ENTERPRIZE Capturing the Tripolitan Corsair TRIPOLI, August 1, 1801.

In 1979 President Jimmy Carter determined that the Shah of Iran was a dictator and an obstacle to global peace while extolling the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini as an “Islamic Gandhi” and a potential agent of peace. Forty-five years later, we continue to pay an exorbitant price for Carter’s miscalculation.

Upon the Shah’s fall and the Ayatolla’s ascent to power, the newly founded Islamic Republic of Iran promptly took 52 Americans hostage. At the same time, it declared war on Israel (the little Satan) and America (the big Satan).

With Iran on the verge of acquiring a nuclear bomb and Israel’s recent assassination of three key Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, the Middle East is a dry tinder box ready to explode into the second front of a global war between Russia and America.

America had moral clarity after Pearl Harbor as she built the greatest war machine in history to utterly defeat Germany and Japan. America has since managed to lose four wars – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, due to the lack of such moral clarity.

The question thus becomes whether America is willing to arm and thereby enable Ukraine to truly defeat Russia or just provide enough arms to bleed Russia into a second-tier power.

Similarly, knowing that Iran represents an existential threat to Israel, Israel can ill afford the risk of allowing Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb. This issue begs the question of whether America’s “iron-clad” support for Israel will allow it to defeat Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and ultimately Iran or merely achieve short-term peace while Iran goes nuclear.

A good example of the importance of moral clarity as a vital ingredient in winning wars might be garnered by noting Thomas Jefferson’s 1801 lobbying of Congress to pass the naval legislation that enabled the creation of the United States Navy, enabling it to procure six frigates needed to find, fight, and destroy the Barbary pirates that were impeding American marine trade. Today, the enfeebled American Navy can not even defeat a few poorly armed tribal Houthi nomads who are paralyzing global trade through the Red Sea and, ultimately, the Suez Canal.

While the outcome of the pending presidential race may be based on abortion, the economy, or the southern border, I would not be surprised if this race ultimately ends up being about the pending war between Israel and Iran and who we choose as our Commander in Chief.

— Sina.