by Gerald A. Honigman
USS Gerald R. Ford With 7 Warships Deploying Toward Iran. February 14, 2026. Screengrab via Youtube
Clifford May is President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and is a frequent guest on Fox News.
His astute insights should be required reading of all who deal with the strategic and tumultuous region of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), an area of study in which I too have done extensive doctoral work in.
His most recent editorial appeared in the May 26, 2026 Washington Times and was, among other things, a partial review of the infamous history of the genocidal megalomaniacal regime ruling Iran once 1979, and is something that needs to be repeated over and over for those who especially see the alien jihadi Arabized and Islamized mullahs, who’ve hijacked Zoroastrian Iran, as the “victims” of American and Israeli aggression in this current war.
The editorial I’m referring to is the same as seen below but titled a bit differently…
While Mr. May’s analysis was spot on, I’d like to add a few thoughts to his conclusion of my own…
Dealing with Iran’s nuclear threat and its control over the choke points at the Straits of Hormuz or Bab el-Mandeb near the Horn of Africa, either by itself or via its Houthi Yemeni proxy, are accurately stated as President Trump’s two main goals—but this must be only the beginning of what America’s goals should actually be.
A somewhat similar analogy is what we faced with the Nazi Germany during and at the end of WWII. More about this later…
Firstly, nukes are not the only method of catastrophic mass destruction.
Just ask the survivors of Arab Iraq and Syria’s mass gassings and other atrocities taking some 300-400,000 Kurdish lives from the 1960s through the 1980s, and still going on to this very day….the Anfal Campaign, and so forth…
Professor Ismet Cherif Vanly’s “The Syrian ‘Mein Kampf’ Against The Kurds” published in 1968 is an eye-opener regarding this topic.
The extent of the slaughter led TNYT’s amazing Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, William Safire, to pen his series of articles titled, “The Sellout of the Kurds,” which were further corroborated by Daniel Schorr’s revelations about the Pike Papers as well.
The point is that Iran must not be able to retain its arsenal of drones, ballistic missiles (and probably ICBMs before long as well, courtesy of North Korean, Chinese, and Russian allies), and other delivery systems either.
Canisters of poison gas or other toxic compounds are already in the mullahs’s hands and fit easily on such weapons.
There’s too much wishy washy, indecisive thinking happening now in Washington.
If Trump didn’t want to really bring freedom and democracy to the masses of Iran’s diverse peoples, he should have kept his mouth shut and not greatly encouraged them to actively resist their murderous oppressors.
Indeed, when a continuously victimized Israel heeded the numerous cries of Iran’s innocents and acted to provide air support, targeting Basij and IRGC units, The Donald scolded Prime Minister Netanyahu and the IDF… Shame!
America did not get into this until over 100,000 innocent Iranian youths and others were ruthlessly slaughtered throughout the country.
What’s needed now is a President Trump who follows the game plan of President Truman, demanding total, absolute victory and unconditional surrender…
The time for negotiations with outright lying and obfuscation, and taqiyyah and kitman mastering mullahs should have been over a year ago…
No more absurd “deals,” which only buys the mullahs more time—which they’ve indeed been using to acquire more advanced weaponry and restock.
By now, our various intelligence agencies should have been cultivating ties with regular Iranian military leaders, loyal to a more moderate scion of the Royal House of Pahlavi, who are more attached to Iran’s proud, pre-Islamic and pre-7th century jihadi Arab conquest past—not to the intolerant mullahs, who turned the 3-4 millennia old majestic nation of Cyrus the Great’s legacy into a nightmare for its own people and that of its neighbors…
Iran of the mullahs must literally be brought to its knees, and, as in most wars—especially those where the aggressors are so blatantly obvious—must pay the price for the destruction, terror, and death it’s caused throughout the entire world for almost half century.
A powerful American military force must coordinate its invasion of Iran with Iranian military leaders and loyal troops from the regular Iranian army.
Seeing this, Iran’s people will rise once again in revolt, but this time with American and Iranian tank battalions and infantry to protect them.
In a controlled manner, so they don’t fall into the wrong hands, armaments can also be provided to these civilians as well.
This war for independence and democracy could/should also involve Israel providing air cover—as it already has done for Iran’s people, as mentioned above and as seen here:
Spoils of war lost by the misnamed Islamic “Republic” should include sovereignty over strategic islands, perhaps Kharg too, and adjacent territories along strategic waterways that can be used to launch attacks against other nations’s shipping.
The mullahs must be made to cover the financial costs of both American and Israeli attempts to defend themselves from both the mullah puppeteers and their Arab marionettes.
The terrorist IRGC and Basij must be mercilessly hunted down and slaughtered as much as possible. Removing just p part of a malignant tumor is never a good choice. Trials à la Nuremberg should be conducted, and as the ayatollahs directed the hanging of innocent teens and others as well, that must now be their own fate.
After the regime and its military support system are totally and unconditionally defeated, America must stay the course and develop democratic institutions and leadership in the country, as we did with both ImperialiJapan and Nazi Germany.
At the same time, we must retain American military bases in or nearby on adjacent islands and other territories. We’re still in Germany and Japan over seven decades after WWII ended, not as occupiers, but at the peoples’s own requests for support and protection
With Washington’s perseverance, Iran can become today’s version of democratic Germany and Japan, and the cost will be covered by Iranian black gold in the ground.
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