I really did try today to stay away from many things about the conflict going on in the Middle East.
Since the heinous attack of Hamas crossing into Israel two weeks ago, I have been reading up and listening to foreign news sources to try to get away from the filter of the US press. As many of us here at RedState have written recently, the US press reporting might be a bit off on their coverage and point of view of what is happening there right now.
So when I came across a headline that basically had as its premise that Iran was threatening Israel and everyone else involved in this conflict that it was going to explode and expand, I felt like I should have taken a nap today instead of reading up on current events.
Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has warned Israel that the Middle East could spiral out of control if it does not stop strikes on Gaza.
He said the US was also "to blame" for providing military support to Israel.
Hours later, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu warned troops his people were in a battle for their lives and said the war against Hamas was "do or die".
Iran supports both Hamas, which attacked Israel two weeks ago killing 1,400 people, and Lebanon's Hezbollah.
More than 4,600 Palestinians have been killed in the last two weeks in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and Israel announced on Saturday that it was intensifying air strikes.
"I warn the US and its proxy Israel that if they do not immediately stop the crime against humanity and genocide in Gaza, anything is possible at any moment and the region will go out of control," Mr Amir-Abdollahian said at a news conference in Tehran.
He said that the results could be "severe, bitter" and "have far-reaching repercussions", both regionally and for those advocating for war.
I should have taken that nap.
This, of course, follows up on my colleague Susie Moore's piece here at RedState earlier (Sec. Def. Lloyd Austin: Concern About Potential Escalation Prompts Ramping Up of US Presence in Mid East) which made me feel not so warm and fuzzy.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin appeared with Jonathan Karl on "ABC News This Week" Sunday morning to discuss the Israel-Hamas War and the stepped-up presence of the U.S. military in the region.
Since Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, the U.S. has doubled its presence in the Middle East, sending the Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group to join the Gerald. R. Ford strike group in the eastern Mediterranean, as well as doubling the number of F-16, A-10, and F-15E squadrons in the region. Additionally, the Pentagon has issued "Prepare to Deploy" orders to 2,000 troops.
Amid these moves, U.S. forces have come under attack, with Ain al-Asad Air Base being targeted by drones and rockets Thursday evening. Additionally, the USS Carney, part of the Ford carrier strike group, shot down missiles fired by Iran-backed terrorists operating in Yemen on Wednesday night. As streiff explained regarding that incident:
The Carney was not under attack. It was in the area of the Houthi missile launch, serendipitously or not so much, and engaged outbound Houthi missiles. In theory, the missiles could have been headed toward Israel. Realistically, they were probably heading in the direction of Saudi Arabia. This was the first time a US warship has engaged a Houthi cruise missile.
Austin told Karl on Sunday that the U.S. was strengthening its defense posture in the region over concern about “prospect of a significant escalation of attacks on our troops and our people throughout the region.”
The Iranians, since the 1979 Revolution to remove the Shah and install the Ayatollah, have been a constant agitator in the region and have done an incredibly successful job at being said agitator.
The incredibly damn frustrating part of that has been that two presidential administrations — Barack Obama's and now Joe Bidens — have been incredibly helpful to the Iranians by freeing up assets that were frozen and also opening up avenues of funding from our allies and even, in some cases, the United States. This has only emboldened the Iranians to continue on their path and figure that all they have to do is sit and wait out an administration like Trump's to get another favorable administration in.
They have been spot-on in this regard.
Since the events unfolded two weeks ago and with everything that has happened since, it has made me just a bit doom and gloom. This is why I figured I would take one day off from all of this, but of course, I couldn't help myself because I'm like a child who found out where their parents had the Halloween candy the day after Halloween.
My willpower is naught.
My doom and gloom, or the rational side of myself that had to face reality, forced me to write this a week ago The Writing Is on the Wall: America Likely to Be Hit Because of the Invasion From Mexico, where I said this:
We have had pretty much a wide-open border since January 20, 2021, when Joe Biden took the oath of office to be President of the United States. The administration stopped building the Trump border wall and did everything but send flyers down to Central America and the rest of the world so that they could skip across the Rio Grande and gain entry without authorities checking they are. Of course, this policy was just reversed within the past week, but it's really a case of too little too late.
So if I have my math correct from Ward's count above, he quotes about 3.8 million people who have illegally crossed since Scranton Joe took the helm. So let's do an odd thing and LOWER that number to 3 million people. Now we take those 3 million folks and estimate that approximately one-quarter of one percent have some evil intent; that gives us 7,500 such people in this country illegally. Now they could be just bank robbers or common thieves, possibly some murders or other dastardly things.
If you increase the percentage, you increase the total number, and does that make you feel safe?
What are the chances it is more?
If you pay attention to the news, particularly during the time that Biden's been President, you have to have come to the conclusion that this has not only been ignored on purpose but allowed to happen for nefarious reasons. Incompetence like this can NOT be done with the flip of a coin; it has to be done with deliberate thought and determination.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Iranians are threatening not only the war spreading in the Middle East but to other countries in Europe and the United States of America. This might be why we have not seen the Israelis roll into Gaza full force yet because America and Israel's European allies are applying pressure to hopefully not have them go in full force or to prepare themselves as much as possible before the IDF goes in.
Either way, this is a mess of biblical proportions. It reminds me that I need to dive back into the Bible a little bit more than I have been.