Iran’s Propaganda War – The Hugh Hewitt Show

Iran has lost the war on a military level.  Unquestionably.  But there is a lot more to winning a war than simply crushing the military.  For example, Japan had many soldiers on remote Pacific Islands than continued to fight WWII long after it was over.  Iran appears to be just as intransigent, but at a much higher cost to the world and to its citizenry.  They are, in fact, raising the stakes at every opportunity presented to them.  It is, simply, a test of wills.

The latest high stake, just linked, is their efforts to seize Christian churches.  As I read that story I felt my blood begin to boil.  As I started to write I was going to call for the immediate resumption of massive military strikes – followed, if necessary, by invasion.  But my fingers held just short of beginning to type and I stared at the story for a long time.  Finally, the thought ran through my mind, “That is just what they want.”

America clearly wants lower gas prices rather than to win this war.  I worry about this country that such is the case.  The Iranian regime is an evil scourge on this planet.  The fact that this nation is so selfish as to allow a regime that murdered tens of thousands of its own citizens to continue to exist simply for the sake of pump price is a clear indication that we have our own moral issues.  But that same evil regime knows that an election lost come fall means an end to their troubles.  An election lost come fall means another ignominious American withdrawal from the assertion of its power.  An election lost come fall means that they win simply because they continue to survive.

The war with Iran has, at this moment, simply changed battlegrounds.  It is no longer a military clash.  It is a propaganda war.  Iran is going to do whatever it can to get what it wants – the American military to back down.  Then they would have the opportunity to lie, cheat and steal as they have done for decades now.  Sadly, they are deeply aided in this effort by an American media that believes the current president can do no right.

Iran’s strategy of the moment is to use our political divisions to beat us.  It is in many ways a brilliant strategy.   Without their aid our political divisions are intense and threaten our republic.  Blue states are increasingly sounding as secessionist as states in the south did before the civil war.  It would not take a lot of pressure for that divide to become a structural failure.  This church story may just be a masterstroke.  It is designed not to separate Democrats and Republicans, but to siphon off a large portion of the president’s base.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the attacks by the Iranian regime on Christianity are very, very real.  The suffering of Iranian Christians is most genuine.  But I am reminded that when God sent Saul, soon thereafter called Paul, to Christianize the world, He called Saul to a life of suffering for Christ’s sake.  That same Paul wrote later in his life that, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”  If the suffering of Iranian Christians in the now will result in the ultimate death of that evil, horrible and hideous regime, then God is at work.

And so this post ends in a very different place than its original impetus intended.  God is at work.  That must be sufficient for me.