What Will Iran Do Now?

In military action against Iran on Saturday, the United States destroyed much, if not all, of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo asked some interesting questions of Victoria Coates, vice president of The Heritage Foundation’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy. When Bartiromo asked for her reaction to the military action, Coates replied: 

What happened last night, in my estimation, isn’t about starting another forever war in the Middle East, it’s about ending the longest one. 50 years, this has bene going on with Iran. And last night, the president demonstrated that he’s not going to stand for this anymore after giving diplomacy every chance. He showed the Ayatollahs that he can reach out and touch them anytime.

We have these extraordinary stealth bombers, $2 billion, a plane that got in and out of there before they even knew what was happening. And he’s made it clear this isn’t about regime change, this isn’t about some kind of social engineering experiment, this is about ending a war and getting to the negotiating table to create peace.

Bartiromo then wanted to know about the kind of reaction that Coates expected from Iran and received the following answer:

The Iranians have very few cards, and the one that really stands out for me is this threat to close the Strait of Hormuz where all the oil tankers go in and out. We had a week earlier in June when the United States did not import a single barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia.

That’s only happened once in the last half century. That’s because of the shale revolution and President [Donald] Trump’s policies during the first term. So it’s not a kill switch in the hands of the Ayatollahs anymore. This is a card that President Trump can play.

Bartiromo replied, “Yeah. This is a message, obviously, to the Iranians who, as you say, President Trump gave a lot of time to come to the negotiating table, but it’s a message to others as well. Is it not? Coates answered this way:

Absolutely. If I’m [Chinese] President Xi [Jingping] or [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin, I am saying, holy cow, this morning. We didn’t know they could do that. And we had over a hundred planes involved.

And all of this comes from the president though, Maria. Imagine trying to do an exercise like this under President [Joe] Biden, it simply wouldn’t have happened. It didn’t happen. We had messes like Afghanistan. You talk about America’s back, that’s what happened last night.

Bartiromo’s final question was about “issues from operatives operating in the United States right now, Iranian sleeper cells:

That’s the greatest concern, Maria. They are here, they are active, and that’s what we need the FBI director, Kash Patel, to be keeping after for all of our safety.