There are perhaps some who have thought that my concerns have been overblown in my World War III watch articles, especially when so much of the advocacy comes from those who never wore our country’s uniform, but the hits keep coming and coming.

Everybody Ready for Armageddon?

by Robert Stacy McCain | October 27, 2023

Perhaps “nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog,” shall soon be gathered for this battle:

U.S. fighter jets launched airstrikes early Friday on two locations in eastern Syria linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Pentagon said, in retaliation for a slew of drone and missile attacks against U.S. bases and personnel in the region that began early last week.

The U.S. strikes reflect the Biden administration’s determination to maintain a delicate balance. The U.S. wants to hit Iranian-backed groups suspected of targeting the U.S. as strongly as possible to deter future aggression, possibly fueled by Israel’s war against Hamas, while also working to avoid inflaming the region and provoking a wider conflict.

According to a senior U.S. military official, the precision strikes were carried out near Boukamal by two F-16 fighter jets, and they struck weapons and ammunition storage areas that were connected to the IRGC. The official said there had been Iranian-aligned militia and IRGC personnel on the base and no civilians, but the U.S. does not have any information yet on casualties or an assessment of damage. The official would not say how many munitions were launched by the F-16s.

A senior defense official said the sites were chosen because the IRGC stores the types of munitions there that were used in the strikes against U.S. bases and troops. The two officials briefed reporters after the strikes on condition of anonymity to provide details on the mission that had not yet been made public.

According to the Pentagon, there have now been at least 19 attacks on U.S. bases and personnel in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17, including three new ones Thursday. Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said 21 U.S. personnel were injured in two of those assaults that used drones to target al-Asad Airbase in Iraq and al-Tanf Garrison in Syria.

In a statement, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the “precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17.”

He said President Joe Biden directed the narrowly tailored strikes “to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests.” And he added that the operation was separate and distinct from Israel’s war against Hamas.

Not saying this is the beginning of World War III. However, I’m also not saying it’s not the beginning of World War III.

Major wars don’t always begin with an immediate, huge attack. Sometimes nations just stumble into them over silly but nevertheless uncontrolled reasons. Yes, World War II began with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria — a lot of people forget about that part — and the Germans rolling into Poland, but World War I began thanks to a series of over-reactions to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne of Austria-Hungary, by Bosnian/Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. While the war between Israel and the Hamas/Gazan terrorists is on the front pages, American troops have had a small presence in Syria since September of 2014, ostensibly to fight against Da’esh, and assist two of the groups rebelling against the Syrian regime of President Bashir al-Assad, yet that war has been going on for 11 years now, and none of the ‘sides’ in the Syrian civil war are anything close to being the ‘good guys.’ Da’esh were simply the worst of the bad guys! Perhaps, just perhaps, we should be asking why we have military forces, as small as they are, in Syria in the first place?

Mr McCain, very much an early supporter of Ukraine early after the invasion by Russia, has written less and less about it in recent months, in large part because the war has been mostly a stalemate, but I have to wonder: does the fact that his son serves, as a Ranger, in the United States Army have something to do with it? That my older daughter is a Staff Sergeant in the United States Army Reserve Corps of Engineers is certainly a concern of mine! She returned from deployment in Kuwait last March, and is, in a normal schedule, not likely to be deployed again for three years, but when wars happen, normal schedules go out the window.

The Iranian-backed strikes against American military targets began on October 17^th, ten days after the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists attacked Israel. One of us does not believe that to be a coincidence.

Does anyone believe that the Iranians couldn’t see the news reports of the anti-Semitic marches in our college towns? Does anyone think that the Iranians didn’t notice the tons and tons of existing American armaments shipped to Ukraine? The argument by the warmongers and neocons that it’s good for our economy, because American manufacturing will now have to build more to replace our own military stockpiles fades somewhat when we consider that there’s a lag time between shipping the stuff to Ukraine and the replenishment of our stockpiles. With China making subtle but unpleasant noises concerning Taiwan, if the mad mullahs want to fight the US, what better time would that be than now?

I would like to think that the Iranian leadership are at least halfway sane, and understand that a war with the United States, or with Israel, is not a particularly wise course, given that both nations have large arsenals of nuclear weapons, but the Shi’ite clerics who are the ultimate authorities in Iran have not proven themselves exactly reasonable. Their support of terrorist organizations has put them under decades-long sanctions, and has made their nation poorer, but really don’t seem to care about that. Wasting hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Hamas and Hezbollah means that those hundreds of millions of dollars have not been available to help their own people, but the religious fanatics just don’t seem to care. When we are talking about people like that, any sort of idiocy is possible.