Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice doesn’t speak out often, but when she does, I pay attention. Regardless of what we may or may not think about the George W. Bush administration, she’s someone I’ve admired personally for a long time. I’d also love to see her replace Roger Goodell as NFL commissioner or take on the problems college football currently faces, but that’s a story for another day.
Right now, she’s speaking out on Iran and has a message for Donald Trump: Get it done.
Rice appeared on Special Report With Bret Baier on Fox News earlier this week to talk about the current conflict. She made it clear that, despite what Democrats say, Iran has been a major threat to the U.S. for decades, and it’s time to put an end to it.
“The most important thing is to recognize is that Iran has been at war with us for at least 47 years — all the way from 1979. People may forget, they took our embassy hostage for 444 days, they were responsible for the killings of 300 plus marines in Lebanon in the early 1980s, and if you asked people about Iraq, what was the source of many of our casualties in Iraq, you’ll get estimates as high as 75-80% were due to Iranian-made roadside bombs,” Rice said.
She added, “They also have developed the military capability to have reach outside of the boundaries of Iran, including Hezbollah and Hamas, which they both arm and equip and continued to arm and equip after the events of the summer. And I, myself, negotiated four security council resolutions, calling them a threat to international peace and security, under Chapter 7, the strongest chapter of the UN Security Council resolutions, because of their nuclear ambitions. So, to say that this regime was not a threat, I think, is simply ahistorical — they’ve been a threat for a long time.”
Baier pushed back and asked about the skepticism that’s out there, pointing to a poll that suggests about half of voters do not think this will make the country safer or make it less safe. Rice pointed out that there is “uncertainty with any military operation and what the aftermath might be. And then she laid out some truth about Operation Epic Fury.
But I think if the goal of the administration is to render Iran incapable of using its military forces outside of its borders, of threatening our neighbors, our allies, of threatening our bases abroad, which we’re seeing they are capable of doing — if it’s trying to deny them a conventional umbrella for their nuclear ambitions, that is a worthy goal.
Now, what comes after — people are, of course, concerned about that — but if you can render Iran essentially incapable of military action against us and against our allies, that’s worthy. And I think what they’re trying to do is to neuter Iran as a military power in the region.
And, by the way, the Iranians, who I think made a strategic blunder in attacking the Gulf States, like the UAE, or Kuwait, or others, is demonstrating that it is its goal to be a destabilizing force in the Middle East. Yes, you can still be concerned about what may come after, you can still be concerned about the uncertainties of warfare, but to render this awful regime incapable of using its military power, that’s a worthy goal.
Rice concluded that she believes a series of events most likely led up to this conflict, but doubled down that it’s a worthy goal. She added that it’s important to avoid mission creep, and taking care of Iranian military operations and capabilities is the top priority. She also said that if something can be done about security forces in Iran, she is hopeful that the Iranian people can take their future into their own hands, but we’re a long way off from that.
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