Richard Goldberg, the director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction for the White House National Security


Council under former President Donald Trump, notes that Iran’s oil exports to China went from 300,000 barrels/day in 2020 to nearly


1.6 million b/d today because President Joe Biden made a strategic decision to not enforce the Trump-era sanctions.


against a technologically advanced enemy such as the United States. Dr. Peter Pry, the late ex-


ecutive director of the con- gressionally mandated EMP Commission, testifi ed before Congress that these Iranian eff orts included test-fi ring missiles “as if Iran were prac- ticing the execution of an EMP attack.” Such an attack against


America could be launched, for example, from a cargo ship off the coast of Baltimore in international waters, using a relatively short-range missile to heft a small nuclear weapon into the upper atmosphere. The EMP blast from a


high-altitude nuclear explo- sion would take out the entire electric grid, ending America as we know it. But while Iran’s fanatical


leaders might be licking their chops at the prospect of destroy- ing America, they also have a more immediate goal: driving the United States military from


BORDER TARGET A shell from Israeli artillery explodes over a house in al-Bustan, a Lebanese border village with Israel, after terrorists in southern Lebanon fired 20 rockets into the northern Israeli towns of Shlomi and Nahariya. Meanwhile, a Palestinian mother cradles her daughter inside the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after Israeli jets bombed a densely populated area it said Hamas terrorists were hiding in.


the Persian Gulf region. In addition to terrorist at-


tacks on U.S. bases in the re- gion, the IRGC navy has en- gaged in harassment attacks for decades against U.S. navy ships operating in the inter- national waters of the Persian Gulf as part of that eff ort. Even at the peak of U.S.- rapprochement


Iranian


under Obama, Iranian fast- attack boats “swarmed” U.S. navy ships in simulated at- tacks, sailed directly across their bows, and launched he- licopters and drones in close proximity to U.S. Navy jets. Thirty such incidents


took place in both 2015 and 2016, according to the United States Central Command. By contrast, the Iranians conducted around a doz- en such operations during Trump’s four-year presidency.


Trump showed how to deal


with Iran when he ordered the assassination of Quds Force commander Qasem So- leimani. Soleimani was caught or-


ganizing the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad by up to 50,000 militiamen at the end of December 2019. Trump ordered a drone strike to take him out at the Bagh- dad airport on Jan. 2, 2020. Iran vowed revenge. Four


days later, it launched rockets against the al-Asad airbase north of Baghdad, after warn- ing the Iraqi Ministry of De- fense ahead of time, so U.S. and Iraqi troops could seek shelter. (U.S. troops were in- jured, but no one was killed.) Until Biden took offi ce it


was all bluster and threats, but no attacks on America. Is that about to change?


DECEMBER 2023 | NEWSMAX 73


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