Iran blockade resumes as IRGC tears up the MOU and fires on ships

“Can you or the American army or the Israeli army reach what’s left of their third string, their fourth string, their fifth string? Do you know where they are? Can you kill them?”

I asked those questions to President Donald Trump on Monday, July 13.

“Yes, I know, but we don’t want to talk about it,” the President replied.

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“But we’re definitely watching, yes,” he added. “I know a lot about this. I know a lot, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about it right now.”

Trump’s reticence to clear the rostrum of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is interesting.

The public faces of the right-wing regime in Iran (President Massoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi) do not have any authority over the armed killers. (Trump puts the number of Iranians murdered by the regime over two days in January at 52,000, so we know the ruthlessness of those responsible.) When the US and Israel’s campaign against Iran began on February 28, these attacks destroyed the first and second tiers of “leadership” in Iran. Pezeshkian and Araghchi were not important enough to be in the command bunkers.

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Sixty-eight-year-old Ahmed Vahidi emerged from the rubble and “retirement” following the elimination of the Islamic Republic’s top leaders to assume command of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Consider how ruthless a murderer who is singled out and ignored can be, and how much grudge he must hold towards those who put him out to pasture in the first place.

Eli Lake Lake is among the United States’ most respected national security reporters, as of Tuesday, July 14. Lake fully agreed with what Trump told me on Monday: It’s unrealistic to expect the Iranian people to recover just months after such a traumatic mass murder.

Instead, Lake explained, students who study the history of regime collapse tell us that we should be wary of divisions within the ranks of the gunmen. This is how revolutions against dictators and their lackeys at the top begin and gain momentum. Lower-level security services or a cadre within the military now become reluctant to participate in murder. They see the end game and don’t want to be around or on the wrong side when everything falls apart. Sometimes they run away. Sometimes they turn the guns on the men at the top. Once that starts, it can ramp up quickly, Lake added.

THE USA GAINED BACK THE KEY TIMS IT GIVEN TO IRAN AFTER THE NEW ATTACKS ON MERCHANT SHIPS IN THE STRAIT OF KORUZ

All bets were off when the Revolutionary Guard tore up the first Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Since the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, I have said that the war with Iran is tantamount to a “half-time”, but I was surprised when the right-wing regime first came out of the locker room and started shooting at ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. When we lifted the blockade, Iran received very little oil revenue from the MoU. The blockade is back, as are the bombings. If the president does indeed step up his air campaign, Iran’s already devastated economy will struggle to meet basic needs.

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The suffering of the population does not matter to Vahidi and others. Just like Hamas terrorists did in Gaza, they can (and will) plunder the country and appropriate everything they import. They may live underground, but their IRGC bosses won’t be hungry.

Consider how ruthless a murderer who is singled out and ignored can be, and how much grudge he must hold towards those who put him out to pasture in the first place.

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The great masses of Iranians know the truth, but they do not dare to tell it. Only if a handful of colonels and even petty officers decide that it is time to lead and save the country (and themselves) can they take action. If they were successful, they could be freed from the terrible burden of “Twelver” theology and rule like normal juntas: with absolute power, but without waging war on the world.

Only a few people are enough to break all the tyranny of the Revolutionary Guard. Trump is telling the public that he will not rush into this takeover. But who knows what he and the Israelis saw and heard, courtesy of the intelligence community? The Allies certainly had all the information they needed by February 28. Rest assured, they have more and are adding new ones to their collection every day.

Hugh Hewitt, Fox News contributor and “The Hugh Hewitt Show” weekday afternoons from 3 to 6 p.m. ET on the Salem Radio Network and simulcast on the Salem News Channel. Hugh takes Americans home to the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on more than 400 affiliates nationwide and on all streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest of Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier on weekdays at 6 p.m. ET A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996, where he started his eponymous radio show in Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has appeared frequently on all major national news television networks, hosted television programs for PBS and MSNBC, written for all major American newspapers, and authored a dozen books. He has moderated multiple Republican candidate debates, most recently the 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in 2015-16. Hewitt focuses his radio show and column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians Today Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests, from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush.

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