"Operation Midnight Hammer" was, militarily and diplomatically, a smashing (hah) success. Iran's nuclear capability is now largely eliminated; the mullahs in Tehran are reduced to begging North Korea or Russia to sell them a nuke or two if they want them, and there are a couple of problems with that: First, it's unlikely the Russians want a nuclear Iran any more than anyone else (North Korea, on the other hand, may be willing) and second, it's likely that the Mossad or the American intelligence apparatus would catch wind of it and use kinetic means (high explosives) to prevent delivery.
The mullahs have to know this. They're evil, but not necessarily stupid.
The question then becomes, what will the mullahs attempt next? We have indications they may attempt a closure of the Straits of Hormuz, but there are American naval forces in the area; that task may prove difficult. The United States Navy, while sadly diminished from its WW2/Cold War status, is still capable of enforcing a pax Americana in that part of the world. So, what else may the mullahs have up their sleeves?
I can think of one possibility, and it's horrible.
Consider one thing, seemingly unrelated, if one doesn't think about it too hard. Think of the millions of people currently in the United States illegally; many, perhaps most of whom we have very little idea where they are, what they are doing, or what they may have planned. We know they are not all from Latin America. There are people here illegally from China, from Africa, and, yes, from the Middle East. It's a near-certainty that some of them are Iranian proxies, of the sort that pulled off the October 7th, 2023, attacks on Israel. We don't know how many of these goblins may be in the United States right now, and that is, perhaps, the greatest damnation we can heap on the now-defunct Biden administration.
Will they attempt an October 7th here? I think, probably, not as such. With all due respect to my Townhall colleague Kurt Schlichter and his wonderful and chilling book "The Attack," I don't think it will go off that way. Here's why.
Any such attempt on a grand scale would meet serious resistance. We have something here that no other nation in the world has to our degree: An armed population. A grand attack nationwide would explode in every possible news outlet, from X to the legacy media, and there are millions of Americans whose first instinct would be to grab a rifle. Any such planned, mass attackers would swiftly find themselves facing armed Americans who would be shooting back, and many of those Americans would be skilled and practiced riflemen, which the terrorists likely would not be. These kinds of goblins aren't chosen for their intelligence. They are, in effect, self-guided not-so-smart bombs, intended to martyr themselves, and they would be hurling themselves on an American sword.
Oh, these people would certainly be willing to martyr themselves. But you know what the thing is about martyrs? They're dead.
There is another scenario, however, that would be much more troublesome.
See Also: Vice President Vance on Iran: 'We Actually Want Peace.'
The Genius Deception Trump Pulled on Iran Just Before the Attack on the Iranian Nuclear Sites
In ancient China, there was a particularly brutal method of execution called "lingchi," or "death by a thousand cuts."
This brutal method of execution was used in imperial China from the 10th century until its abolition in 1905. Reserved for severe crimes like treason or patricide, Lingchi involved slowly dismembering the victim's body, prolonging their suffering before death. It was not just a means of punishment but a tool of terror, designed to humiliate and send a chilling message to others. The gruesome nature of Lingchi made it infamous, and rumors of its continued use continued long after its abolition.
A modern-day, Islamic terrorist version of this on a national scale is far more likely. A likely scenario would involve millions of bad actors, either acting alone or in small cells, independently, choosing when and where to attack. They would likely wait for some local event, some gathering, strike quickly, do as much damage as possible before going down fighting - or the smarter ones may elect to try to get away, to repeat the attack somewhere else.
Imagine this constant prodding, over the course of months or years. Cells spontaneously activate or lone wolves attack, seemingly at random, wherever a group of Americans is gathered. And such random, scattered attacks would in part negate the "armed population" advantage. Yes, in many states, a significant number of Americans would be carrying sidearms, but they would be engaging terrorists with rifles and possibly improvised explosives.
It's not a pretty picture. And the Trump administration had better be considering that possibility.
Fortunately, the administration is already working on the only real preventive measure we have open to us: Find people in the country illegally and get them out. But that doesn't cover the thousands here on student or even tourist visas, who may or may not have overstayed. This is a vast nation, with 340 million people living in it; deporting millions of illegal aliens is a Herculean task, one that must be done, but enormous all the same.
If Iran really wants to hurt the United States, this would be the way to go about it, and I would bet a substantial sum that they are already thinking about it. The Trump administration had better be thinking about it, too.
