Who do we blame for the terrible destruction of drug addiction? 

The user, yes. 

The pusher, certainly.

But most of all, the drug cartels -- these massive, secretive, corrupt foreign organizations that manufacture the product and run an illegal distribution operation, employing and training the pushers, waving enough cash around that it attracts a seemingly endless array of applicants to become pushers in their Cadillac-and-gold-chains black market business.

In all our efforts to bring our national drug problem under control, our efforts have been tragically unsuccessful in attacking those cartels.  Without destroying the cartels themselves, it’s an impossible battle, because new pushers arise to replace every pusher who’s imprisoned or killed.

Other kinds of crime work the same way, especially at the national and international level. And the world got a lesson in how to respond this weekend in the Middle East.

Israel finally hit Iran in a long-awaited retaliation, on Saturday morning, October 26.

While neither side has issued a full list of targets, the general consensus is that Israel hit Iran’s “defunct” nuclear weapons research facilities (which tells us that Iran never really did retire its nuclear weaponry research, or Israel wouldn’t have bothered to hit it), and also some of Iran’s missile launch sites for both defensive and offensive action -- and finally, and most importantly, Iran’s primary mass-production facilities for the manufacture of weapons such as missiles.

The mainstream press has focused on the launch sites, theorizing that Iran’s aggression will be reduced now that its own capacity for attack and defense are seriously weakened. 

But that’s not really the main accomplishment, because Iran has never been big on carrying out attacks themselves. The modern Iran -- the one run by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- has always preferred to have its surrogates do their fighting for them, and take the risk for them as well. Iran normally fights through Hamas, Hezb’allah, and the Houthis. Iran’s occasional direct attacks on Israel are rare.

What Israel hit this weekend was more substantial, and has been largely missed by the mainstream media: Israel hit Iran’s status as a major exporter of weaponry to rogue nations.

Over the past several years, Iran has become a serious supplier of everything from drones to missiles, not only shipping them to their own direct puppets in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen, but also selling them at a fine profit to clients as diverse as Somalia and Russia, from Venezuela to Ethiopia.

Such figures aren’t always publicly available, but it is certainly a multi-billion-dollar industry for Iran’s Islamofascist government. They love the sowing of destruction and death, but beyond that, the mullahs have been increasingly proud of their ability to bring in export funds that are independent of their oil business.

Assuming President Trump returns to the White House, we will again see proper sanctions imposed on the mullahs’ regime, reducing their ability to sell their crude oil to the free world. Iran’s mullahs are in a precarious political position as it is. They need export profits to keep their economy going.

If Israel’s destruction of Iran’s weapons manufacturing facilities was as complete as it appears from the limited satellite footage we have seen so far, this means a number of countries may be in store for several years of unexpected peace. Iran’s effort to become the “Medellin Drug Cartel of arms sales” has hopefully been cut to the quick this weekend.

And if this loss of revenue has the desired effect on the fortunes of Iran’s government, then domestic regime change may indeed be in store.

The last time the Iranian people rose up and tried to overthrow the mullahs, Barack Obama was in the Oval Office, and he helped suppress their attempt.

Perhaps this next time, with the blessing of Divine Providence, President Trump will be in the White House, able to assist the next genuinely democratic effort by the good people of Iran to overthrow their tyrannical government.

John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation manager, trade compliance trainer, and speaker.  Read his book on the surprisingly numerous varieties of vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel), his political satires on the Biden-Harris years (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), and his nonfiction book on the 2024 election, Current Events and the Issues of Our Age, all available in eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.

Image: IDF Spokesperson's Unit