We need to be waging political war against tyrants

Michael Ledeen, who knows more about Iran than any writer I know of, says the regime there is hollow.

Its internal opponents hold it in contempt and do not fear it, and it is palpably failing.

What about Venezuela?

the regime is wobbly, the society is deeply riven, the opposition seems well organized and well led, and Maduro is certainly not in a position to play an effective role in the global anti-American alliance that stretches from Pyongyang to Managua and Havana by way of Moscow and Tehran. Venezuela’s crisis significantly weakens our enemies.

And Putin?

The will to power can cover up a multitude of weaknesses, but not all of them. The West is very weak, and doesn’t want to fight a determined aggressor. But then, we didn’t want to fight in what became the Second World War, our weakness was far worse than it is today. Power-mad tyrants have historically done poorly anticipating our response when push came to shove, and even worse judging their own countries’ ability to both dominate others and bring glory in their own realm.

To sum up,

If we wage political war against the tyrants, we can prevail without sending our kids onto foreign battlefields. If we don’t, we’ll either have to hope that our enemies fall from within–and it’s possible–or face the battlefields again in short order.

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