Op-Ed: Sean P. Keenan: Iran, the Price of Gas and the Price of Peace
By Sean P. Keenan
Since 1979, American Presidents have been declaring publicly that the government of Iran is a threat to American and Western security. The theocratic regime of Iran has sponsored and funded countless terrorist attacks and taken dozens of American hostages. According to a study by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in April 1983, an Iranian backed car bomber killed 53 people, including 17 Americans at the US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. That same year, an Iranian proxy drove a truck-bomb into the Marine Compound in Beirut killing 220 Marines. In 1985, that same proxy, Hezbollah, hijacked TWA flight 847 and killed a US Navy Diver. Jumping forward to 1996, Hezbollah again, drove 5,000 pounds of explosives into the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia killing 19 Americans and injuring 500 more.
As a veteran of the Global War on Terror, I can tell you from experience that Iranian insurgents and Iranian backed groups were crossing into Iraq and laying Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and engaging US and Coalition forces, maiming countless and killing more than 600. The reason that continued from 1979 to 2026 is because president after president, all made the statements, “Iran is a threat,” and “Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.” But what the Iranian government knows, that these presidents refused to acknowledge is, words are cheap. Calling Iran a threat while they kill us doesn’t fall on deaf ears, it is drowned out by laughter. For decades, fundamentalist Islamic groups like Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda were fighting a war against the West. Until September 11, 2001, we were not fighting back. It was a one-way war that we were losing.
In the Global War on Terror, we focused on Al Qaeda and fought them in Afghanistan and then moved that fight to Iraq where we had more of an advantage, or less of a disadvantage, and fought all comers, but we didn’t fight them at the source. Between Afghanistan and Iraq, is Iran. By propping up burgeoning democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s, we put great pressure on Iran. In 2010 the median age of males in Iran was 27 years old. This is a result of the generation of older men in Iran being killed in the Iran/Iraq War from1980 to 1988. This younger generation, many western educated do not subscribe to the fundamental Islamic dogma of the theocratic regime. They yearn for freedom and prosperity, and when the West tore down the Suni led Baath party ruling in Iraq and defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan and installed duly elected leaders in both countries, the Iranian people watched and acted. That force almost toppled the Islamic regime in June of 2009, the first year of the Obama Administration. The stage was set and the Iranian people revolted when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was announced the winner of a rigged presidential election. The Iranian people, emboldened by the fragile democracies of their neighbors to the east and west rose up in the streets and demanded fair and free elections of their own and respite from a fundamentalist government bent on oppressing and killing them. I distinctly remember watching in rage on television that summer, as the people of Iran were being slaughtered in the streets by their own government, a bleeding, crying Iranian woman facing the camera crying, “Help us, Obama! Please!” President Obama, America, and the West did nothing. The hopes and dreams of the freedom loving Iranians and the possibility of peace, died as President Obama did nothing.
We tried diplomacy backed by no real threat of force. We negotiated a deal where the Iranians did nothing to curb or slow their nuclear desires. Secretary of State John Kerry completely capitulated and declared an agreement and victory for the United States while we secretly flew pallets filled with billions of US dollars into Tehran under the cover of darkness. That money funded nuclear weapon development and more terror and led us to where we are today.
I understand that many people are feeling the pain of higher gas and diesel prices which are driving the price of all consumer goods higher than anyone would like. But those prices are still lower than what we spent under the Biden Administration. President Biden plugged the flow of crude oil and gasoline in this country as a matter of policy on his first day in office. Not for any greater good, but to keep a promise to environmentalists and the green energy industry that helped fund his campaign and get him elected. Industries that are not economically viable and cannot compete in the market against fossil fuels.
Today, our gas prices are higher because we are actually engaged in the war that has been fought against us for 47 years. But we are fighting this war differently than we fought previous wars. First, there is not a single American foot on Iranian soil. Our Air and Naval forces have decimated Iran’s offensive and defensive capabilities and set them back for maybe two generations. We have also cut their ability to funnel drones and other weapon systems to Russia for use against Ukraine. We have blockaded their ports in the Persian Gulf and cut them off from the world. We have placed sanctions on them and their allies that equate to an economic guillotine. Their economy is in ruin, their currency, the Rial is worth 0.00000056 US Dollars as of October 10, 2026. But so what? What does that mean to us here when the price of gas and groceries is so high?
For 47 years, American Presidents have done virtually nothing to stop Iran from killing Americans and destabilizing the Middle East and by extension, the world. Doing nothing has not worked. We now have a President who is doing SOMETHING. We must give it time to work. Assuredly, President Trump has over promised on this conflict. But it is not as bad as we are told. It is not a quagmire. We are not losing troops and spilling American blood on the battlefield while politicians in ivory towers wait for the other side to blink. We are at a diplomatic standoff that is complicated by the upcoming midterm elections.
What I learned in my 20 years in the Marine Corps and studying war is that war is created by political problems between two groups. War does not solve the political problem; it merely works to create the scenario by which the two groups can agree on a solution. That usually happens when one side either no longer possesses the will or the ability to fight. Iran no longer has the ability to fight. The government in Iran, I suspect is teetering on the brink. Their sole objective at this point is to survive. They are economically, militarily, and politically decimated. I am certain that multinational intelligence agencies are working to further undermine them with the people and support an effort from within to topple the government and return it to the people. I am certain that under President Trump there will not be a ground invasion of Iran involving US troops. But, when it happens, and one would have to think it is inevitable, it will change the political landscape of the world.
Iran is the most destabilizing force in the Middle East, but they are marginalized. They are Persian, not Arabic, so the only common threads they shared with their Arabic neighbors was Islam, and their hatred for Israel. President Trump’s Abraham Accords have aligned all major Middle Eastern States with Israel in an unprecedented economic and strategic alliance, which is strengthened with every drone and missile Iran launches into its Middle Eastern neighbors’ sovereign lands. The eventual collapse of Iran will cause Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis to die on the vine. Russia and China will be further isolated and marginalized on the world stage and will not have a free-flowing cupboard of drones and crude oil at their disposal and their ability to compete economically with the US will be significantly diminished.
The point of all of this is something that two years ago, nobody could have imagined; world peace. Iran is and has always been the long pole in the tent of evil and destruction. Seven presidents have tried nothing, and nothing has not worked. One president has tried something, and it has brought us closer to peace then we have been in my lifetime. But we must understand the price and be willing to pay it.
Higher gas prices for another few months, or a year are a small price to pay. Our greatest treasure, the blood of our troops is not on the menu. Who would have ever thought we could do this with extremely little American bloodshed? This is the time, and this is the President to do it. And when it happens, there will be free flow of oil out of the Middle East, there will be worldwide investment in Middle East financial markets, by America and American companies. The West will be able to breathe easier without such fear of fundamental Islamic threats, and Israel will live and prosper in peace. Gazans will no longer live under the thumb of Hamas and be used as human shields for the protection of terrorists. Our future generations will not have to fight wars in that part of the world, and maybe not anywhere. Iran is the single force trying to drag the world back to the stone age. With that destabilizing force out of the way, the world will invest in each other and seek prosperity over intifada, peace over jihad, and America; America will lead the way into a technical revolution that will lower the cost of everything. Not just gas, but all consumer goods will become affordable and Artificial Intelligence will spring up new industries creating American jobs and American wealth beyond our imagination. The Golden Age of America is on the horizon and the cost? The cost is holding out, paying more at the pump and the grocery store, just a little longer. It’s knowing that we have the devil on the ropes and he is counting on us choosing comfort over freedom and prosperity.
Iran knows our midterm elections are just around the corner. They are counting on us to fold. They are surreptitiously working to convince us to vote for the Democrats and hand them both houses of Congress. Iran knows that if that happens, the American focus will switch at breakneck speed to meaningless impeachments over the next two years and shifting our focus from them. The tyrannical, theocratic government of Iran’s survival is in the hands of the American voter. Apathy and exhaustion are the only weapons they have left. If you could give your children world peace and an economic future beyond anything you can imagine, for the low, low cost of $4.50 gasoline for the next few months, wouldn’t you do it? I know I would.
Sean P. Keenan is a retired U.S. Marine Corps Major and has a Bachelor of Arts in Government with a focus on Foreign Policy from Campell University, a graduate of the Marine Corps Expeditionary Warfare School, the Marine Corps Command and Staff College and has a Juris Doctorate from The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C.
