ROANOKE, Va. – Ed Lynch, Roanoke political analyst and professor of political science at Hollins University, weighs in after strikes were carried out in Iran by the U.S. and Israel Saturday morning.
“Well after weeks of preparation, weeks of talks, weeks of basically stonewalling by the Iranians, the United States and Israel have launched a series of major attacks on Iran and other specific targets in Iran. The goal here is to try to decapitate the regime, to kill its most important leaders, and the hope that the Iranian people will then be able to rise up, overthrow this horrible government and move onto something better.”
Lynch said the campaign could last a while.
“This could go on for sometime, this could be a weeks long campaign by the United States, Israel and anyone else who might want to join in. And the goal again is going to try to destroy enough of that regime’s infrastructure, the defense headquarters, the terrorist headquarters, the leadership that the Iranian people have that opportunity to overthrow that regime that’s been oppressing them for 47 years and get out from under it.”
He described the operation as high risk with potentially high reward.
“This is a very very high risk but potentially very very high gain operation. The risks are that the united states will get involved in a boots on the ground sort of war in Iran, nobody wants that, I think least of all President Trump. The gain would be sort of terrorists headquarters for the world wouldn’t be there anymore.”
Lynch placed recent events in a longer historical context.
“We’ve been leading up to this since the hostage crisis in 1979 in some ways. Iran has been implacably hostile towards the United States, they’ve been chanting ‘Death to America’ for about 47 years. They are responsible for hundreds of deaths and injuries of American soldiers in Iraq when that war was going on.”
He noted recent Iranian protests and U.S. encouragement.
“Now in recent weeks, Iranians have risen up in huge numbers to protest against this regime. The United States government under President Trump has been encouraging that and in fact, he famously said help is on the way and I think today’s attack is what he was referring to.”
Lynch urged clarity in U.S. planning.
“I think the planning for these attacks have probably been going on for some time. What I hope is that the administration had decided on two things, number one, what exactly is the mission? Is the mission to destroy Iran’s offensive capabilities, they’re nuclear sites, they’re missile sites? Is the mission regime change? Those are two very different missions. And I hope they also decided what they’re going to do when Iran strikes back because they will, they’ve already tried. They will and that can escalate things. If you’ve planned for that, that doesn’t have to happen.”
Virginia lawmakers also voiced their opinions on the strikes, which you can find here.