Month: April 2026

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Iran: What’s Going On Over There?

It’s time for another Iran update. I think a lot of people expected this whole thing to be done by now. While I understand that, it’s important to remember that we’ve completely upended a major regional power’s leadership and hamstrung its military capability. We can’t even say for sure what the nation’s leadership structure looks like right now. In many cases, the Iranians probably don’t even know. Using terms like “bogged down” and “quagmire” is a little premature when it hasn’t even been 60 days. (We spent about 10 years of direct combat in Vietnam and then 20 years in Afghanistan.)

When your nation’s leadership has been decapitated, there’s going to be a struggle between multiple entities to fill that vacuum. I’m sure everyone over there was initially filled with fury and rage, but that emotion settles down a lot faster for some than it does for others. Unfortunately, in Iran, those who propose discussions with the U.S. are probably seen as weak or lacking resolve, and are marginalized as much as possible. Those people need to somehow prevail within the rubble of their own government if we’re going to talk with them, otherwise the only people left are the violent hardliners.

On top of that, the country has prepared for this. Iran’s always known it can’t stand toe-to-toe with the U.S. and win a direct military confrontation. What it’s done instead is prepare to inflict as much pain as possible in a variety of ways. Its three main pillars of “sticking it to the West” are the use of proxies, employing decentralized execution, and exploiting the Strait of Hormuz.

First we’ll look at the proxies. Up until recently, Iran was the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. The Iranian Government wasn’t willing to start wars with the U.S. or Israel, but it funded and supplied organizations willing to use guerilla tactics against Israel and the United States. If you follow the money, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are all heavily supported by Iran. All three of those groups have committed acts of violence against the U.S. and/or Israel. Israel is geographically closer to the area, so it’s had to deal with that type of violence (and incoming ballistic missiles) much more extensively than we have here in the States. (I’d liken it to Israel living in a pretty rough neighborhood; not only does it have a shotgun and a pistol at home, it carries a blackjack, a shiv, and brass knuckles, and goes out looking for ways to send a message.) Iran’s backing of proxy groups allows it to inflict pain on its enemies without directly engaging them.

Iran also uses decentralized execution. Since its government knew its power was concentrated in a small number of officials at the top, it prepared itself for the possibility of a decapitation strike. In the event its top leadership was to ever be removed, it probably had standing orders to implement wartime plans. Iran’s long known it needed to fight on two fronts: external threats (militaries from other nations) and internal threats (an uprising among the Iranian people). To address the exterior threat, it formed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC), more or less the elite branch of the military sworn to protect the Ayatollah and the Theocracy. For the internal threat, the Basij (think “secret police”) keep the people living in fear, putting down protests, arresting opposition members, executing protesters, etc. These two groups have both been taught to carry on even if their leadership is killed or otherwise removed from their positions. That’s what we’ve seen since the start of the war; the U.S./Israel coalition took out many of Iran’s rocket launchers and drone launchers, but the lower-level Iranian commanders got smart about how to use the stuff they still had left. When they launched attacks immediately before the cease fire, they used “shoot and scoot” tactics which make it tough for us to eliminate that equipment. While no longer effective at scale, they’re doing about as good a job as they can shooting at foreign targets without having a command structure. Similarly, Iran’s citizens have a hard time organizing an effective uprising when they have no phone or internet connections and there’s essentially a neighborhood watch keeping an eye on them, reporting the formation of opposition groups.

And finally, there’s the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian Government is militarily weak right now, but it’s not stupid. The Strait of Hormuz is its major remaining piece of leverage, and it’s a big one. It knows that once it gives up that leverage, it has almost no bargaining chips left. Iran’s leadership doesn’t have to worry about polling, but it knows politicians here in the U.S. do. Whoever’s in charge over there knows that if they can drag things out long enough, our own political will to continue the conflict will die. This wasn’t a war the American people were ever clamoring for; we just woke up one day and found we were in this conflict. Accordingly, it will take less time for Americans to truly sour on the war. The current Iranian Government knows it can’t win, but if it can just hang on long enough for Americans to demand an end to the conflict, it will walk away from it with more favorable circumstances than if it gave up control of the Strait right away. Four dollar a gallon gasoline is painful for Americans, and when it persists, those prices start showing up in a lot more areas of the economy than simply at the gas pump. The longer this goes, the worse it’s going to get for the party in power here in the States. Iran’s Government knows that, and will likely drag out its resistance as long as possible to affect public opinion and thus pressure American politicians. The hope would be the U.S. offers more and larger concessions to sweeten the pot for the sake of ending the conflict sooner.

We gave the Iranian people the opportunity to rise up and overthrow their government. As near as we can tell, they haven’t taken it. We can try to create the conditions that would be ripe for an uprising, but we can’t force them to take action. The ideal scenario would be to have the people rise up against their leaders, overthrow the Basij and the IRGC, and work with the United States to set up a new government that works to become a productive member of the international community. That does not appear to be an imminent possibility, however, so we’re stuck negotiating with the remnants of the last government.

Americans and the news media are largely impatient with this whole endeavor. What the public needs to understand is that when you’re working on something as significant as the dismantlement of the world’s chief sponsor of terror and permanent reduction of risk in the Strait of Hormuz, it’s something worth patience and being willing to take the time to get right, rather than rushing to get a hasty and incomplete settlement. Whoever’s representing Iran at the negotiations may not even have full control over what all the IRGC and Basij commanders are doing, so it’s perfectly understandable (though less and less tolerable) if small numbers of one-way drone or missile launches take place.

Hang in there. The problem’s being worked, but don’t be surprised when the President doesn’t fully inform the news media of his negotiation strategy. If they know, Iran knows.

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Dude, They Made You Eat WHAT?!

I wrote previously about our college dorm’s “Olympics.” We came up with a variety of events and pitted our dorm’s four floors against one another in a stunning display of mindless testosterone to help build camaraderie and rapport within the various floors.

One of the events we did was pretty gross. We made four equal lines of dudes (one for each floor), and at the front of the line stood a judge who held a bag. Inside that bag was a collection of various nasty foods. I don’t remember what was in it except that it was the most vile collection of foods our dorm council president could find. Everything in the bag was actual food (it wasn’t mud or anything inedible, for example), but it was like, pickled squid and hot peppers and other gross stuff. There might have been something pretty benign (but difficult to eat quickly) like a large pack of saltine crackers or something similar.

Each competitor had to reach into the bag, grab an item, and eat whatever he pulled out. Upon demonstrating to the bag-holder that he had swallowed his food, he got out of the way and the next guy in line moved up and took a turn. All four bags held identical contents. The first team to get through all their items took first place, the second team took second, and so on.

You would not believe the competitive spirit displayed at this event. Dudes took it like champs. I think some guys were shoving stuff in their mouths before they even fully understood what it was. They were simply too dedicated to their goal to be bothered by the disgusting details. It was a different story afterwards; after they’d finished their turn, some guys made their way over to the tree line and tried not to toss their cookies. I’m not really sure what level of success they had.

It’s a little bit of a strange illustration, but it’s analogous to the erroneous pseudo-Christian doctrines some people follow. They think just because a group has “Jesus” in its name or has Him featured prominently, it must be righteous and worthwhile. It’s very important to question things and not just “swallow” all a given group’s beliefs without thinking them through. There are a few non-negotiable things (Jesus Christ is the one and only Son of God, both fully God and fully man, He died as a perfect sacrifice on our behalf to satisfy God’s wrath toward our imperfection, we cannot “earn” our way to Heaven or reach the same level as Christ, there are no essential books other than what’s contained in the Old and New Testaments), but there’s a lot of freedom outside of those.

Some people mistakenly believe some of those non-negotiable items are flexible as long as there’s a reasonable substitute. They’ll add some kind of required practice or instruction that seems holy or reverential, but they’ve actually sacrificed accuracy. When eternity is on the line, accuracy isn’t something you want to fudge. False teachers don’t announce themselves; you have to do some of your own investigation.

If you’ve recently begun attending a new church, ask yourself what it believes about these things. A group of people can be nice, upstanding citizens and still completely miss the mark on essential Christian doctrine. The devil is very familiar with our human nature, and knows it’s easy for us to replace a meaningful relationship with mindless practices or rote repetition. Diverting an earnest follower by steering them toward something that doesn’t matter is a great way to rob Heaven of souls. Don’t fall for it.

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Don’t Look at me in That Tone of Voice

I wouldn’t say I grew up in the boonies, but I could almost see the boonies from my house. Pennsylvania is pretty much known for Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, but there’s a whole lot of nothing filling up the rest of the Commonwealth.

The roads of our development were too small for a school bus to navigate, so the bus stop for our neighborhood was in the parking lot of a nearby church where the bus would be able to turn around. On inclement weather days, there would usually be a few different cars in the parking lot that we’d all pile into, and we’d listen to the radio to see if our school was closed.

Back when I was in middle school and high school people shared information differently. When there was bad weather during the winter, dial-up internet was the order of the day, and if there were websites for individual school districts, they weren’t updated daily. When all the families of the neighborhood wanted to find out if school was closed, having a delay, or operating on schedule, we tuned in to a couple of select radio stations.

One of the DJs we listened to went by the moniker “Gary in the Morning.” Gary’s radio station had a broad listening area, so if there were a lot of school districts affected, his lists could take awhile. First he’d read the alphabetical list of one-hour delays. Then he’d go through the schools operating on a two-hour delay. Finally he’d go through the list of schools that were closed that day. If our school wasn’t on any of the lists, it meant we were running on a normal schedule. (And if it wasn’t on any of the lists, we sat there in disbelief, arguing that there had to be some mistake…until the school bus showed up.) At any rate, we were all familiar with Gary in the Morning’s voice.

Due to the lack of dentists in the semi-boonies, sometimes it was necessary to drive a bit to get to one. For awhile, I went to a dentist whose office was very near the radio station where Gary in the Morning worked. I think I was vaguely aware that the station was nearby, but wouldn’t have even recognized him if he came in and sat down next to me in the waiting room.

There was one day at the dentist, however, where I didn’t need to see him. I was lying in the dentist’s chair, with the dentist doing his thing and the bright light in my face, when I heard a familiar voice talking to the receptionist out front. “No, it couldn’t be…” He kept talking, though, and yeah, that sounded just like Gary. Like a total buffoon, with dentist fingers and tools still in my mouth, I mumbled “Is that Gary in the Morning?”

The dentist, fluent in understanding people with this speech condition, came back with “It sure is! You want to meet him?” I don’t remember what I said, but the dentist gave a shout out to the front, and it wasn’t long before Gary came walking into the area where I was having my teeth cleaned. I was at an obvious disadvantage, but Gary was very nice. He shook my hand and told me I had beautiful teeth, which probably wasn’t true but what else are you going to say to a total stranger who’s in the dentist’s chair and is excited to meet you? I don’t remember what he looked like, but it was a fun little interaction with a local celebrity.

In the New Testament book of John, chapter 10 spends a lot of time covering Jesus’ description of himself as the “good shepherd.” Back in those days it was common to have flocks spend the night in pens, so they’d be easier to consolidate, keep track of, and protect from predators overnight. In the mornings when it was time to get them out of the pen, contrary to the methods of western shepherds, the shepherds of bible times did not drive their sheep, but instead called them out of the pen.

3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice. –John 10:3-5

For this method to work, the sheep have to be familiar with the shepherd’s voice. The shepherd is talking quite often, but the sheep need to be listening to the voice, tuning in and becoming familiar with the voice of the one they trust. We (Christ-followers), of course, are the sheep, and Christ is the Shepherd. He’s ever calling us, and is always aware of where we are, and the dangers we face, even if we’re oblivious to them.

Spending time in the Bible and in prayer, dwelling on the things of God, and avoiding things we know to be detrimental to our Christian walk are all ways we become more familiar with our Shepherd’s voice. He doesn’t shout; He calls. There are plenty of ways His voice can be drowned out, so we need to be listening for it.

Let’s be sure to pay attention to the Lord’s voice. His sheep are familiar with it, and will follow it even when things don’t quite make sense. Trusting the Shepherd enables us to simplify the conflicting things our own senses are telling us, and leads to the safety He’s got in mind.

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.

He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for the sake of His name.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

-Psalm 23

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I’ve had Some Weird Illustrations Before, but This Time…

Years ago I worked in the Air Force in a place that was manned 24/7. People were there at all hours of the day and night. One time as I reported to work to start my shift, there was a guy who I’d seen countless times before, but there was something different this time. He looked somehow…creepier.

It took me a minute to figure out what it was, especially in the dim lighting of his computer screen. I finally realized that the dude no longer had any eyebrows. It turns out he had been trimming them and I guess he wasn’t paying attention and didn’t realize he had removed the guard without putting another one on. He didn’t realize his mistake until he had already buzzed off one of his eyebrows.

That wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was deciding that it would look too weird to go anywhere with one eyebrow normal and the other one like this, and that he needed to do the same thing to the other one. By the time he came in to work, he looked like somebody you’d tell your niece and nephew to stay away from.

In the Bible you may have seen the term “the law and the prophets.” This term collectively signifies the importance of the Old Testament’s authoritative scriptures, both from the legal code of behavior Moses first introduced, along with the transformative messages from God’s various prophets. The phrase represents the core of God’s revealed instructions and moral standards.

The law represented God’s standard. The law is not meant to provide salvation; it’s meant to provide guidance and illustrate how impossible it is to fulfill each and every commandment God provides. Jesus is the only one to live a life without violating any of God’s laws.

The prophets refer to sections of scripture providing narrative history, divine judgment, warnings, calls for repentance, and prophecies of hope and restoration. It’s the story of Israel’s history, along with what the future holds for those who follow the Lord.

The Law reveals divine standards of righteousness, and the Prophets repeatedly give notice to Messiah’s salvation. They’re important to take together, hand in hand, like a single set of eyebrows. One without the other loses significance. Having only one of the two might not look as ridiculous as only having one eyebrow, but it would lose much of the power and sense of completion when compared to having both of them. The pairing is so important that it was even represented during the Transfiguration when Jesus met with Moses (representing the law) and Elijah (representing the prophets).

Jesus claimed that He came not to abolish the “Law and the Prophets” but to fulfill them. His life and teachings fulfill the prophecies found in the Old Testament Scriptures.

That ties in directly to what we’re celebrating this weekend. Jesus’ perfect adherence to the law means He is the only one to fulfill the messianic prophecies and be eligible to serve as an unblemished sacrifice. Only a perfect sacrifice could meet God’s standards, and thus cover a multitude of sins.

So this Easter, give thanks to the Lord for His plan and sacrifice for you and your loved ones. It’s that arrangement that allows your access to Him. Happy Easter!