TIME IS RUNNING OUT: Massive U.S. attack on Iran “could happen very quickly,” Amb. Huckabee tells ALL ISRAEL NEWS — adds President Trump wants “peaceful resolution” but says “we should be prepared for anything”
Ambassador: Trump is “deeply affected” by evidence of thousands of Iranians being murdered by the regime in Tehran
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL — Does President Donald J. Trump’s point man in Israel believe the Iranian regime is ready to make major concessions rather than go to war?
“Joel, there’s a saying we use down South,” Ambassador Mike Huckabee told me. “It says, ‘There is no education in the second kick of a mule.’”
“Last summer was a kick of the mule,” Huckabee added.
“I mean, Iran got one right in the face. If they didn’t learn anything from that, it’s probably not likely they’re going to learn something from the second kick of the mule.”
Amid Trump’s dire warnings — and so much American firepower amassing against Iran in the region — I sat down with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to better understand the president’s intentions and timetable.
A massive American attack “could happen very quickly,” Huckabee told me.
He noted that the president wants a “very peaceful resolution.”
However, Huckabee said that based on everything Trump is doing and saying, “we should be prepared for anything.”
The president is “deeply affected” by growing evidence that the regime in Tehran has murdered thousands of peaceful Iranians.
Huckabee didn’t confirm public reports of the death toll being upwards of 34,000 or more.
But he did concede that it may be much higher than most people realize.
My conversation with Huckabee aired last night on THE ROSENBERG REPORT, my weekly, 30-minute, prime-time news and analysis program on TBN, the most-watched Christian TV network in the United States.
“TIME IS RUNNING OUT”: TRUMP WARNS TEHRAN TO MAKE A DEAL QUICKLY OR FACE AMERICAN WRATH FAR WORSE THAN LAST JUNE
“A massive armada is heading to Iran,” Trump declared on social media Friday.
“It is moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose.”
The commander in chief noted that “it is a larger fleet, headed by the great aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, than that sent to Venezuela. It is ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission with speed and violence, if necessary.”
Trump urged Tehran to “quickly come to the table” and “negotiate a fair and equitable deal,” one that is “good for all parties.”
“Time is running out,” Trump warned.
If Iran doesn’t move fast on a serious deal, “the next attack will be far worse” than Operation Midnight Hammer last June.
BRACING FOR WAR
As Israelis enter the Sabbath, everyone here — and throughout the region — is bracing for war.
All evidence suggests President Donald J. Trump is preparing to order a massive attack on the Iranian regime.
Major airlines continue canceling flights.
The Pentagon continues to move an enormous amount of American weaponry and military personnel into the epicenter.
Anti-missile batteries are being set up in Israel, Jordan, and the Gulf region.
Sources tell me that if Trump gives the order, he is likely to target Iran’s remaining nuclear and ballistic-missile capabilities.
He may also target Tehran’s security and paramilitary forces that have been slaughtering upwards of 30,000 Iranian protesters or more.
Trump is also being urged by some confidants to attack Iran’s major oil facilities.
The following is a portion of the transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity.
ROSENBERG: How close are we to an actual US strike on Iran? I want to just lay out what I laid out on the show last week. I said to people, look, I guess there are three major options.
One: President Trump has talked tough, but he could do nothing for a variety of risk assessments, or he could negotiate with Iran or whatever. That's possible: do nothing.
Two: The other possibility is a large but limited attack that would punish the Iranian regime but not explicitly try to topple it, and then see what happens.
Three: The third would be [for President Trump] to go all-in and explicitly declare, "We're going to keep attacking until this regime falls." Messy. Expensive. Complicated. And there's a high risk of it being devastating but not really working.
So what should Christian viewers — what should American viewers — what should Israelis be thinking? Because we're all sensing any moment this thing could erupt between the United States and Iran, and Israel could take a retaliatory strike or many.
AMBASSADOR MIKE HUCKABEE: I think it's fair to say something could happen very quickly. But it's also even more fair to say it may not happen quickly [or] immediately. We just don't know. There is concern that Iran might decide to do some strike preemptively against Israel or against the US forces in the Gulf. We have a number of facilities, as you know, throughout the Gulf states, and those are very, very significant and important.
ROSENBERG: UAE and Bahrain, among others.
AMBASSADOR MIKE HUCKABEE: Saudi Arabia, too. We have a number of military bases and significant assets. So are they going to try to strike there, forcing us? We don't know.
Here's what I think. It's fair to say, "We should be prepared for anything, but we should not be afraid of anything." We should look at this as we live in a part of the world where, on any given day, something could happen that we were not expecting. And I would say that only the President of the United States knows what he will do. Nobody else has the absolute word. If I were to speculate and say, "Joel, here's what I think is going to happen — here's how I see it laying out in the calendar," I would be making it up. I don't know; the president and the president alone would be able to answer that question, and he has not authorized me.
ROSENBERG: The president may not have decided yet. Or he may have decided and you don't know and other people don't know — or they're not supposed to say. But it's also possible that he is still assessing. He is putting everything in place and then trying to see, sort of, "What is the right thing to do?"
One of the questions we have discussed here on the show is if the President is to go all in and say, "I'm bringing down this regime," can you do it with air power alone? If you take out the top 5,000 worst people in Iran, there are 50,000 other [evil people] happy to take over the regime. And you may not get a Reza Pahlavi, a moderate, or somebody else like him. So those are risks.
My instinct is that he's considering this large but limited strike and then, you know, to say, "I punished you. I told you, don't do it [murder thousands of protesters]. You did it."
But take us inside the thinking. Because the president has said he'll come to the rescue. He said, "Help is on the way." And day after day is going by. So those who are skeptics or those who are on the ground in Iran, they're getting anxious.
AMBASSADOR MIKE HUCKABEE: Joel, there's a saying we use down South, and it says, "There is no education in the second kick of a mule." Last summer was a kick of the mule. I mean, Iran got one right in the face. If they didn't learn anything from that, it's probably not likely they're going to learn something from the second kick of the mule.
President Trump has made it very clear that Iran cannot continue to murder its own people. We don't know just how extensive [the murders have been]. We know that it's probably worse than we think it is because they're very careful about hiding the realities of the violence they're committing against their own people. And the numbers that we know are disturbing. And the manner in which these people are being killed for their protest is very disturbing. The president does not take that lightly.
What I can say with certainty is not about, "What will he do? When will he do it?" Here's what I can tell you. It deeply affects him that innocent people [are being killed] who are simply protesting an evil regime that has destroyed what once was a masterful, delightful culture. He's very attentive to that.
Would he like to see all of this resolved in some very peaceful resolution? Absolutely. The one thing that people may not fully understand or appreciate about President Trump is that for him, military action is not the first resort. It's not the thing he wants to do first. It's the thing he wants to do last. But it's also the thing that he is willing to do when efforts of diplomacy and negotiation don't work.
Joel C. Rosenberg is the editor-in-chief of ALL ISRAEL NEWS and ALL ARAB NEWS and the President and CEO of Near East Media. A New York Times best-selling author, Middle East analyst, and Evangelical leader, he lives in Jerusalem with his wife and sons.
