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TAKE THE OIL Cartoon published 04/06/2026 I graduated from college after a summer semester and I was almost immediately offered a full-time graphic artist job at the local newspaper. By the fall, the Iranians had taken 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage and I drew a series of cartoons that appeared at the top of the paper’s nameplate. They were drawn to support the return of the hostages. I remember one cartoon I penned featured the paper’s mascot, a west-Texas fighting rooster. He was lifting up Ruhollah Khomeini’s black turban up off his head, and bats were flying out. It was correct back then and correct today. The mullahs behind the theocracy in Iran are batty. By storming the American embassy and snatching American citizens, Iran committed an act of war—and they declared it loudly. I can still hear their repeated chants of “Marg bar Carter, marg bar Shah!” Translated, it means “Death to Carter, death to Shah.” Sometimes they would also chant “Death to America.” Along the way, they began talking about the complete destruction of Israel. Israel is a lot closer, and so it was easy for Iran to fund proxy militia groups to attack the Jewish state. A weak Jimmy Carter should have stood up for the Shah, who was trying to modernize Iran. We at GrrrGraphics definitely didn’t want to see another war started—even though John McCain and Lindsey Graham kept demanding one. Still, the war against Iran has already been ongoing since 1979. Before he was elected, Trump stated he would not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. His predecessors—Obama and Biden—both shoveled money at Iran in attempt to placate the mullahs in charge and of course it failed miserably. In fact, nothing will work to stop the death-obsessed religious fanatics still running Iran. Perhaps Trump thought he could use his ‘art of the deal’ tactics with them, and now he’s exasperated because they can’t be reasoned with because they really are batty. They killed 30K of their own people without reservation and they wouldn’t hesitate to kill millions in Israel and America. In fact, their warped religious ideology demands it. Attacking the power structure in Iran is difficult because it’s a huge, mountainous country. The theocracy has spent the country’s oil fortune on deep caverns carved out below those mountains, while Iranian citizens run out of food and water. Each underground base has missiles and weapons—along with independent energy generation and plenty of supplies. Iran’s top leaders may be gone, but there are plenty left to launch missiles toward Israel and neighboring countries. The mullahs have a decentralized defense and they also get support from Russia, China, and maybe even North Korea. The war could drag on for a long time. Let’s hope there are no US boots on the ground. Once the US is victorious, we need to get paid back with Iran’s oil—but most of that oil money should go to the people of Iran once they have reasonable leadership. None of that oil money should be spent on weapons of mass destruction. — Ben Garrison