Unfortunately, Iran made a bad choice on April 13. It launched over 300 drones and missiles at Israel, a U.S. defense ally. This is the latest in a series of Iranian attacks, including via its terrorist organization, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and its other terrorist proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen.
Disastrously, the ruling mullahs in Tehran appear to have replaced the judicious ethics required to steward the great Persian civilization with a hubristic spoiling for a fight and the wrong opponents.
This is odd, given its demonstrated lack of relative military power. On the night of the most recent attack, almost all of its missiles and drones succumbed to U.S., Israeli, British, Jordanian, and Saudi defenses and intelligence. But when considering the lack of popularity of the mullahs and their desperate need to launch wars to stay in power through the “rally-round-the-flag” effect, their long-term self-defeat can be explained by their short-term desperation. During wars, most people in any country would stop criticizing their own government and start focusing on the external adversary.
The United States is obligated by treaty to assist Israel in its self-defense. After the events of April 13, Israel is fully within its rights, according to international law, to respond with overwhelming force against Iranian military targets. However, under pressure from Israel’s international partners, Jerusalem is now reportedly planning only a moderate retaliation that will, honorably and as to be expected, avoid loss of life and be acceptable to Washington.
The mullahs and their proxies were not so conscientious. In their recent attack, as on Oct. 7, 2023, they targeted civilians. The democracies and the Saudis came to the rescue and defeated the swarm on April 13. But next time, it might be nuclear. We might not be so lucky.
The communists in Beijing and Pyongyang perceive their immediate interest in the Middle East to be profit from arms deals and the simultaneous erosion of the strength and resolve of the United States and its allies. The U.S. military had already dashed itself against the ramparts of Iraq and Afghanistan. Adding Iran and Ukraine to the mix will give the avaricious Chinese Communist Party yet more time to build its strength for the conquest of territory from India, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan. If the United States and Europe allow this process to proceed, all of these former partners could be vanquished one after the other, occupied, their human and natural resources exploited, and their economies and militaries used against us.
So we are at a moment of truth. Do we hit back now, or continue to see our defenses and allies weakened, making it harder to win any future fight? So far, with our leaders calling on Israel to hold its punches rather than standing solidly behind what Jerusalem decides to do, we again appear to be a fair-weather friend, and so soon after doing the minimum necessary for Ukraine, Taiwan, and the Philippines.
Iran is even claiming victory. They shot a fraction of their missiles, and we showed our weak hand by unsustainably shooting down the adversary’s cheap missiles with our expensive ones. Calling this a victory for Israel is just self-serving propaganda. The reality is that Israel is under attack, and its allies are flinching. Iran has only used a fraction of its arsenal and is threatening to use the rest.
Sometimes, the best defense is a good offense. Demanding that Israel turn the other cheek is hypocritical, some argue, as Washington would not do the same. If Iran launched over 300 missiles at the U.S. mainland, one can be sure there would be that and more going the other direction the next day. But such calls for “peace” following “axis of evil” attacks demonstrate a historical pattern of comfortable elites at the center of large alliance systems and empires calling on their outlying territories and allies to deescalate, accommodate, appease, and act calmly in the face of their adversaries’ murderous and often racist violence. Appeasement buys time for good times at the center. Not so, at the periphery.
NATO allies are not only asking Israel to hold its punches—they have long asked Ukraine to do so as well. In both cases, this supposedly mitigates the risk of escalation and proves to ourselves that our side is the side of good. However, the other side interprets it as a weakness that should be exploited. That undermines deterrence, invites further and much more powerful attacks in the future, and counterintuitively increases the risk of escalation.
If Iran gets a hypersonic nuclear weapon, such risks are unacceptable. Iranian nukes are existential threats to the state of Israel and arguably to many U.S. cities, if not to the United States as a whole. If three Iranian nuclear bombs exploded over three U.S. cities, we might just call it a day in our fight to preserve democracy globally. Our economy would be so destroyed that we would have little money left over to fund our global military presence. Without it, the barbarians would be at the gates.
Iran and its proxies consider both the United States and Israel to be evil. They want us destroyed. They are not ashamed to say so, with the Houthi flag, for example, emblazoned with the slogan, “God Is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam.”
Iran and its axis partners support the destruction of the U.S.-led international order that has barely kept the world from nuclear war since 1945. Tehran and its friends wrongly believe it will bring them more freedom. In fact, it will cause international and civil wars like the world has never seen. With so many nuclear weapons around, and their loss and sale during the chaos to criminals and terrorists, no city will be saved from destruction or slavery.
The West is now asking Israel to ignore its self-defense instincts and hold its punches despite the Jewish people facing yet another existential threat. Including this latest round of Iranian-led attacks, Israel, since 1945, has already fought about 20 wars and other military operations in self-defense. This is less than a century after the Nazis were defeated.
Israeli self-defense against Iran could now legally include the targeting of Iran’s weapons factories, including those that produce the Shahed drone that continues to wreak so much devastation in Ukraine.
Israel could hit Iran’s nuclear weapons development facilities, pushing back its first test by a year or more. With U.S. technology, including bunker-buster bombs and missiles that fly into and destroy cave complexes, perhaps Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program, some of which is hidden under its mountains, could be destroyed. A no-fly zone could be imposed on all of Iran indefinitely until it agrees to democratize.
Israel, the United States, and our allies need to think outside the box. Another opportunity like this may not rise again before Iran gets a nuclear weapon and makes such preemption impossible. Now is the hour. The iron is hot.
We want to prove that we are the nice guys, but when faced with the wrong end of a gun, nice guys also have a right to self-defense. If they don’t take it, they cease to be nice guys. They become dead guys.
