- Often lost in the media frenzy is the fact that Iran, unprovoked, initiated hostilities against Israel. The seeming dispute was not about territory, policy or any disagreement that states normally have. It was about ideology. Since its establishment nearly five decades ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies have waged a war against Israel and the United States, calling for their destruction. From their point of view, neither country, as “unbelievers,” has a right to exist. Full stop.
- No other issue, domestic or foreign, was as consistent, prioritized or systematically pursued as Tehran’s hostility toward Israel, the country blocking its way to destroying the United States. To that end, Iran spent decades preparing “forward bases” across the Middle East and in South America, especially Venezuela.
- Then US President Barack Obama’s JCPOA “nuclear deal” failed to address the fundamental nuclear threat from Iran, and focused on temporary technical limits while ignoring the regime’s long-term ambitions. Obama actually agreed to a “sunset clause” that would have allowed Iran legitimately to have as many nuclear weapons as could get, starting in October 2025.
- The Biden administration unfortunately repeated Obama’s errors., perhaps under the illusion that if it were nice to Iran, Iran would be nice back. Instead, Iran seized on its good luck to escalate its uranium enrichment to 60% by April 2021 and to 83.7%, near weapons-grade, in 2023.
- In his first term, President Donald Trump wisely pulled the U.S. out of Obama’s deal – which, it turned out, had not only been fraudulent but totally illegitimate.
- Does the world really want a terrorist state to have nuclear weapons? If you look at the damage Iran has been doing without nuclear weapons, imagine the damage it could do with them. A nuclear-armed, ideology-driven Islamist regime threatens everyone. Right now, Israel is on the front line doing what others –whose lives and countries Israel is saving — criticize it for doing. Israel’s actions are not about starting a war; they are about stopping a war that has been underway for 46 years, before the theocratic tyranny that initiated it can enlarge it further.
- Netanyahu and Trump’s resolve is not only creating the opportunity for a new, golden age for the Middle East but possibly also providing a deterrent — remember deterrence? — to other enemies of the West that have expressed wishes for its demise.
- Trump’s Churchillian defense of the Free World will place him at the forefront of history. Both he and Netanyahu — as well as the extraordinary Israeli military — deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for rescuing the world from one of the most toxic regimes since the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Failure by the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award them the prize would tell us more about them than about one of the greatest triumphs for freedom of all time.
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