Stop Our Barbarian Boxer Foreign Policy Will we wait until Iran’s proxies strike again? by Bruce Thornton
https://www.frontpagemag.com/stop-our-barbarian-boxer-foreign-policy/
The great 4th century B.C. orator Demosthenes, scolding the Athenians for their passive response to Phillip of Macedon’s escalating aggression, said, “You carry on war with Phillip exactly as a barbarian boxes. The barbarian, when struck, always clutches the place; hit him on the other side, and there go his hands. He neither knows nor cares how to parry a blow, or how to watch his adversary.”
Demosthenes’ point was that an enemy must be preempted by anticipating where his next attack will likely come, rather than merely reacting to it––a mistake that for too long has marred our foreign policy.
The news that the Biden administration had ordered nearly a dozen air-defense systems to the Middle East to protect American forces there, made me think of Demosthenes’ simile, and the similar mistakes we are making in dealing both with Hamas’ atrocities against Israel, and with more than four decades of aggression against us by Iran, the world’s most deadly state-supporter of terrorism.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “The U.S. is scrambling to deploy nearly a dozen air-defense systems to countries across the Middle East ahead of Israel’s expected land invasion of Gaza, deploying missile launchers to Iraq, Syria and the Gulf, U.S. officials said. The Pentagon is sending a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, to Saudi Arabia, and Patriot surface-to-air missile systems to Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.”
This decision follows recent drone attacks against our soldiers in Iraq and Syria, killing one contractor and wounding 24 servicemen. Iranian clients and proxies like the Houthi in Yemen are likely behind the attacks, which the Department of Defense expects to escalate: “What we are seeing is the prospect for more significant escalation against U.S. forces and personnel across the region in the very near-term coming from Iranian proxy forces and ultimately from Iran.”
And if that happens, don’t worry: the U.S. will be “responding decisively.” Does anyone believe that the Mullahs in Iran are frightened by this flaccid threat? The Biden administration has been courting them for over two years to rejoin the nuclear deal, and bribing them with billions of dollars that Iran has used to arm the jihadists now firing missiles at our soldiers.
This halting, piecemeal response to aggression by the Biden administration epitomizes the illusory “kinder, gentler” war-making that typifies the West these days. The reaction to Iran’s proxies attacking U.S. forces in the region exemplifies this dangerous reticence. For example, why have we waited until now, and have to “scramble” to beef up our defenses of those force? We’ve known from the regime’s beginning Iran’s intentions when it declared war against our nation. And we know that they have armed proxies in order to prosecute that war at every opportunity. If we are not going to make Iran pay for its mischief and murder, at least we can defend our troops better before they come under attack.
But not even the moral hazard of future risks to our soldiers’ lives from our inaction and Biden’s “Don’t” bluster, has spurred us to anticipate the enemy’s moves in waging its declared war against us, and to preempt their attacks. When it comes to Iran, though, multiple acts of aggression have been appeased for years, starting in 1979 with the kidnapping of our diplomatic staff in Tehran during the revolution, who were returned only after Jimmy Carter paid Khomeini millions in Danegeld to get them back.
But as Kipling said, once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane. The kidnapping of Americans has become Iran’s go-to tactic for acquiring funds––six billion in the latest hostage-ransom payola––and for humiliating the most powerful military in world history.
During the Obama presidency, for example, Americans unlawfully detained by Iran on flimsy charges, were exchanged for seven Iranians indicted or convicted for stealing military related technology. Adding insult to injury, Obama also wired the Mullahs $1.7 billion of Iranian funds impounded during the 1979 revolution––a down payment on the $100-150 billion promised to Iran as part of the nuclear deal. Not a dime was recovered of the some $45 billion in civil judgments awarded to Americans for damages suffered from Iranian-sponsored terrorism.
This bad habit of paying Iran to punch us in the face, moreover, has been a bipartisan one. The Reagan administration undertook the disastrous arms-for-hostages operation in 1985-86. What came to be known as “Iran-Contra” involved ransoming three American hostages––the fourth was tortured to death–– held by Iranian proxies in Lebanon, by selling Iran over 2,000 TOW anti-tank missiles and 100 HAWK anti-aircraft missiles, in violation of an arms embargo on Iran. The three hostages were released––but then were immediately replaced by three other kidnapped Americans.
So the U.S. for decades has failed not only to anticipate such blows to our prestige and interests, but also failed to counter-punch with enough force to deter further kidnappings––at the same time providing funds that a sworn enemy will use not just to attack our interests and security, but to build nuclear weapons that will make them virtually untouchable.
Why do we make such blunders? These irresponsible foreign policy moves reflect some timeless truths about governments that are accountable to voters. Given the power of the vote, citizens prefer to spend funds on butter rather than guns, and will punish politicians who ignore their preferences. Moreover, the so-called “peace dividend” that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in the Nineties encouraged stinting military preparedness, and instead binging on spending for more entitlements and shiny new toys like cancelling student-loans debt, or virtue-signaling “zero net-carbon” subsidies.
This ancient bad habit, moreover, is empowered by another one: the difficulty citizens and their representatives have in identifying future threats and taking measures to neutralize them. Our short political attention span rarely go beyond the next election cycle, making sure that our immediate concerns about taxes or the economy will take precedence over the more distant consequences of neglecting and failing to punish threats and aggression. Alleviating today’s discomfort takes priority over stopping tomorrow’s much more grievous suffering.
Then there’s the problem of our delusional foreign policy idealism that privilege “soft power” and “smart diplomacy” over mind-concentrating force. This received wisdom has discredited decisive military action with all its risks and unforeseen consequences. Bluster, empty threats, PR press conferences, and showy deployments all create the illusion of action without taking the risks and facing the consequences of action.
Which brings us back to Biden’s transfers to the region of missile defense systems and two Carrier Strike Groups, the most lethal war-making materiel in history. The question is, will they be used to immediately destroy those missile batteries? Or, like the barbarian boxer, will we wait until Iran’s proxies strike again, at the cost of more American lives in attacks that our strategists have foreseen are coming?
Finally, will we at last stop taking Iran’s blows after they are thrown, and instead punch them first, before they acquire nuclear weapons that will drastically increase the risks of a devastating war?
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