Let Israel Decide How To Respond To Iran’s Missile Attack Lawrence J. Haas
https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/let-israel-decide-how-to-respond-to-irans-missile-attack/
President Biden pushes Israel not to respond to Iran’s ballistic missile attack by targeting its nuclear or oil sites, while former President Trump blasts Biden and suggests that, in fact, Israel should hit Iran’s nuclear sites.
Their public disagreement over Israel’s proper course reminds us that, notwithstanding Senator Arthur Vandenberg’s dictum of the early Cold War years that politics should stop “at the water’s edge,” it rarely has.
Presidents have long shaped their foreign policy with domestic politics in mind. FDR promised the nation just days before his re-election in 1940 that “your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars,” though he knew that America’s entry into World War II was both necessary and inevitable. JFK planned to withdraw U.S. forces from Vietnam but not until his second term, fearing an earlier withdrawal would ignite a “who lost Vietnam” backlash that threatened his re-election in 1964.
Now, a month before our Election Day, Israel is battling Iran and its terror proxies on multiple fronts, civilian lives are at risk in multiple nations, global leaders are pushing for ceasefires and “de-escalation,” and Vice President Kamala Harris is battling Trump for Jewish and Muslim votes in a razor-close contest.
But, however understandable in political terms, Biden and Trump’s comments are nevertheless badly misguided in geopolitical terms because they undercut our closest regional ally at an ominous moment.
Consider, by way of historical example, the absurdity of such public counsel to any nation under siege.
“We shall carry the attack against the enemy,” FDR told Congress a month after Pearl Harbor, with nearly 2,500 service members and civilians dead and the United States now at war with both Japan and Germany. “We shall hit him and hit him again wherever and whenever we can reach him.”
With the United Nations not yet constituted and the free world under assault by the Axis Powers, no global leaders or U.S. allies were urging a ceasefire or warning Washington about the dangers of escalation.
“I can hear you,” George W. Bush told first responders in New York three days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. “The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”
With the nation reeling and more than 3,000 dead, no global leaders or U.S. allies sought to constrain Bush or warn him publicly about the deaths of innocent civilians as the United States prepared to topple the Taliban and target al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. In fact, NATO invoked Article V for the only time in its history, calling upon its members to support the United States in its response.
Now, a year to the day after a genocidal terrorist organization launched the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, consider what Israel faces, the battles it’s fighting, and the greater dangers that lurk.
Iran, which has pledged to “wipe Israel off the map,” has hit the Jewish state directly twice this year – with drones and missiles in April and nearly 200 ballistic missiles last week – and vows more attacks if Israel responds to the ballistic missiles.
At the same time, Iran’s radical regime remains the world’s most aggressive state sponsor of terrorism, directing genocidal proxies in its “axis of resistance.” Hamas, which directed the barbaric slaughter of October 7th, marked today’s one-year anniversary with a rocket barrage into southern Israel and Tel Aviv. Hezbollah, which has fired more than 9,000 drones, rockets, and missiles into Israel from southern Lebanon over the last year, marked the day with its own rocket attack on Haifa, Israel’s third largest city.
Meanwhile, Tehran continues to advance its nuclear program, leaving it just a short step from a nuclear capacity and reminding us of the nightmare scenario that has haunted not just Israel but also the United States and its allies for more than two decades – the world’s most aggressive state sponsor of terrorism with nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles on which to mount them.
None of that has stopped world leaders from seeking restraint from Israel. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged a ceasefire on all sides after Iran’s ballistic missile attack, dismissing the multi-front war on Israel and the latter’s response as a “deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence.” French President Emanuel Macron called for an end to delivering arms for Israel to use in Gaza.
Thus, Israel is besieged both militarily and diplomatically, defending itself by taking the battle to its adversaries while facing global opprobrium for doing what any nation would do under similar circumstances.
It is now – even amid a bitter presidential campaign – that U.S. leaders should stand four-square behind Israel, giving it the leeway to protect itself as it sees fit rather than adding to the morally confused carping from abroad.
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