Courage, not recklessness: Why Netanyahu and Trump were right on Iran

On October 7, Israel was not merely attacked. It was meant to be broken.

The massacre was designed not only to kill innocents but also to deliver a message: that terror could humiliate Israel, traumatize it, isolate it, and force it into retreat. In the hours and days that followed, amid scenes of slaughter, kidnapping, and national grief, one could hear an old fantasy returning. Many voices, openly or quietly, suggested that the massacre was the beginning of the end of Israel. They were mistaken.

Israel did not collapse. It stood up. It buried its dead, fought for its hostages, and absorbed a shock that would have shattered many nations. But Israel also understood something essential: if October 7 was to remain a horror rather than become a model, it was not enough to strike only the hand that carried out the massacre. The source had to be confronted.

Recklessness would have been to absorb October 7, speak of resilience, and leave intact the machinery that made such barbarism possible. Recklessness would have been to punish the executioners while protecting the architects. Recklessness would have been to let Tehran continue believing that it could arm militias, terrorize its neighbors, destabilize capitals, and remain beyond consequence.

What happened instead was the opposite. The political decision was sound. The strategy was clear. And the military results were real. The Israeli-American strikes did not merely produce symbolism; they reduced capabilities, disrupted chains of command, degraded the reach of the Revolutionary Guards, and shattered the illusion that this regime was untouchable. For too long, Iran’s rulers had assumed that democracies would hesitate forever and confuse fear with prudence. Netanyahu and Trump proved otherwise.

That matters, because courage in statecraft is often misunderstood. It is not loudness. It is not impulsiveness. It is not the pleasure of escalation. Courage is the willingness to act when the cost of inaction has become greater than the risk of action. After October 7, that moment had arrived.

Hezbollah is not merely a threat to Israel’s northern border. It is a regional disease. Hezbollah has taken the Lebanese state hostage, subordinated Lebanese sovereignty to Iranian interests, and condemned the Lebanese people to bear the cost of wars they did not choose. It has transformed a proud Arab country into a platform for Tehran’s ambitions. And its threat extends far beyond Lebanon and Israel.

That is why the broader regional picture matters. The exposure of networks linked to Hezbollah and Iran in the Gulf is a reminder that this menace is not local; it is transnational. Bahrain has long lived under the shadow of Iranian subversion. The UAE has faced the same logic of infiltration and destabilization. Morocco understood the danger years ago when it severed diplomatic relations with Tehran over Iranian support for the Polisario. Different geographies, same method: penetrate, arm, radicalize, and weaken sovereign states from within or through proxies.

The UAE stood firm. Bahrain stood firm. Morocco raised the alarm early.

These states deserve more than praise; they deserve strategic backing. The UAE has every legitimacy to reclaim its three occupied islands. Morocco has every legitimacy to consolidate international recognition of its sovereignty over the Sahara. And Bahrain—a frontline kingdom that stood firm when others hesitated—deserves meaningful economic and strategic support equal to the burden it has carried.

These countries must be recognized for what they represent. The Abraham Accords were never just a diplomatic ceremony. They were a strategic and civilizational choice: a decision in favor of modernity, sovereignty, development, and peace against a regional order built on militias, intimidation, and permanent war. This conflict did not change that choice. It tested it—and it held. That may be one of the most important political facts emerging from this war.

The real divide in the Middle East is no longer the old one that so many continue to recite out of habit. It is not simply Arab versus Israeli. It is between those who want functioning states and those who thrive on collapsed ones; those who build and those who blackmail; those who choose order, prosperity, and coexistence, and those who glorify permanent revolution and conflict.

Israel’s role in this confrontation should be acknowledged honestly.

Israel is a small country in a brutal neighborhood, yet it has built sovereign institutions of extraordinary resilience. Its strength is not accidental. It is the product of discipline, excellence, technological sophistication, democratic vitality, and a profound understanding that survival requires seriousness. Mossad, the IDF, and Israel’s wider security institutions have repeatedly demonstrated what a capable state can do when intelligence, operational excellence, and political will converge.

But institutions alone are not enough. Great militaries and great intelligence services cannot fulfill their mission if political leaders are too timid to act. That is why leadership matters. Netanyahu should be judged in that light. He did not choose comfort. He chose responsibility. And Trump, whatever one may think of him on other issues, grasped something many others did not: there are moments when deterrence cannot be restored by speeches, conferences, or carefully worded illusions. It must be restored by force.

That is not recklessness. That is leadership.

The Iranian regime is currently operating under a precarious timeline. That does not mean it will disappear tomorrow. Dictatorships often survive longer than expected. But something fundamental has changed. The aura of inevitability has been broken. The image of invulnerability has been shattered. Fear has begun to change sides. The regime still possesses prisons, propaganda, weapons, and fanatics. But it no longer possesses the same myth of untouchable power.

The next chapter must therefore be prepared with wisdom. Not against the Iranian people, but with them. Instead of harboring hatred towards Iran, we should harbor hope for a transformed Iran. The Iranian people are not the mullahs. They are the first victims of a regime that has humiliated their civilization, crushed their freedoms, and squandered their nation’s greatness on terror, corruption, and ideological war.

After October 7, Israel had every reason to remain trapped in grief and defense. Instead, it chose a more challenging path: to confront the source of terror.

That was not recklessness. That was courage.

And history may yet record that when so many were predicting the end of Israel, Israel instead helped begin the end of Tehran’s terror order.