My fellow Israelis and Americans, hang tough. We’re winning! But defeating evil takes toughness and patience.
Democracies’ wars are paradoxical. Most have endless runways before taking-off – yet start easily, abruptly. And although civilians usually want them over immediately, they don’t end swiftly, unless you crash.
Moreover, while certain military gains are immediate and obvious, it takes decades to comprehend all the consequences of such game-changing, epoch-making violence.
That’s why democratic leaders must understand their war aims – and articulate them to the citizenry. But that’s also why we, the people, should evaluate wars maturely through short-term and long-term lenses – and persist!
This unavoidable, most-justified, and necessary Second Iranian War had a 47-year-old fuse. The Islamic Republic has threatened America and Israel since 1979 – spending nearly half-a-century amassing massive weapons and building elaborate defenses to threaten these two sister democracies, while bullying the world. True, certain leaders’ triumphal rhetoric last June misled some people into thinking the 12 Day War accomplished enough. But two reasons compelled Israel and America to fight again now.
Scale of the victory for Israel, US
First, the June war demonstrated how devastating Iran’s ballistic missiles are, let alone how menacing a nuclearized Iran would be. Each American or Israeli sortie destroying missiles, launchers, missile factories, and nuclear infrastructure makes the whole world safer – especially Israel, the Gulf States, and the US. The Wall Street Journal reported: “Iran will emerge from the conflict with severely degraded land, air, and sea capabilities, and its regional ambitions tempered.” That’s already a massive victory.
Some Iranian missiles are six stories tall. The Khorramshahr missile approximates the height of the Hollywood Sign.
Some carry 500 to 1,500 kilograms of explosives – from a grand piano’s worth to a Toyota Camry’s worth of killing potential. In two waves in 2024 – before the June War – in mid-April and on October 1,
Iran launched over 300 missiles at little Israel, 1,600 kilometers away. In June, it launched another 500. Since last Saturday, Iran has catapulted another 500 to 600 murder-machines toward the Jewish state. The Gulf States and American bases absorbed over 400 killer missiles, with Iran aiming 186 ballistic missiles at the UAE alone.
Why should Israel – or America – tolerate such peril?
Sophisticates who, like me, watch the cop show, The Rookie, recall the episode where ONE ballistic missile approaching Los Angeles had everyone anticipating apocalypse and saying goodbye to one another. President Donald Trump told The Times of Israel accurately: “We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel.”
The Islamic Republic is also propelling cluster bombs toward Tel Aviv. While ballistic missiles collapse buildings and render neighborhoods uninhabitable, cluster bombs can scatter 20 to 80 mini-killers over an 8-kilometer radius, about 150 football fields.
That death shower can blow up cars, destroy roofs, kill gratuitously, or leave explosives sitting there, unexploded, until a kid or a distracted passerby detonates them unwillingly. The horrors of these land-mines planted from the heavens led the international community to ban them. I’m still waiting to hear any global outcry against these latest Iranian crimes.
Just as turning Iran into a 1.7 million-square kilometer powder keg was this war’s underlying cause – and justification – the regime’s butchering so many holy Iranian protesters provided the more immediate trigger. Emboldened by the Mullahocracy’s weaknesses that Israel’s June attacks exposed, hundreds of thousands took to the streets two months ago – only to be murdered, raped, tortured, and abused by the thousands. No self-respecting liberal-democrat should have remained silent – although too many did.
Morally, many of us felt compelled to help them. And existentially, this brutality may have offered the opportunity to eradicate this evil regime, which sacrifices its own people, let alone its neighbors, or anyone else they hate.
In short, Ayatollah Khamenei essentially signed his own death warrant with two self-destructive decisions. Launching missiles against Israel in April 2024 showed that Iran was no longer just spreading death and destruction by proxy – the Islamists needed to be crushed directly. And unleashing Tehran’s security forces in January against innocent dissidents so ferociously further undermined the regime while broadcasting its malice worldwide.
This background should clarify the war aims debate while illuminating the more confusing speculation about just how this war ends well for Americans, Israelis, and the world. Fellow optimists should read Elliot Kaufman’s excellent Wall Street Journal “Weekend Interview” with the Iranian historian Ali M. Ansari.
Emphasizing the Jihadists’ weakness, the Iranian people’s strong craving for freedom, and the firepower Israel and America have unleashed against this flailing regime, Ansari reaffirms Hannah Arendt’s insight: “Revolutions are impossible before they happen and inevitable after they happen.” Cautiously not predicting a democratic Iran tomorrow, Ansari encourages the West to push, push, push for the kind of regime collapse and political redemption the Iranian people deserve – and could handle. Threaten Revolutionary Guards. Encourage defections, which have begun. Help make the change!
Finally, a crushed, humiliated, isolated Islamic Republic, especially if led by greedy, corrupt, kleptocrats rather than messianic, self-destructive, antisemitic, anti-America jihadists, would also mark progress after Khameini’s genocide factory – as would a distracting civil war.
Although not ideal war aims, we sometimes must settle for dramatic improvements over wickedness as first steps toward salvation. Life rarely offers one express lane without potholes or traffic jams to our liberal-democratic dreams.
A war that neutralizes this jihadist threat while shattering the Islamist grip on Iran could still be considered successful, even if it doesn’t save the long-suffering country. It’s still too early in the war to settle, and more work remains before America – or Israel – even consider compromising.
The writer is an American presidential historian and Zionist activist born in Queens, living in Jerusalem. Last year he published, To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream and The Essential Guide to October 7th and its Aftermath. His latest E-book, The Essential Guide to Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism and Jew-hatred, was just published and can be downloaded on the website of JPPI – the Jewish People Policy Institute.