What’s better? An all out attack on Iran, or pin-prick, devastating attacks? For those who say that better than both is a diplomatic agreement with Iran, that’s been tried. It failed, since it did not fulfill its objective — to motivate Iran to stop spreading terrorism around the world, including Gaza; and to stop developing ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Based on this failure and on Biden’s announced plans, Israel and others act. It is knee-jerk to attribute the assassination Nov. 27 of the father of Iran’s nuclear program to Israel. It’s a good guess, but consider: There is a lot more intelligence at work in these pin-prick attacks than Israeli. There are a lot more countries cooperating against Iran in 2020 than in the Obama era: Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, United States.
The implication of this newfound cooperation, based on intensified fears of Iran, is this: Israel will not likely hold its fire under Joe Biden to the extent it held its fire under Barack Obama. The squeeze is on — not only on Iran but on Biden.
The landscape has changed.
• The US assassinated an Iranian murderer of Americans, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani last January.
• An explosion occurred in Iran’s nuclear facility, Natanz, last July.
Some things have not changed:
• Iran regards Soleimani and last week’s victim Mohsen Fakhrizadeh as heroes. Iran’s goals remain the same: the murder of Americans, the destruction of Israel, the triumph of Shiite Islam worldwide.
• Former Obama foreign policy leaders think that assassinations of Iranian military and nuclear leaders are morally and tactically wrong.
The moral argument escapes us. As set down long ago in the book of Exodus and incorporated into the statues of democratic societies everywhere, if someone comes to kill you, you kill him first.
The tactical argument escapes us. Iran is reeling under these pin-prick attacks and under the severe sanctions imposed by the Trump administration. In sharp contrast, under Obama’s nuclear agreement, Iran grew economically while ramping up, not toning down, its bellicosity in word and deed.
Former CIA director John Brennan said of the assassination of Fakhrizadeh: “This was a criminal act & highly reckless. It risks lethal retaliation & a new round of regional conflict. Iranian leaders would be wise to wait for the return of responsible American leadership on the global stage & to resist the urge to respond against perceived culprits.”
Yes, new regional conflict could follow. But the experts said the same after the assassination of Soleimani. It didn’t happen. The skeptics said the same after Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. It didn’t happen. If all the experts can promise now is a return to tactics proven to have failed, the intensified motivation to act will be Israel’s, not Iran’s. Biden and his people should be figuring out ways to preclude the need for that rather than ways to reward Tehran’s deniers of one genocide, the Holocaust, and dreamers of another genocide, against Israel.
Copyright © 2020 by the Intermountian Jewish News
