Israel following up on defeating its mortal enemies

Israel’s attack on Iran was spectacular and successful, but it is not a one-off.  It is merely the next phase of a war of conclusion that started on October 7, 2023.  At that time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war on Hamas – and by extension on all anti-Semitic terrorism.  He said “enough is enough” – and started a long term strategy to defeat nations and groups committed to the destruction of Israel.  No more endless measured responses.

The current attack is a major step forward in that effort.  In these latest strikes on Iran, Israel produced several major strategic and tactical victories.  It seriously damaged the nation’s Natanz nuclear facility – destroying some underground structures, enrichment areas and electrical rooms.   There likely will be more attacks on Iran’s highly protected underground nuclear facilities.  Israel destroyed Iran’s nuclear brain trust by killing many of the top scientists working on nuclear enrichment — and intimidating many more.

Israel all but obliterated Iran’s military command by killing several of its most senior commanders and scientists – Hossein Salami, Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard; Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Forces; Mohammad Bagheri, Iran’s Chief of Staff; and Gholamati Rashid, head of the nation’s Emergency Command; Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani,  head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran; — and many other high ranking officers and leaders.  In one strike, Israel took out the entire top echelon of Iran’s air force, who were assembled in one location at the time.

Israel took out key elements of Iran’s defense systems – in addition to what was destroyed in the retaliatory attack in October of 2024.  The earlier mission is one of the reasons that Israel could send in military aircraft without any losses.  Iran today is literally defenseless.

We should not overlook the attacks emanating from inside Iran.  There appears to be a formidable resistance movement.  That was evident in the assassination or Hezbollah political leader Ismail Haniyeh at a military-run guest house during the inauguration ceremony for Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has threatened massive retaliation for the recent attack, but whether Iran has sufficient offensive capability is a fair question.  Time will tell.  As of this writing, Iran has launched 100s of drones at Israel to little consequence.  All, or almost all, were shot down. That has been followed up with a larger missile attack. It is in progress at the time of this writing.

This is not the final phase of Israel’s war on its enemies.  It remains a work-in-progress.  For the first time, it is reasonable to conjecture about regime change in Iran.  At some point, the moderates and the Iranian people will have had enough of the regime that has only brought them oppression, conflict and the enmity of the civilized world.

Israel’s pursuit of victory over its enemies – not just endless tit for tat raids – began with the declaration of war on Hamas.  At the time, most observers believed that Israel was too weak to fight off an attack from Hezbollah.  Israel surprised the world by aggressively taking on Hezbollah – resulting of the crippling of the terrorist organization and a regime change in Lebanon.  With American support, they neutralized the Houthis in Yemen.

Thanks to help from the United States, the brutal regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was overthrown. While the victors were part of al Qaeda, they have since proven to be more moderate and open to discussion with both the United States and Israel.  But the regime in Damascus remains hostile to Russia.  A major setback for Putin.

It has been long understood that Iran was the head of the terrorist octopus with tentacles throughout the Middle East.  Most of those tentacles have been severed and now the head is being crushed.

The attack on Iran at this time was motivated by two factors – one long term and one related to more recent events.  The first is Iran’s avowed long-term plan to destroy Israel and the United States as the “little devil and the big devil.’

The second motivation is a recent report by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that indicated Iran was moving ahead with enrichment and denying IAEA access to regions and facilities.  Analysts say that Iran had the potential to produce a nuclear bomb in a year or less.

The Trump administration has denied any participation in the planning or implementation of the attacks—although it posted an “I told you so” reaction.  He noted that he had issued a 60-day warning to Iran.  The attack came on day 61.  He has since doubled down – telling Iran to get serious about negotiations or the worst is yet to come.

Is the U.S. denial credible?  Not totally.  The United States had to supply many of the weapons and munitions used in the attack.  America has been supplying Israel with money and critical intelligence that is likely to have played a role in the attacks.  It is also widely believed that an attack on this scale could not have been launched without the tacit approval of the Trump administration.  The question now is whether the U.S. will get more deeply involved if Iran mounts a major attack on Israel.  I suspect we would.

By all measures, Israel’s actions in the Middle East have been enormously beneficial to the United States, NATO and the world democracies.   It has all but evaporated Russia’s influence in the region.  Iran was also the most important supplier of combat drones to Russia in its war with Ukraine.  It will eventually produce more cooperation with Israel among Arab nations by expanding the Abraham Accords – most notably with Saudi Arabia.  It is a blow to the “axis of evil” – Russian, China and North Korea.

So, how can any freedom and peace loving person be opposed to Israel’s fight to bring an end to the terrorism that has undermined international harmony for generations?  Ask Democrat Senator Chris Murphy, of Connecticut.  He condemned the Israeli action – blaming both Trump (of course) and Netanyahu.  He called the attack “a disaster of Trump’s and Netanyahu’s own making, and now the region risks spiraling toward a new, deadly conflict.”

Other Democrats have piled on.  New Jersey Democrat Senator Andy Kim criticized Netanyahu, stating that the attack “appears to deliberately undermine ongoing American diplomatic negotiations about Iran’s nuclear program”.   Rhode Island Democrat Senator Jack Reed called Israel’s actions a “reckless escalation” and said it “threatens not only the lives of innocent civilians but the stability of the entire Middle East and the safety of American citizens and forces”.  And there are many more.

The spin is just more “Trump is always wrong” spin from Democrats.  They claim that Trump is a failure since his planned diplomatic solution has not worked. They say that the fact that Netanyahu did not honor Trump’s request to hold off while the negotiations were ongoing shows weakness. 

Personally, I believe Trump was all in for the attack. Iran had ignored his 60-day deadline.  He actually warned the folks in Tehran of the dire consequences.  He previously told them that it was a negotiation or get wiped off the map.  His response to the attack was, “I warned them.”

Why Democrats see political benefit from taking the side of terrorists, rioters, anti-Semites, illegal aliens and the criminal class is a head scratcher. Is it as simple as unbridled Trump hatred?  Fortunately, it appears that their irrational anger and irresolvable pessimism have a decreasing influence on public policies and foreign affairs,

Israel is doing a great service for the world as the chief and most effective opponent of international terrorism.  We should all be giving Netanyahu and Israel a huge mazel tov. 

So, there ‘tis.