If the primary obligation of any elected government is to protect the nation from threats foreign and domestic, it is even more necessary for a nation, such as Israel, which has been facing annihilation by avowed and well-armed adversaries since its independence in 1948.
At present, Iran, backed by released funding from the Biden administration and with support from the Chinese Communist Party are -- along with "enabler of terrorism and dishonest broker" Qatar -- the primary state actors currently seeking Israel's obliteration.
The Biden administration, as well, while previously having been extremely helpful, unfortunately, as of late, has been massively unhelpful. Initially off to a great start after the October 7, 2023 massacre of Israelis and others by Iran's proxy, Hamas, the Biden administration seems since to have collapsed into a foreign policy paralysis, as it has in Ukraine. The consequent obstructions, enormously costly for Israel in life and treasure, involve what weapons Congress promised to deliver; trying to remove Israel's duly elected prime minister, seemingly to put in a US puppet; pretending to know how to micromanage another sovereign nation's urban warfare when it could not even manage its own in Afghanistan, and fabricating other unnecessary obstacles, such as needing to know the plan for the "day after" when it clearly looks as if the Biden administration just wants to please its terrorist-sponsoring adversaries, Iran and Qatar, by allowing their prized client, Hamas, to win the war.
Israel, a country smaller than New Jersey and only slightly larger than Nauru, was referred to by former Iranian President Rafsanjani as a one-bomb country: "[T]he use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality."
The larger war that Iran, using another of its proxies, Hizballah, is now trying to escalate on Israel's northern border, even without nuclear weapons, can be understood as having a genocidal intent -- "Death to Israel" -- in line with what Iran has been calling for since its Islamic Revolution in 1979.
It is unclear whether or not Iran already possesses nuclear capabilities to unleash on Israel, but its intent to do so is clear. For instance, Iran played a significant role in planning the October 7, 2023 attack, while the Biden administration funded it. Iran repeats "Death to Israel" to this day. Iran itself fired a barrage of more than 300 missiles and attack drones at Israel on April 13, 2024, and Iran's 'Doomsday Clock' in Tehran's Palestine Square counts down toward the hour of Israel's extinction.
"It is the mission of the Islamic republic of Iran," Iran's current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been recorded as saying, "to erase Israel from the map of the region." He adds, "Israel is a hideous entity in the middle east which will undoubtedly be annihilated."
"They told us in all of their statements," said the CEO of tech-giant Oracle, Safra Catz, "that their charter is to destroy Israel and exterminate the Jews. Other countries have said the same thing. It's in Iran's direct messaging. I think that when they tell you they want to kill you, you should believe that. I think that's the lesson."
It seems as if much of Iran's bellicosity against Israel and the Jewish people is founded on religious, political, military, expansionist and nationalistic grounds. A jihadist in Iran's premier militia, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), might not care not about the life or death of his country's citizens. He probably sees the job of the IRGC as driving the US out of the Middle East so that Iran can continue to "Export the Revolution" without interference. Iran, threatening Israel, controls four Middle Eastern capitals in addition to its own -- Sana'a, Damascus, Baghdad and Beirut, as well as Gaza and, reportedly, Washington DC -- while trying to make still deeper inroads inside Israel, on the disputed territory of West Bank.
Also influencing Iran's aggression could be the Qur'an "And fight them [the disbelievers] until there be no more sedition, and religion will be Allah's alone." Quran (Sura 2, verse 193)
"We love death more than you love life," said Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas's military wing.
The Covenant of Hamas, is likewise dedicated to the elimination of Israel:
"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." (Introduction)
"There is no solution for the Palestinian question expect through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals, and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavours" (Article 13)
Regrettably, Iran does not seem to be guided by the same humanitarian, ethical, or "natural law principles" embraced by Israel and the West. Regrettably as well, Israel has been somewhat dependent upon the largesse of US President Joe Biden for supplying some of its munitions, a situation that Israel will hopefully correct.
It is with good reason that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complains that the US is withholding, or "slow-walking," military supplies. In Ukraine, for instance, badly needed arms are always "being delivered" but somehow never manage to arrive until long after they might actually have helped. Specific munitions urgently required by Israel include both 500- and 2,000-pound bombs, which could be immensely helpful in deterring Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, from continuing their attacks on Israel from Lebanon. On July 4, a barrage of Hezbollah drones and rockets pounded northern Israel. "We launched more than 20 drones at many Israeli positions in the Galilee and more than 200 rockets of various types," Hezbollah boasted .
Also required are specialized KC-46 military aerial refueling tankers, manufactured in the US. These are only scheduled for delivery in 2025 or later, despite Israel requesting earlier delivery as a matter of priority.
Although Israel's leaders are well aware of the immense danger presented by Iran, the US and other Western allies evidently cannot be relied upon to prevent Iran from completing its nuclear weapons program. The US appears to like talking, and talking about talking, diplomacy backed up by talking, verbal "understandings" so long as they have no teeth, then paying what looks like bribe money for adversaries not to "make waves," presumably at least not before the America's upcoming November election.
The Biden administration, it seems, would rather deal with threatening situations via written contracts, memoranda of understanding, or apparently worthless promises from Iran, Russia, China, the Taliban, the Palestinians or whoever else will offer appeasements. Global leaders might be excused for thinking that the US is not just a paper tiger but a hologram of one.
"An Iranian bomb," writes the journalist Farhad Rezaei, could with the help of China Russia and North Korea, "trigger a nuclear race in the Middle East and hasten US withdrawal from the region – a strategic advantage for China. Standing up to Iran and blocking the combined influence of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea is difficult but the alternative could spell disaster for the Middle East and beyond."
Assuming that the US will not act to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons breakout, Israel will need to protect itself from Iranian-launched nuclear weapons. So, as throughout much of history, Israel is once again left to fight the enemies of the West on its own. "The truth, notes social commentator Konstantin Kisin, "is that we have indulged in magical thinking for too long, choosing comforting myths over harsh realities. About terrorism and a host of other issues."
The critical point is that Israel is fighting to safeguard not just its own nation, but the West and the Free World as well. The battle at the moment seems between preserving freedom or having it extinguished by the forces of barbarism, autocracies and theocrats, but most of all by the passivity of the West. The current axis averse to freedom for its citizens, consists of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. Silky, stealth aggressors include Qatar -- the consigliere of all Islamic terror groups -- which uses money and its media network Al-Jazeera, not military aggression, as its means of persuasion.
The Israelis are not asking others to risk their lives to protect them; they are shouldering the immense sacrifices themselves. They do, however, need ammunition and the other weapons they have requested and they need them now -- not delayed.
The Biden administration does not seem to want to support its sole democratic ally in the Middle East, it seems to want only to control it. Sadly, the Biden administration appears to view Israel not as a sovereign nation but a US satrapy. It is hardly a secret that the US has been trying to oust Israel's elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and replace him presumably with a subordinate. That US puppet would supposedly be delighted to have a terrorist Palestinian state next door administered by the terrorist godfather, Qatar, and be delighted to see Iran have as many nuclear weapons as it likes.
The unlawful 2015 "nuclear deal" for Iran, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan for Action (JCPOA) was dreamed up by then US President Barack Obama. Educated in an Indonesian madrassah, he sidelined Egypt's secular President Hosni Mubarak and apparently remained friendly with the radical Muslim Brotherhood, whose motto is: "Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."
In its "sunset clauses," Obama's "nuclear deal" enshrines that after a few years, Iran may have an unlimited number of nuclear weapons . If Obama ostensibly conceived of this arrangement to "balance the influence" of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, the plan has failed colossally. Saudi Arabia, for all its faults, has not tried to enlarge its territory; Iran, for its part, took the billions Obama gave it "to come in from the cold" and presumably used at least a portion of it to strengthen its militias and proxies and to accelerate the nuclear weapons program that it denies it has. Obama's only caveat seemed to be that Iran's nuclear breakout should not be "on my watch" -- instead, a decade or so later, according to the "sunset causes," perhaps not be so visible as the person who had orchestrated the plan.
At present, both the Biden administration in the US and opposition in Israel to its current government seem to be trying to muscle Netanyahu out. US Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who happens to be Jewish, declared in mid-March that Netanyahu had "lost his way" and called for "new elections" -- not in the Senator's own country, the US, but in that of a sovereign ally, Israel. Would he have called for "new elections" in England, Germany, Italy or France? Biden, unsurprisingly, quickly "embraced Schumer's speech."
Many, including some who might be looking longingly at Netanyahu's job, have advocated that "Hamas cannot be defeated." Meanwhile, Netanyahu has been doing exactly that.
The US and others have tried to claim that before defeating an adversary, one must know what will happen after the fighting stops, and that destroying Hamas's military capability will just create another whole generation of Gazans who hate Israelis and Jews. Before defeating Hitler, however, no one had suggested that it was important to know what would happen "after the fighting stopped"; the same holds true for Imperial Japan. In Germany, it turned out, just five years after the end of the war, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was elected, and at present, both Germany and Japan are solid allies of the US and the West. There are probably still Nazis in Germany, but they no longer have the "means, capability or opportunity" to disrupt Europe.
"One of the war goals," Netanyahu said, is "the destruction of Hamas's military and governance capabilities." Israel, at the same time, has been doing its utmost to protect the lives of Gaza's civilians, including evacuating nearly a million from one humanitarian zone in the Gaza Strip to another – all the while it is Hamas that has been placing rocket launchers in the humanitarian zones.
"Don't listen to the doubters," wrote Heisam Hassanein, an adjunct fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
"[H]istory shows Hamas can be defeated.... Gazans took to the streets in July protesting the poor quality of life under Hamas, chanting, 'We want to live.' Two weeks ago, Bahrain's crown prince and prime minister, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, condemned Hamas 'unequivocally.' In the long run, a decisive defeat for Hamas is what's best for Palestinians and the region as a whole, not just Israel."
"The IDF does not need to kill every one of the 40,000-plus card-carrying Hamas members to succeed," noted military expert John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies with the Modern War Institute at West Point. "It has to break its organized military formations, remove its capabilities, and destroy its leadership." In an interview with CNN, he continued:
Wars create people who aren't happy if their side loses, and that can actually radicalize them. But in the present when you face an existential threat or a world war, it isn't a consideration. You have to destroy the other military who's currently trying to hurt you in real time. Because this really gets into, I should just let that enemy force on my border keep attacking me because its population won't agree with me destroying it.
A good comparison is Nazism. The US couldn't worry about further radicalizing Germans during World War II. It had to prioritize defeating them. Afterward it could work to deradicalize them. Of course, the ideology of Nazism still lives on, because ideologies can't be eradicated. But it has been defanged. That was only possible because first there was a military victory over the Nazi regime.
CNN: So, you think this is a winnable war for the IDF?
Spencer: One hundred percent. Had there been social media during World War II, we might not be living in the world we currently live in. The Japanese and Germans might have won if their democratic adversaries believed the cost of resisting them was too high to be worth it.
The US appears to be doing the bidding of its terrorist-supporting collaborators, Iran and Qatar, and their supporters -- potential voters in America's heartland -- and those who want Hamas to survive to "attack, time and again, until Israel is annihilated." Israel is achieving its goals in Gaza -- not just for itself , but for the West, so that freedom will win out over tyranny and barbarism. If these predators are not defeated, what message will that send to the rest of the predators?
All that is required is to make sure that Israel has the ammunition and weapons it needs to fight on our behalf, to make sure they are delivered immediately, and then get out of the way.
Nils A. Haug is an author and columnist. A Lawyer by profession, he is member of the International Bar Association, the National Association of Scholars, a faculty member at Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Retired from law, his particular field of interest is political theory interconnected with current events. He holds a Ph.D. in Apologetical Theology. Dr. Haug is author of 'Politics, Law, and Disorder in the Garden of Eden – the Quest for Identity'; and 'Enemies of the Innocent – Life, Truth, and Meaning in a Dark Age.' His work has been published by First Things Journal, The American Mind, Quadrant, Gatestone Institute, National Association of Scholars, Anglican Mainstream, and Document Danmark, among others.
David Guy