Culminating with the dispatch of arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar this week, how many of the world's most vicious terrorists has Israel liberated the world from in a few short weeks? Little Israel is showing the world how to win again -- and saving civilization and a free way of life into the bargain. For those of us fortunate enough to live in a free society rather than in a society of fear, as the former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky calls them, let Israel keep winning!
The multi-front war that Israel is currently waging against the Iranian regime and its numerous terrorist proxies is a battle that actually the West should have taken on -- and long ago at that. Yet from the presidency of Barack Obama on, the Biden-Harris administration and European governments, rather than confronting the threats presented by Iran, they appeased and bankrolled it. The leadership of the West opted for a path of inaction, appeasement, ignoring sanctions and eschewing secondary sanctions -- meaning countries that do business with Iran may not do business with the US -- and providing billions of dollars to terrorists to enable them to attack Israel, US troops, and for Iran to put the finishing touches on their its weapons program.
Obama's totally illegitimate but much-touted Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which he claimed "achieved a detailed arrangement that permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. It cuts off all of Iran's pathways to a bomb," was no such thing. The statement was a deception, just as much as, "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" was -- based on the "stupidity of the American voter," as his associate Jonathan Gruber said. The problem with the JCPOA was, of course, its "sunset clauses." They assured Iran that it could legitimately have as many nuclear weapons as it can produce in just a few short years.
This approach, apparently aimed at avoiding confrontation, has only strengthened Iran and its terror networks by allowing them to expand their influence and aggressions unchecked. The West has indeed been feeding the crocodile in hopes it will eat it last, as Winston Churchill noted. It is a suicidal strategy -- but it is exactly what the West has done. To avoid confronting the threat, the West appears to have chosen, instead, trying to bribe its enemies into postponing their assault, presumably in the hope that it will fall on someone else's watch.
Meanwhile, Iran and other countries that seemingly wish America nothing but ill, have used that bribe money to enlarge the threat. The West has left Israel to fight a war that should never have been Israel's alone. The Western nations, through diplomatic miscalculations, the need for votes, cowardice and a fear of conflict, have essentially outsourced their responsibilities for maintaining global peace to Israel, watching from the sidelines as the conflict ramps up.
Instead, Europe, the United Nations and their institutions have been trying to undermine Israel at every turn (for instance here, here, here, here and here).
Israel, smaller than New Jersey, is left grappling with the world's top state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, as well as the well-armed and proxies that the Iranian regime uses to protect itself from retaliation. Iran's reach extends far beyond its borders. Its fingerprints are visible in acts of terrorism across the globe from Argentina to Europe, to trying to assassinate a Saudi, a dissident, and American heads of state on American soil.
Domestically, Iran's regime systematically suppresses dissent and commits human rights abuses on a massive scale -- from imprisoning and executing political opponents -- even children -- to violently crushing protests. Its foreign terror activities include funding and arming militias, rebel groups, and terrorist organizations across the Middle East, Africa and South America. The West's failure to neutralize these threats has given Iran the space and financing to flourish, while at the same time abandoning Israel to confront this monstrous regime alone. Instead of helping Israel defeat Iran's terrorism and towering abuses of human rights, or even just thanking it, the West goes out of its way to defame, sabotage and attack Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran -- which is reportedly in the final stages of producing what the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan 26 years ago called "an Islamic Bomb" -- is arming Russia in its war on Ukraine, and arming terrorist groups in countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, where its influence perpetuates conflict and chaos, and is deeply intertwined with other enemies of the West – Russia, China and North Korea.
Even more troubling, perhaps, is Iran's budding military alliances with authoritarian regimes in Latin America, the backyard of the United States. These alliances present a dangerous escalation in Iran's strategy to extend its reach into the Western Hemisphere, far beyond the Middle East. Israel, by confronting Iran, is doing more than defending itself -- it is confronting a global network of malign actors that threaten peace and stability worldwide.
Israel's primary adversaries include Iran's proxies, such as Hezbollah, a well-armed and well-financed terrorist organization that has long operated as Iran's cat's paw in Lebanon. Israel has also been contending with another Iranian-backed terrorist organization, Hamas, whose history of violence and terror is long, brutal, and characterized by suicide bombings, rocket attacks, and targeting Israeli civilians.
On October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a terrorist jihad on Israel, it murdered 1,200 people, including infants, torturing, beheading, raping and burning alive many of the victims, and kidnapped more than 250 others. This atrocity was just one in a long series of gruesome acts committed by Hamas. The Palestinian Authority and terrorist groups have, with US encouragement, seemed to assume, that they will be able to resume ruling the Gaza Strip so it can continue to attack the people of Israel.
In addition to Hezbollah and Hamas, Israel is battling the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group in Yemen, which the Biden-Harris administration removed from the list of the Foreign Terrorist Organizations after less than a month in office. In gratitude, the Houthis attacked not only Israel, but also Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and US troops in the region. The Houthis also destabilized the Red Sea and blocked virtually all shipping through the Suez Canal. Vessels are now forced to detour around the continent of Africa, increasing the cost of each round-trip voyage by up to an extra million dollars just for fuel. Despite the Houthis' violations of international law and their wrecking-ball influence throughout the region, the international community has failed to take any serious action against them.
It is the West's responsibility to confront these forces, yet it is Israel that is doing the job. The Western powers, which should be at the forefront of the fight against terrorism, have abdicated their role, leaving Israel to bear the burden. This should not be Israel's fight alone-- it is one that the West should have taken on with full force. Israel has been stepping in where others have hesitated or even enabled its aggression -- an indictment of the West's inability to take up its own responsibilities.
If the West is too fearful or reluctant to engage directly in the fight against injustice, terror, and tyranny, the very least it can do is stand with Israel and stop trying to sabotage it at every turn (for instance here, here, here, here and here). Support should not be limited to words but include political, diplomatic and military backing. By failing to support Israel fully, the West is empowering exactly those countries working to revise the world order -- from one of freedom to one of tyranny -- by displacing the West.
Israel is single-handedly carrying the weight of multiple fronts in the battle against terrorism. The Free Word, with its vast resources and influence, all currently under threat in at least three theaters -- Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific -- should be at the forefront of this fight. Instead, Israel is left to do the work that the Western democracies should have undertaken long ago. It is a grotesque reflection on the international community, particularly the Biden-Harris administration and the European Union, not to be offering unequivocal support. Israel's struggle is not just for its own survival but for the security and peace of the Free World. The West, through its passivity, is failing not only Israel, it is hollowing out its own survival.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, is a scholar, strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated analyst, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on the US foreign policy and Islam. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
Hanna