Iran’s attack: Observations the morning after

The following was published in the Waterbury Republican-American on Wednesday, April 18, 2024. Unfortunately, it already appears the current American government is doubling down on the disastrous strategies that were instrumental in bringing about the various attacks and wars mentioned below, most recently the massive Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel, and has successfully pressured Israel to avoid appropriately responding to that attack. We will all pay a heavy price for that unforced error.

Iran’s attack: Observations the morning after

BY ALAN STEIN

I am writing this in Netanya right after Iran launched a massive attack of more than 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles overnight, with additional missiles launched by Iran or its terror proxies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. With assistance from America, Britain, France and Jordan, the attack was almost completely thwarted, with just one serious injury, suffered by a seven-year-old girl asleep in her bed.

Growing up and living most of my life in America, I am proud that the United States has been the greatest force for good in the history of the world. Now living much of the year in Israel, I also understand harsh realities about the Middle East which most Westerners, including American leaders, do not.

That lack of understanding led President Jimmy Carter to abandon the Shah of Iran, transforming Iran from a harsh but friendly and relatively progressive dictatorship into a fanatical theocracy that murders young women who allow stray hairs to escape their hijabs and whose leaders chant “Death to America.”

In 1990, that lack of understanding helped give Saddam Hussein the impression he had a green light to occupy Kuwait. During the ensuing war, when Saddam Hussein started launching missiles at Israeli cities, President Bush pressured Israel to not retaliate. It marked the first time Israel was attacked and did not defend itself, dealing a serious blow to Israeli deterrence, an existential necessity in the Middle East.

Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, American pressure forced Israel into a premature ceasefire every time Hamas started another war, inevitably leading to another bloodier and more destructive war.

When Barack Obama was president, we had Iran over a barrel, with its economy in shambles, its foreign currency reserves almost exhausted and barely able to support its terror proxies. Perversely, President Obama negotiated as if Iran was the superpower holding all the cards and we were powerless.

With an estimated $150 billion signing bonus and the elimination of sanctions worth many billions each year, Iran became an evil rags-toriches success, lavishly funding its many terror proxies while never actually adhering to the terms of the nuclear deal. We again had Iran on the ropes after Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement, until President Biden came into office promising to get Iran to agree to a longer and stronger deal and immediately removed the reimposed sanctions. When he couldn’t even get Iran to agree to a much shorter and weaker deal, President Biden kept giving Iran multi-billion-dollar waivers on sanctions.

We inexplicably removed the Houthis from our list of terror organizations.

We perversely declared Qatar — a close friend of Iran, major funder for Hamas, and owner of Al Jazeera — a “major non-NATO ally.”

We barely responded to well over 100 attacks on us and our friends, even when attacks killed American soldiers.

We left billions of dollars worth of sophisticated weapons for the Taliban and abandoned American citizens and allies in Afghanistan.

President Obama stood by helplessly when Russia took Crimea away from Ukraine.

While President Biden coordinated the supply of weapons to help Ukraine when Putin invaded again, responses to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s desperate pleas have often been very slow and the most needed weapons often withheld.

Immediately after Oct. 7, President Biden recognized Israel was fighting an evil enemy that had to be eliminated, and he pledged “rocksolid” and “unwavering” support.

Unfortunately, while Israel and its army proved they deserved that support, Biden’s rock-solid support has turned to jelly. He has even strongly pressured Israel to not enter the last remaining Hamas stronghold, hand Hamas a victory and let them murder the remaining hostages, including several Americans.

Russia’s takeover of Crimea, its recent invasion of Ukraine, the Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, the Hamas massacre on Oct. 7 and the recent Iranian attack are all connected to those errors.

Regardless of President Biden’s position, Israel has no alternative but to retaliate against Hamas. Any other response guarantees future attacks.

We need to recognize America is the free world’s indispensable nation and act like it.

We need to reimpose and enforce all the sanctions on Iran. We need to make clear we actually mean it when we say we will never allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.

We need to respond strongly whenever we or any of our friends and allies are attacked, whether or not the attack is successful.

If we don’t, Israel will pay a price, Ukraine will likely lose and China will likely invade Taiwan. America and the entire free world will suffer while Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and their allies of convenience are likely to impose a new Dark Age on this planet.

Alan Stein, Ph.D., was formerly a longtime resident of Waterbury. He and his wife Marsha currently split their time between Netanya in Israel and Natick, Mass. He is president emeritus of PRIMER-Connecticut (Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting) and the founder of PRIMER-Massachusetts and PRIMER-Israel.