Our leaders make the same mistakes again and again.
History should have taught them long ago that appeasement gives courage to dictators. The only way to make ourselves safe is to arm ourselves well and respond to aggression with fearless courage.
Iran has felt emboldened to launch this vicious attack for one main reason: the West has taken years to do so to calm down are odious mullahs, instead of making it clear that their evil actions will have sharp consequences.
In recent weeks, President Biden has declared, all too belatedly, that Washington’s commitment to Israel is “iron-plated.”
People with Iranian flags gather in Tehran today to organize a demonstration in support of the Iranian attack on Israel
Fortunately, this proved to be the case in the early hours of this morning, when the US – along with Britain and, crucially, Jordan – shot down Iranian drones and missiles heading towards Israel.
But if only Biden’s resolve had been as “ironclad” when he entered the Oval Office three years ago.
Instead, he has spent his term pursuing a foolish, dangerous and hopelessly naive approach to Iran’s bearded theocrats.
If I can briefly summarize what happened: In May 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama in 2015 (the then vice president was, of course, Joe Biden).
Under that deal, sanctions on Tehran were lifted in the hope that the mullahs would keep their “pledge” not to pursue a nuclear weapons program.
Obama’s approach was utter folly. The mullahs’ coffers quickly filled up thanks to the lifting of sanctions and – just as opponents of his deal had warned – Iran again enthusiastically financed and trained its bloodthirsty proxy groups, from Hezbollah in Lebanon to Hamas in Gaza.
Experts, meanwhile, warned that the so-called “civilian” nuclear program was in fact a weapons project in disguise.
Trump rightly tore up Obama’s agreement, facing hysterical objections from co-signatories Britain, France and Germany. But The Donald’s approach worked.
Trump’s sanctions shrank Iran’s economy by 4.8 percent in 2018 and 9.5 percent in 2019, reducing the broader threat to the Middle East.
But after Biden was inaugurated in 2021, he resumed talks on a renewed deal. And while the sanctions have not been formally lifted, their enforcement has been weakened, sending an implicit message to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, that the US is no longer serious about imposing them.
Iran has since vastly expanded its oil exports, much of it to China – just as it has escalated its malign behavior in Gaza, Lebanon and now from its own territory.
We have some lessons to learn here. When Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement in 1938, Hitler felt authorized to invade Poland.
When Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea in 2014, the West stood back and watched – prompting him to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
And now Israel has been attacked again on its own soil after Biden undid Trump’s good work in his uprising against the mad mullahs.
The world is becoming too dangerous for us to keep repeating this mistake.