On 31 July, Iran’s “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Khamenei, ordered an attack on Israel in response to the presumed Israeli assassination in Tehran of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of the terrorist network Hamas. Hamas is, of course, a proxy force owned and operated by Iran.
We should take a lesson from the Israelis. Any terrorists who kill or kidnap Americans must pay with their lives.
Last Monday, Turkish President Recep Erdogan also threatened Israel. He threatened a Turkish invasion, saying Turkey “must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine … Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we might do similar to them.”
Erdogan’s bluster can be ignored. Turkey, our least reliable NATO ally, has been turned by Erdogan into an Islamist state. His statement about Israel doing “ridiculous things to Palestine” is absurd. As most recently documented by Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula (USAF, Ret.) Israel is doing everything humanly possible to minimize civilian casualties in its Rafah operation.
Erdogan’s Turkey should, as this column has repeated often, be thrown out of NATO because it no longer shares NATO’s democratic values and because it is too tied to Russia.
Within the past month, Israeli agents and air strikes have killed three top terrorists: Mohammed Deif, a major Hamas commander, Fuad Shukr, a top-ranking Hizballah commander and Haniyeh. Shukr has been wanted by the U.S. since he took part in the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut which killed 241 Marines and other U.S. personnel. Why Shukr was still alive is a mystery.
On being told of Haniyeh’s death, instead of congratulating the Israelis on the killings of Deif, Shukr, and Haniyeh, President Biden said Haniyeh’s death “doesn’t help” negotiations on a Gaza cease-fire in the war Hamas began on October 7th by massacring 1,200 Israelis, 32 Americans and taking about 240 hostages, including eight Americans.
As I’ve written repeatedly, Biden is doing nothing to gain the U.S. hostages’ release. Five are believed to still be alive.
Biden is so tied to his cease-fire proposals that he continually disregards the fact that Israel has agreed to their framework to get its — and our — hostages back. It is Hamas that blocks the cease-fire by refusing to release its hostages.
Biden is, as usual, entirely wrong. It makes no difference to the cease-fire proposals that Haniyeh was killed. The next Hamas negotiator will be just as unreasonable and defiant unless and until Iran orders otherwise.
Biden is doing one thing right. He has ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt group (which has been on station too long), as well as other ships capable of missile defense, to operate in the Gulf of Oman, which is the entry to the Persian Gulf, close to Iran. Defense Secretary Austin has also reportedly ordered the deployment of a fighter squadron to the area.
Lessons from Iran’s April Attack on Israel
Khameni’s threat raises the threats against Israel to yet another critical level. Iran tried to attack Israel directly on 13 April, launching about 300 missiles and drones, about 99 percent of which were shot down by the combined efforts of Israeli, American, UK and Jordanian forces.
Hizballah has been raining missiles — most of which are shot down by Israeli defenses — on Israeli civilians since the Gaza war began. Airlines are cancelling flights to and from Israel, and our wonderful State Department has told Americans in Lebanon to get out by whatever means they can. No U.S. forces have, so far, been ordered to evacuate U.S. civilians from Lebanon.
In any new attack, Hizballah — another Iranian proxy terror force — could launch tens of thousands of rockets and missiles against Israel.
From even the April unsuccessful attack, the Iranians will have learned a few lessons.
First is that any missile defenses can be oversaturated by incoming drones and missiles and thus overwhelmed. Even Israel’s “David’s Sling,” “Arrow,” and “Iron Dome” systems can be overwhelmed.
Our carrier battle group operating in the Gulf of Oman, the entrance to the Persian Gulf that borders Iran, can help defend Israel — as can the Jordanian and UK forces — but the tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands — of Hizballah missiles could overwhelm those defenses if they are launched at one time or in rapid successive waves.
The second lesson that Iran has learned from the unsuccessful April attack and the Haniyeh assassination is that no one is safe from Israeli vengeance, even in Tehran.
After the 1972 massacre of eleven Israeli athletes by the Black September terrorist group, which also killed a German policeman, then-Israeli prime minister Golda Meir ordered the deaths of all the killers. Israeli intelligence agents hunted them down and killed them. It took about twelve years for that to be accomplished.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu reportedly ordered the planners and perpetrators of the October 7 attack to be killed just as the perpetrators of the 1972 Olympic massacre were hunted down and killed over more than a decade. The assassination of Haniyeh, Shukr’s death in Beirut and the air strike that killed Deif are part of Netanyahu’s plan.
What is missing here are statements by Biden threatening the use of force against Iran. Biden is, again, siding with Iran, Turkey, and Hamas by not issuing scathing statements against them, warning of U.S. reprisals.
Hizballah has been firing missiles at Israeli civilians since Hamas’s October 7 attack. It is only possible to deter Iran by military force. Israel responded to Iran’s 13 April attack six days later, striking — and probably destroying — a radar installation near Isfahan which is about 270 miles south of Tehran in western Iran.
After that strike, Iran went quiet for a short while but it is now back with Khameni’s threats, which Israel and we must take seriously. Neither Biden nor Vice President Harris will.
We should take a lesson from the Israelis. Any terrorists who kill or kidnap Americans must pay with their lives.
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