The Obama Doctrine is as dead as Yahya Sinwar. And the world is better off in both cases.

While the massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, was one of the most traumatic events in modern Jewish history, it’s obvious now that it was a massive, perhaps existential, blunder by Islamic State, and a stunning defeat for its allies both in the Middle East and Washington.

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Oct. 7 transformed the Middle East in ways that seemed impossible only a few years ago. Hamas, perhaps the most immediate threat to both Jewish and Arab lives in the region, is largely eradicated. Hezbollah, the theocratic militia that’s kept Lebanon in a state of turmoil and war for decades, is reeling. Indeed, it was Israel’s success against the latter that helped send Bashar al-Assad, a real-world genocidal dictator, into Russian exile. Most of all, events have left Iran, which spent decades building its proxies throughout the Middle East, impotent.

It’s no surprise that on their way out, Barack Obama cronies in the Biden administration approved another $10 billion in sanctions relief for the mullahs by waiving restriction payment transfers from the Iraqi government. These are the same people who had attempted to lift Hamas and propped up its benefactors in Iran with planeloads of cash. And the same people did everything possible to handcuff Israel in its war against Hamas and Hezbollah.

Not only had the White House threatened to withhold aid if the IDF went into Rafah to eliminate Hamas battalions cowering behind women and children, when Israel pulled off its ingenious pager operation, wounding and killing hundreds of Hezbollah operatives, our uncannily misguided Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that “all parties” should “avoid escalating conflict,” treating our close allies and Islamists, in this case a group that once murdered 220 Marines in Beirut, as equals.  

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Fortunately, Israel ignored Biden and eliminated Nasrallah, who was involved in those murders, and decimated much of Hezbollah’s capacity to wage war. Benjamin Netanyahu, far more risk-averse and far less hawkish than his critics maintain, was compelled by the popular will to settle all family business after Oct 7. The conventional wisdom has been that Israel, a small nation, is impelled to finish wars quickly or risk an economic crash. That was surely the case in the conventional wars of the past. The Jewish State proved it could engage in a prolonged conflict, striking one decisive victory after the next.

Convention wisdom also said that Israel would be unable to effectively strike deep within Iran. Yet, after the Islamic regime launched 500 ballistic missiles and drones in its direction, Israel slipped 100 jets into the Iranian territory and calmly engaged in precision strikes — a warning that it could mete out far more devastation if it felt like it. And perhaps it will in the future.

On Oct. 8, Israelis woke up to a gruesome massacre and perhaps the most devastating security failure in their country’s history (behind only the Yom Kippur War.) Yesterday, they woke up to the news that Israel is annihilating Syrian air force, its armaments, and perhaps chemical weapons storehouses, ensuring that no advanced weaponry falls into the hands of jihadis. It also secured a more defensible border while cutting off Hezbollah from Iran.

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Politics in the Jewish State remains as raucous and unpredictable as ever. Whatever happens, however, the deadly experiment of an autonomous Gaza is also over. Until there’s a profound culture change within Palestinian society, which entails not only living peacefully with their neighbors but accepting history, there will never be Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria or Gaza. And it won’t matter how many U.N. resolutions are passed or how many Ivy Leaguers protest or how many ICC arrest warrants are issued. While it might come as a shock to many Westerns, there’s a strong chance an Arab “Palestine” may ever exist. And there is no moral or historical imperative to make it happen. The two-state solution is unnecessary. There is already a 24-state solution in place — only one of them Jewish.

It is possible that Oct. 7 also had broader impact on American domestic politics than is acknowledged. Starting with its deadly Afghanistan withdrawal, the Biden foreign policy agenda undermined our standing in the world and its standing among American voters. There is no place in the world I can think of that is better off today than it was before Biden was elected.

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But once progressives began rationalizing and justifying wanton murders and rapes of Oct. 7, the average voter got a good look at the extremism that had taken over higher education, swaths of the media, and Washington. The subsequent coddling of Islamist-friendly protesters by virtually every national Democrat who wasn’t named Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) lent to the general (and accurate) impression that progressivism had gone off the rails. Even voters who don’t care very much about the foreign affairs, surely understand that people who romanticize Hamas also detest the United States. BLM, Antifa, Queers for Palestine, et al, are all propelled by the same mind virus.

Then there’s the Jewish vote, which was been largely immovable for many decades. Defining “Jewish voter” is no easy feat, but it’s clear that a not-inconsequential number of them moved away from the Democrats. Whereas most Jewish voters had overlooked the Farrakhan and Squad factions, the post-Oct. 7 mainstreaming and dramatic spread of Jew-hatred and “anti-Zionism” among the activist left was probably a bit much.

Oct. 7 also allowed many Jews to see the true colors of leftists like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and other Democrats who follow his lead in voting to deny Israel – not Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Qatar – weaponry, for what they are. And the massacre also pulled back the veil on progressive Jewish front organizations that revoltingly support the enemies of their ethnic brethren and the United States.

There is a chance for peace in the region. Though it is difficult to be pollyannaish about such things. When the Taliban, Palestinians, Turkey and Qatar shower praise on a movement, as they do on the al-Qaeda-affiliated group that has conquered Syria, the world has reason to be concerned. The Turkish government would like to set up their own proxy state in Syria, though the Arabs tend to detest the Turks. And the Turks, of course, detest the Kurds, who are being ethnic cleansing as we speak. (No college campus protests for a Kurdish state, alas.) And, of course, the Christians and Alawites are now in danger from Islamists.

Or, in other words, the Middle East is still the Middle East.

The Trump administration had already dispelled the prevailing myth that peace in the Middle East can only be achieved by placating the intractable Palestinians. But the Biden administration immediately overturned Trump-era policy, releasing hundreds of millions of dollars of funding to UNRWA and the Palestinians, abetting the Oct 7 attack on our ally, and the murder of American citizens.  

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Power and strength, not capitulation and mollification, work in the Middle East. And the world is a better place today because of Israel’s victories. It’s not outlandish to believe that Iranians might now be more open to making a genuine deal with Trump, rather than risking implosion. What would be best for the world, of course, is if the United States exerted its economic pressure and precipitated the fall of the mullahs in Iran, a country which has no real geopolitical reason to be at war with Israel or the West.

Whatever happens, though, the Middle East has been forever transformed by Oct 7.