US allies uttering platitudes on Iran which would just prolong the crisis

Once again, America’s European allies and Canada are floundering around the Middle East crisis, flapping their arms ineffectively and uttering platitudes of moral relativism which, if acted upon, would just prolong the crisis. No one seriously disputes that the Iranians were bargaining in bad faith with the United States and were rushing to get an atomic bomb well before they could fit it into a nuclear warhead on a missile. No one seriously disputes that this was a mortal threat to Israel, and that even on what has occurred already, while the capacity to create a nuclear bomb remains, the ability to create a deliverable nuclear weapon has been seriously interrupted. President Trump renews every day his long-standing pledge that Iran will not become a nuclear military power. This clearly means that either the Iranians will come belatedly to their senses and negotiate with the US the dismantling of their programme with an adequate inspection plan and preserve a modicum of dignity after the pounding they have received, or the United States will provide Israel with what it needs to finish the job, or the United States will do it itself.

The call of the European G-7 members and Canada meeting this week in the Canadian province of Alberta for de-escalation was nonsense and a natural sequel to the equally absurd demand of the French, British, and Canadian governments two weeks ago that Israel declare a cease-fire in Gaza. The effect of following these suggestions would be to assure that Iran continued its nuclear development and continued its threat to obliterate Israel and to intimidate the neighboring Arab countries, while assuring that Hamas retained control of Gaza, rearmed courtesy of the reviving Iranians, and when ready, repeated or exceeded the barbarous outrage of October 7, 2023. What is now underway must be, in Wilsonian terms, a war to end war. The best alternative would include savage attacks on the barracks and other facilities of the Revolutionary Guard and what is left of the Iranian government, to encourage the great majority of Iranians who detest that government to rise up and be done with it.

In its frequently somewhat noteworthy history of nearly 3,000 years, the Persian people endured a few episodes more dismal and unpromising than the Islamic Republic, and if it is the unhappy fate of that country to continue with this antediluvian, totalitarian, pseudo-theocracy for a while longer, there must be a complete destruction of its nuclear military capabilities and loss of the status that it has flaunted for the last 50 years as the world’s principal promoter of terrorism. That is the object and essential outcome of this war: Effectively to deprive Iran of its destructive capabilities and as a bonus to scorch the fingers of the People’s Republic of China, that has been overseeing and assisting Iran’s terrorist initiatives.

Since there is absolutely no reason to doubt President Trump’s determination to end the Iranian nuclear threat, America’s wobbly allies, instead of impotently agitating for the resurrection of Iran’s terrorist and nuclear sabre-rattling potential, should do what they can to encourage the defanging of Iran. If this process can be completed, whether the palsied regime of the ayatollahs plods on or not, a new era of Israeli-Arab cooperation is almost certain to begin, and the shaky and vulnerable attempt to maintain a credible policy of nuclear non-proliferation will be reinforced. The thorough defeat and humiliation of Iran will also be a decisive blow to the forces of terrorism throughout the world, as well as a useful slap in the face for China which might cause the policy-makers in Beijing to understand mischievous interference all around the world has its risks, and that Great Powers should behave responsibly.

Finally, every day we see what is the first definitive demonstration that the collective Jewish pledge “Never again!”, after the unspeakable massacre of approximately half of that entire ancient and talented people within living memory, is not just a slogan. In the brief wars launched against Israel by the Arab powers, armed forces were engaged against each other, and while the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state was contested, there was no known ambition to complete the liquidation of the Jewish people, a project which the Nazis had so barbarously advanced. Iran has repeatedly expressed the desire to exterminate the population of Israel and Israel has convincingly demonstrated that no such thing will ever happen again. The entire world should be grateful and relieved for Israel’s determination, at this convincing demonstration of the coverage and imperishability of the Jewish people.

The Western Europeans and Canadians should stop waffling and recognize the strategic possibilities and necessities of the clear contest between good and evil that the Israel-Iran war presents. It is painful to see these countries diving into a total immersion of irrelevancy, uttering tired pieties about de-escalation and cease-fires that are really just the prolongation of conflicts that we have the power and duty to end now, at last.