The mullahs of Iran significantly ratcheted up their conflict with Israel on Tuesday, when, for the second time in less than six months, they launched a direct missile attack against the Jewish state, which threatens to plunge the region into a much broader war.
As Israelis once again emerge from their bomb shelters, the big question is whether Jerusalem will be able to upend a security situation that has seen it simultaneously dealing with threats from all sides — and whether its western allies will continue to sit on the sidelines as the Jewish state stands alone against a terrorist threat that imperils us all.
Unlike when Iran sent a barrage of missiles at Israel in April, in retribution for the bombing of an Iranian consular building in Damascus, Israelis did not have much advanced notice of Tuesday’s assault. Earlier in the day, the White House leaked reports of an imminent Iranian attack, and at around 7:30 p.m., local time, sirens started sounding throughout the country.
The assault only lasted about an hour, and as of this writing, there are few reported casualties. Israel Defence Forces spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that the country’s air defence systems “carried out quite a few interceptions,” though there were “some impacts in the centre and areas in the south of the country.”
The last time this happened, the Iranians reportedly provided at least some advanced warning to American officials through diplomatic back-channels, which allowed the United States to forge an international coalition to help defend Israel. This time around, the message being sent by Iran’s theocratic dictators seems to be: we can hit you anytime we choose, and we don’t have to give you time to prepare.
It’s a message that’s clearly designed to wear on the Israeli psyche, which was devastated by Hamas’s surprise attack on the morning of October 7 that saw 1,200 people, mostly civilians, brutally slaughtered, and over 250 taken captive by an organization that has no respect for human rights and no qualms about using physical and sexual violence against its perceived enemies.
While Israelis are still reeling from that horrific event, and will continue to be so long as hostages remain in Hamas’s dank terror tunnels, over the past couple weeks, we’ve witnessed some important developments that serve to re-establish Israel’s deterrent capabilities and give its citizens renewed faith in their security establishment.
On Sept. 17 and 18, thousands of Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies simultaneously exploded, incapacitating an estimated 1,500 terrorists. This was reportedly the culmination of a years-long operation that saw Israeli spies set up a Hungarian pager manufacturer that was contracted by the Lebanese terrorist group to produce thousands of devices for it.
Not long after, Israel stepped up its air campaign in Lebanon, in an effort to degrade Hezbollah’s ability to continue bombarding northern Israel with rockets, which it has been doing on a near-daily basis since Oct. 8, 2023. This so far highly successful air campaign was followed by a limited ground invasion on Monday.
In another major coup, on Friday, the Israelis killed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader who spent over three decades turning the Iranian terror proxy into a regional power backed by the world’s largest non-state paramilitary force.
Nasrallah was sheltering in Hezbollah’s headquarters, which was buried beneath a residential area of Beirut. His death provided further evidence of just how deeply Israeli intelligence officials have managed to penetrate the terrorist organization.
Not trying to hide the fact that Hezbollah’s raison d’être has always been to serve Iranian interests — a top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general was among the dead in Friday’s bombing of Hezbollah HQ — Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, almost immediately vowed revenge, saying, “The blood of the martyr shall not go unavenged.”
This is pretty standard fare for Iranian leaders. In the past, it would have been safe to pass off such rhetoric as mere bluster. At worst, its proxies in Lebanon or Yemen may have launched a few extra rockets and said it was done as payback for Nasrallah’s death.
But Iran changed the calculus when it launched its first-ever direct attack against Israel in April. Its leaders now seem to believe that launching arial assaults on the Jewish state is fair game, not only to enact revenge for the killing of Iranian officials, or destruction of Iranian property, but for Israel defending itself against Tehran’s terrorist proxies.
Although an Iranian official said following Tuesday’s attack that Tehran believes Israel “cannot retaliate,” it is unclear why they think Jerusalem should be under any obligation to play by their rules. Indeed, almost immediately, Hagari vowed that the missile attack “will have consequences,” noting that, “We have plans, and we will act in the time and place that we choose.”
U.S. officials also warned Iran would face “severe consequences,” but only time will tell whether they have the fortitude to make good on that promise. At some point, the United States and its allies will have to come to the realization that decades of failing to stand up to Iran have only made it stronger.
It has been over 22 years since then-U.S. president George W. Bush listed Iran as part of the “axis of evil,” alongside Iraq and North Korea, and 12 years since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed upon the international community to set a “clear red line” for taking action against Iran’s nuclear program.
We didn’t listen. Instead, Iran has been allowed to develop into a nuclear threshold state that’s capable of building nuclear weapons whenever its leaders decide to go full Armageddon. At the same time, it has built a terror network that poses an existential risk to Israel and threatens to plunge the Middle East into a regional war.
Far from containing Iran or reducing its ability to wage war on its neighbours, Bush’s war on terror only served to strengthen the regime by taking out its Sunni foes in Iraq, which allowed Tehran to gain influence in the country and build its own terrorist militias there.
This latest Iranian attack should be the jolt that the free world needs to wake from its slumber. For the past year, Israel has been standing alone on the vanguard of the war on terror. Although the U.S. has beefed up its military presence in the Mideast, it doesn’t even seem to be up to the task of containing the Houthis.
On Tuesday, the Yemeni terrorist group claimed to have attacked yet another commercial ship, this time a British oil tanker, with a drone and ballistic missiles. The Americans and Brits have launched a series of strikes against the Houthis since the beginning of the year, but have failed to prevent them from attacking ships transiting the Red Sea and Israel itself. Indeed, on Sunday, it was the Israeli Air Force that had to take out Houthi military infrastructure in an attempt to stem its attacks against the Jewish state.
We can no longer afford to continue to allow Israel to stand alone against forces of evil that threaten the entire free world. It’s time for America and its allies, including Canada, to confront the world’s largest source of terrorist funding and one of the biggest dangers to global peace and stability — Iran’s murderous theocratic regime.
National Post
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