On Sept. 9, 2025, an Israeli air strike apparently took out Hamas leaders who believed themselves safe in Qatar. They lived a luxurious life while directing their associates in Gaza to cage and starve Jewish hostages seized nearly two years ago during a ceasefire.
It was the latest of several audacious Israeli actions.
In July 2024, Israel reached far into Iran, not only eliminating Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, but killing him in an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps guesthouse. Less than two months later, Israel remotely detonated thousands of beepers used by Hezbollah, knocking out the bulk of its fighting force with the push of a button. The operation was a decade in the making. Both before and after, Israel used more traditional means to kill much of the Hezbollah military command and control hierarchy, essentially rendering the terrorist group impotent.
When war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah in June 2025, Israeli operatives eliminated scores of senior Revolutionary Guardsmen and nuclear scientists almost simultaneously. Other senior Iranian officials received warnings via text message, directly or via their children’s phones. The level of intelligence penetration and utilization was unprecedented.
Israel is not alone. Ukraine continues to fight a war of survival against Russia, a country with a population three and a half times greater and an area 28 times its size. By almost every military metric, Russia is more powerful, yet through sheer ingenuity, Ukraine has stopped Russia, sinking its Black Sea flagship and taking out half of its bomber fleet.
In both cases, the adversaries that Israel and Ukraine fight killed Americans, seemingly with impunity. Hezbollah faced only token retaliation for its murder of 17 Americans at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in April 1983 and 241 Americans six months later at the Marine Barracks while the servicemembers were deployed on a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.
In August 2024, Hamas executed American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was one of many taken hostage on Oct. 7, 2023. A September 2024 Justice Department indictment charged Hamas with the murder of more than 40 Americans as a result of the attack. The State Department designated Hamas a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997 because of a series of bomb attacks that killed Americans.
The Houthis curse the United States and attack its shipping. Russia, meanwhile, colluded with the Taliban. Unconfirmed intelligence reports suggest Russia even put bounties on U.S. soldiers. Regardless, there is hardly a rogue regime whose capabilities the Kremlin has not sought to strengthen against the U.S.
For decades, both Republicans and Democrats have acquiesced to being punching bags for rogue groups and states. The U.S. intelligence community advised inaction, fearing provoking more terrorism. The State Department counseled discussion. Diplomats from Dennis Ross to William Burns to Zalmay Khalilzad made careers engaging rogue actors. The results were always the same: empowered enemies and Americans in body bags.
With the exception of former President Barack Obama’s targeting of Al Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden and President Donald Trump’s order to kill Iranian Quds Force Chief Qasem Soleimani, the terrorists most responsible for targeting Americans often felt immune from any personal consequences for their decisions. The only exceptions were those operating on battlefields in which the U.S. was engaged, for example, against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
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When confronting Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, those directing the tip of the spear of U.S. power preferred to be armchair analysts rather than agents of the enemy’s destruction. They spent more energy writing memos and crafting PowerPoints justifying inaction rather than thinking outside the box to neutralize enemies and signal, like the Israelis and Ukrainians do, that they would avenge every American life and rain death upon every political or military official responsible.
Today, Israel and Ukraine have restored deterrence, but, since President Ronald Reagan ordered American forces to flee under fire, every cave-dwelling terrorist believes he can win fame and glory by targeting Americans. The nay-saying, couch potato doctrine of U.S. national security costs lives.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is the director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.