If you don’t like the principles of the Biden administration’s foreign policy, it has others. Before Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sept. 27, President Joe Biden called for a “ceasefire” on the Israel-Lebanon border. After Israel did civilization a favor by killing the world’s top terrorist, Biden called the operation a “measure of justice” for the victims of Nasrallah’s four-decade “reign of terror.” A few days later, on Oct. 1, the president called for a “ceasefire now” between Israel and Hezbollah. Then, when Iran lobbed more than 180 missiles at Israel, he asserted Israel’s right to fight back. But not really.
On Oct. 2, Biden said he thought the Israeli response should be “proportional” and should not involve hitting Iran’s illicit nuclear sites. He didn’t say whether he meant proportional to the assault, which would mean Israel firing 180 missiles at Iran, or proportional to the cost, which was minimal due to Israel’s triple-layered air defense system and the discreet support of its allies, or proportional to the strategic consequences.
It doesn’t really matter. The president doesn’t really matter. No one believes what he says. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. The world watches the absurd circus of the 2024 elections and sees a failing state and a falling empire. The incoherence is a symptom of decline and part of the fall. A red line can only be crossed once. After that, no one believes you’re really drawing one. You’re just talking with a crayon in your hand while the gap between words and reality gets wider and wider.
The leaders of Britain and France are also incoherent, and without the excuse of senility. At the United Nations on Sept. 27, Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. “Escalation serves no one,” he said. Escalation served Hezbollah very nicely for four decades because the United States, Britain, and France repeatedly folded in the face of its terrorism. Escalation clearly serves Israel now because a state that cannot secure its borders or protect its citizens cannot long exist.
Starmer thinks an “immediate ceasefire” is the “only way to halt this devastating cycle of violence.” He did not mention that Hezbollah began launching rockets on northern Israeli towns within hours of Hamas’s barbaric massacres on Oct. 7, 2023, or that tens of thousands of Israelis remain refugees in their own country. He did manage to link a ceasefire with creating a Palestinian state. We heard the same manicured depravity from French President Emmanuel Macron, who is so sophisticated that his appeals for “stability” didn’t even mention the word “Hezbollah.”
Only a few days later, this pair of moral pygmies were standing tall. More precisely, they let it be known they were standing behind Israel and aiding its defense against Iranian missiles. But not standing next to it. The arbiters of what Starmer fancies as “internationalism” and the “rule of law” cannot bring themselves to walk the talk in any direction. Last month, Starmer put a partial arms embargo on Israel for its handling of the Iranian-funded war in Gaza. Now, he’s helping Israel handle the Iranian-funded war in Lebanon. The world sees this, too, and figures the old empires are not so much senile as brain-dead. They have no minds left to make up.
The U.S.’s march of folly on Iran is reaching its end. The mullahs leave the administration with no good options. If whoever is in charge of this administration presses Israel not to respond in kind, the U.S. confirms its insincerity and further shreds America’s global credibility. If it encourages Israel to respond in kind, a war in the Gulf will raise the price of oil with the elections weeks away. The idea that Iran will be “deterred” by restoring a few of the sanctions that the administration allowed to lapse when it took office is stupid. Naturally, this is our preferred course: to defer, not deter.
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What happens next depends on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Democrats need to get past the elections. The mullahs in Tehran prefer a deferring Democratic administration to a deterring Republican one. Netanyahu will do the Democrats no favors. He knows that a Kamala Harris administration would be even worse for Israel than the Biden-Harris administration has been. Even if he was disposed to help the Democrats dig themselves out of the Iranian hole, he cannot afford to. The future of the Jewish state is on the line.
The future of the world is also at stake. If you want the U.S. to remain the first among equals in the new multipolar order, the terrorists in Tehran must be confronted. Dismantle their terrorist armies and disarm their nuclear program today, or face bigger rockets and nuclear warheads tomorrow.