Today our adversaries are “under pressure” and “Iran is weaker than it’s been in decades.” While the Biden administration sought this credit in its valedictory messages, it is Israel that has led the way. Fortunately, a new US administration appears poised to build upon its success.
Over the course of just several months in 2024, bold Israeli action reshaped the world stage – and it did so by rejecting a failed Western playbook. No longer will it permit its enemies to define the rules of engagement, nor will it engage them with its hands tied by policies dictated by failed diplomats. Israel has rewritten military doctrine and geopolitical strategy.
For decades, Israel’s enemies knew they could modulate the time and extent of their battles as feckless bureaucrats quickly demanded negotiations with them because, of course, there “could be no military solution.” Time after time, these diplomats promised that the insanity of appeasing the terrorists would produce a different result. The leaders of Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, mocked this naivety as they built arsenals of terror and fomented terrorism.
As incoming National Security Advisor and former Florida congressman Mike Waltz recently observed, “Terrorist groups and rogue states have been taking Americans hostage, and they’ve only seen upside the last four years.”
In a dramatic paradigm shift, Israel demonstrated that a bold strategy, resting upon unparalleled intelligence, audacious military tactics, painstaking training and flawless execution, can prevail.
Israel sought peace after withdrawing in 2000 from the security zone it established in Lebanon and from Gaza in 2005. In return, Israel endured a steady drumbeat of Hezbollah missiles from Lebanon and Hamas rockets from Gaza. Cross-border invasions routinely targeted Israeli civilians, culminating in the barbaric Hamas pillaging of Israel communities on October 7, 2023. The following day, Hezbollah began firing tens of thousands of rockets and missiles upon Israeli cities.
The response of the Biden administration and Western diplomats was, predictably, more calls for a cease-fire: the same cease-fires repeatedly promised to Israel that Hezbollah and Hamas then violated.
Israel’s decision to reject the Biden administration’s repeated warnings and pursue a full military press instead shifted the geopolitics of the region. The precision and proportionality of its military campaign was exquisite, the results dramatic.
Imagine being an enemy of Israel today. Israel destroyed virtually every remaining capability of Hamas. It reached into a secret and highly guarded building in Tehran to eliminate Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas, as he attended the inauguration of Iran’s president. After shooting down the unprecedented ballistic missile attacks launched against Israeli cities (with advanced Israeli technology and military prowess – and assistance from the US and other allies), the Israel Air Force eviscerated Iran’s Soviet made S-300 air defenses, previously thought impregnable. Iran has been left completely exposed and frightful of what may come next.
The brilliance of Israel's actions
The Mossad’s brilliant pager and walkie-talkie attack precisely felled thousands of Hezbollah terrorists while the Israeli military decimated Hezbollah’s fighting forces. Another covert Israeli operation that tagged Hezbollah rocket launchers allowed Israel’s air force to destroy the terrorist group’s missile inventory. Most significantly, Israel decapitated almost the entirety of Hezbollah’s terrorist leadership, including, most stunningly, its secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, whom all thought was untouchable.
Meanwhile, in an operation worthy of a Hollywood production, Israel sent commando forces deep inside a Syrian mountain to surgically destroy an Iranian weapons facility producing missiles for Hezbollah. With Iran and Hezbollah bowed, the evil Assad regime fell.
These were all proxies of Iran. Iran’s options and maneuverability have narrowed and its ability to threaten the West has diminished. Its leaders now live in fear of their very lives. The Axis of Resistance is crippled.
From this, pathways to a better world have emerged. With Hezbollah virtually destroyed, a new Lebanese president has vowed to create a better life for Lebanese civilians by taking military control from the terrorist group and implementing the ceasefire with Israel. With the Assad regime gone, Syrians now also face the prospect of a better life. And there is now room for discussion on how reasonable Palestinians in Gaza may build a society that does not compel them to live as human shields for Hamas.
The people of Iran and the world at large would also benefit from an Iranian regime not controlled by despots singularly focused on fomenting worldwide terrorism.
Israel paved this path. It asked no one to fight for it; all it sought was reasonable moral support.
A new American administration appears ready to seize the opportunity that Israel created for a better Middle East and a safer world. While military tactics for addressing Iran undoubtedly remain to be discussed, the Jewish state has provided valuable lessons and tactical gains for the Trump administration to build into its “maximum pressure” strategy for Iran. The world will be better for it.
The writer, a Miami attorney, is a former resident of Jerusalem.