It is time to hold Iran to account
How the US and its Middle Eastern allies can contain the Iranian threat.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is an octopus of evil that has sowed chaos across the Middle East. It is time for the US and its allies to tie up some of its tentacles and put it back in its tank.
The clerical regime wants to become the dominant Middle Eastern power, assert its Shia version of Islam over Sunni Arab states, destroy Israel, and push the US out of the region. Using its proxy militia, Iran has wrecked Syria and Yemen, turned Iraq into a client state, engulfed Israel in war, and disrupted global shipping in the Red Sea. It is also winning a game of chicken with the international community over its nuclear arms ambitions.
The US must take a tougher line. Israel, which does not suffer the Western affliction of dithering, is taking the fight closer to Tehran. It has killed a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard general in a strike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus. Iran has promised to retaliate and has the region on tenterhooks. Neither side wants an all-out war. US President Joe Biden has said that US support for Israel is “ironclad”. The world is watching to see if that is true, given recent tensions between Washington and Jerusalem.
Iran’s leaders are fanatics, but they can reason in their own interests. The 84-year-old supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s primary interest is ensuring a smooth succession. Iranians despise their government. It remains in power only due to a ruthless crackdown on dissent in 2022, during which the regime’s full psychopathy was on display. Instability and war could threaten the transition, so now is the timeto apply pressure.
REESTABLISHING DETERRENCE
The US must re-establish its deterrence credentials, which have never recovered fully from President Barack Obama doing nothing in 2012 when Syria’s odious president Bashar al-Assad crossed Obama’s “red line” and used chemical weapons on his own people.
It must make clear to Iran that it will help Israel defend itself and, if necessary, help it fight back. It should further state that it will treat attacks on its ships in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthis as an attack from Iran itself.
The US response to Houthi attacks on its bases and its ships has been feeble. It fired some missiles, assembled an international fleet to defend shipping lanes, and is shooting down drones, but it has not stopped the Houthis from launching them. The US is considering taking the Houthis off its terrorist list if they stop attacking ships. It is absurd that a superpower with a $842 billion annual military budget is bargaining with a zealot militia that controls barely half of Yemen.
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