Israel’s Geopolitical Paradigm Shift

“If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.”  This Talmudic principle should be self-evident. As Israel reasserts itself following the horrors of October 7, rejecting generations of failed Western policies, the West owes Israel a debt of gratitude for reestablishing this moral precept.

There was a time when courageous leaders understood the obligation to defeat enemies to protect their people.  The Allies brought two World Wars to a close only by decimating the enemy and forcing surrenders. Ronald Reagan had a very clear understanding of how the Cold War would end: “We win, they lose.”   When asked how the U.S. led coalition would fight Saddam Hussein’s army in Desert Storm, Colin Powell did not hesitate: “We’re gonna cut it off and then we are going to kill it.”

Israel’s leadership has now made this bold strategic choice. 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.  In doing so, Israel is rewriting military doctrine and geopolitical strategy.

For decades, Israel’s enemies knew they could modulate the time and extent of their battles since feckless bureaucrats would quickly demand negotiations with them because, of course, there “could be no military solution.” Time after time these diplomats promised the insanity of appeasing the terrorists would produce a different result.  The terrorist leaders of Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, mocked this naivety as they built arsenals of terror and fomented terrorism.

In a dramatic paradigm shift, Israel has demonstrated that a bold strategy, resting upon unparalleled intelligence, audacious military tactics, painstaking training and flawless execution, is capable of decimating horrific enemies. Israel is now fighting the war for which it prepared from the lessons learned during the 2006 war launched by Hezbollah and the failed diplomacy that ensued.

It is doing so in a manner that militaries and diplomats should study for decades. Any intellectually honest person should be awed by its precision and proportionality.

Israel sought peace after withdrawing in 2000 from the security zone it had to establish in Lebanon to protect its citizens.  Following Hezbollah’s 2006 cross-border attack and the ensuing war, Israel was promised peace and security by United Nations Resolution 1701. It required Israel to withdraw from Lebanon, which it did.  It required that Hezbollah be prevented from rearming and that southern Lebanon be demilitarized, neither of which occurred.  And it authorized the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon to use force to ensure that southern Lebanon would not be a terrorist safe haven for Hezbollah, which it never did.

Instead, for years Israel endured a steady drumbeat of Hezbollah rockets and cross border invasions that indiscriminately targeted Israel’s civilian population. On October 8, following Hamas’ October 7 assault upon Israel’s south, Hezbollah began firing nearly 10,0000 rockets and missiles into Israel, displacing a significant percentage of Israel’s population from their northern communities.

The response of the Biden Administration and Western diplomats was, predictably, more calls for a cease-fire.  The same cease-fire promised to Israel in 2006 that Hezbollah violated repeatedly.

Israel has made a choice to reject the failed policy constraints repeatedly foisted upon it by naïve American administrations and preening Western bureaucrats.  It is still engaged in a long game, but one year after the horrors of October 7, it is fair to assess that Israel’s full military press has shifted the geopolitics of the region.

Imagine being an enemy of Israel today. Israel has 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. It has decimated Hezbollah’s fighting forces and decapitated almost the entirety of its leadership, including most stunningly its Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, whom all thought was untouchable. It sent commando forces to surgically destroy a Hezbollah weapons facility in Syria. And it sent its air force more than 1000 miles to destroy valuable Houthi infrastructure in response to missile launches from Yemen. It has done all this with previously unimaginable timing and precision.

These were all proxies of Iran.  As they are destroyed, Iran’s options and maneuverability narrow and its ability to threaten the West diminishes. Its leaders now live in fear of their very well-being.

The evil enemies of the West are degraded. Israel, a mighty and brave ally, has shown the way and led the charge. It has not asked anyone to fight for it. All it seeks is reasonable moral support.

A wise and courageous American administration would seize the opportunity and give Israel both continued military support and unrestrained diplomatic backing to conclusively defeat these enemies.  Will it finally internalize the lessons of the times. Or is that just too much to expect?