Take Out Iran Now, Hamas After

It’s vital not to get distracted by lesser jobs. Toppling the Islamist regime in Iran is the crucial task. Hamas can be finished off later.

We must not bury our head in the sand of Gaza at this time. We have a unique opportunity, for the moment, to take out the main danger: Islamist Iran. We must not bungle it on a bureaucratic instinct for completing the Gaza job first. Keeping the focus on Gaza at this stage could prove a quagmire that stops Israel from ever getting on to Iran. We should remember how the Iraq-first strategy of Bush became a quagmire for the U.S., one that kept it from getting on to Iran, and in fact ended up greatly increasing the regional power of Iran.

It will be far easier to finish off Hamas after Islamist Iran is gone than it is today.

And it will be far easier to finish off Islamism in Iran, where it has massively discredited itself, than in Gaza.

After Iranian Islamism falls, Hama and Hezbollah will both be widowed. Enough of their supporters will lose hope that they could fall like dominos.

It is Islamist Iran, not Hamas, that poses the existential nuclear threat to Israel. And is the existential threat to the entire region. And is right now resupplying Putin with enough drones to keep striking Ukraine.

Islamist Iran must go. Now. All else must be subordinated to this imperative.