The attack on Iran by the U.S. and Israel is overdue, and a masterful stroke, even if we don’t yet know all of its outcomes. One outcome, however, is clear—the West, meaning western Europe and Canada, is meaningless as a geopolitical force.
Everyone has known for decades the source of violence and instability in the Middle East. It is Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas. The U.S., and western European nations, indeed, Israel itself, have quietly accepted civilian casualties as the price of not disturbing the carefully balanced game of Pickup Sticks that is the Middle East.
Trump has masterfully unwound this dysfunctional modus operandi, the stimulus for action being Hamas’s outrageous attack of October 7. The West, which has repeatedly limited Israel’s right to self-defense, could hardly stand in the way of her response to such a terrible attack. Free of outside limitations, Israel assaulted and systematically dismantled Hamas, killing its leadership and in the process, destroying much of the infrastructure of the state and population that supported it. Israel also destroyed Hezbollah in a beautifully orchestrated mixture of spy-novel-worthy technology (simultaneously exploding beepers!) and air attacks.
The destruction of Iran’s proxies next to Israel made direct action against Iran feasible. Israel and the U.S. took that action last June, destroying much of Iran’s enrichment capacity along with most of its air defenses. This left Iran completely open to assault, unable to make a meaningful attack on Israel or threaten the region atomically. Yesterday that assault came in response to Iran’s intransigence in negotiation. At this writing, their religious leader and more than 40 top politicians and military commanders have been killed, and their missile sites and manufacturing facilities targeted.
Arab nations have largely applauded the attack. The Iranian diaspora is literally dancing in the streets. China and Russia complained, but that was expected. The response from western Europe was a muted, joint communique from France, Germany, and England with three elements.
It urged Iran to negotiate. Negotiation, talking, has been the mainstay of Western international strategy for decades. It has often been its only tool, as western Europe and Canada let their armed forces dwindle away to the point these nations cannot even defend themselves, let alone attack an aggressor.
It specified that no European nation participated in the attacks. Oh, how brave! What solidarity! America and Israel finally take on the source of terrorism that has harmed your nations, and you distance yourself from that act even as you benefit from it. And the reason is obvious. You’re afraid. You’re hedging your bets, in case this attack spirals into terrorism or a general war you’re both unequipped for and afraid to fight.
You condemned Iran’s attacks on others. That’s a safe and reasonable option without actually doing anything. Violence is bad, and it’s acceptable to condemn the violence of your enemy as a veil to condemning the violence of your ally.
An emergency session of the UN was convened. Well, that will help. In the 10 years between 2015 and 2024, the UN condemned Israel 173 times, 17 times per year, or once every 3 weeks. All other nations and groups combined were condemned 80 times. The UN has never approved of military force in the Middle East. It has sent peacekeepers, who serve essentially as a few guards trying, without use of weapons, to separate two gang factions fighting in a prison. The UN frets, it condemns, it meets, but it doesn’t DO anything. It isn’t even run by the Western nations that established it in 1948.
This has been the Western stance for years, and also the stance of the American Left. Violence is always bad, even violence that destroys a yet more violent enemy. Negotiation, protest, trade embargoes, legal proceedings through the International Court of Justice. These have been the West’s tools, as if the world will respond or even submit to what the West thinks is “reason,” or to an international legal system not recognized by numerous nations, including the U.S. and Israel.
The West has abandoned its own institutions and languages. It no longer celebrates its own culture or achievements. Its birth rate is so low that “guest workers” must be imported, who then stay years, establishing Muslim enclaves in major cities. The number one boys’ name in Belgium has been Mohammed. For years. Pakis staff and run most every restaurant and hotel in London. Muslim beggars and thieves are all over central Paris, while churches are deconsecrated and turned into museums, and “international” art is promoted over the works in the Louvre, Uffizi, National Gallery, and Reichsmuseum.
This is the most definitive result of the attack. The West has been revealed as impotent, indecisive, and scared. Everyone knew Iran’s nuclear facilities had to be destroyed and its religious regime replaced, but the West did nothing for 46 years, despite death and provocation. Something as benign as a cartoon of Mohammed prompted bombings and deaths in France and elsewhere, and the West whined and moaned, but did nothing. Western Europe postures, but is powerless to act. They are always citing fear of a wider war, or a nuclear war, an oil shortage, fear of something, to talk themselves into doing nothing against the biggest terrorist and bully in the world.
Trump acted decisively and thoughtfully, not even trying to get cooperation from our ossified, erstwhile allies. The groupthink of the liberal West has been revealed as a failure, both practically and morally. Peace isn’t peace if you have no strength. Wringing your hands and calling for UN resolutions are the acts of the fearful, not the strong. Tolerating the civilian deaths of an ally isn’t coexistence, it is immoral.
Trump’s force and leadership broke the Western order that has existed since WW2, and that’s a good thing. NATO, the UN, and the image of a united Europe and America are all antique ideas and organizations. They are now 80 years old. When they were created in 1945, that would have been like clinging to alliances, treaties, and groups from…1865.
It is a new world, one where the response to evil is force, not talk, where reality, not fantasy, is acknowledged, and therefore one that will be safer, more reasonable, and fairer as well. The Western, liberal stance of inaction in the face of injustice is over.
Trump has brought all this and more, and he is to be congratulated for it.