OPINION:
An element — no, actually, an attitude — has been missing from American foreign policy since President Reagan left office. We got a little of it back with President Trump’s Operation Midnight Hammer on Iran. We need to nurture it and bring it back into our thinking and our foreign policy.
We used to have an edge to our policy goals. It’s an attitude my father did his best to impart to me.
Dad wasn’t the usual kid from the Bronx. He was a Marine officer in World War II. He led his men into three of the worst battles of that war: Guadalcanal, Tarawa and Iwo Jima. As he often told me, “We’re Americans. We don’t start fights or wars. We end them.”
What he meant was we may not always be the biggest on the block, but we’re the toughest. You shove us, and we throw a punch. If you kill one of us, we’ll kill 100 of you. We are peaceful people, but if you hurt us, we’ll hurt you a lot worse.
Reagan had precisely the attitude we need. Asked about his Cold War strategy, he simply said, “We win, they lose.” He had the certitude of being right in the worst of circumstances. We somehow have lost that idea.
The idea is American exceptionalism. We are, and have the right to claim to be, a nation unique in the history of the world. We may not be right every time, but we’re right a lot more often than any other nation is. We are not aggressors, but we have the duty to fight to protect our people, our allies and our interests.
The attitude doesn’t end there. It also comprises an implied threat, something like Tony Soprano smirking at you and saying, “Have a nice day.” Mess with us, we used to say, and you’ll regret it.
The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran didn’t benefit from that concept because it came at a time when one of our weakest presidents, Jimmy Carter, was in office. Carter tolerated the Iranian revolutionaries taking and holding Americans hostage for 444 days, from Nov. 4, 1979, until Jan. 20, 1980. It was no coincidence that the hostages were released on Reagan’s Inauguration Day. Even the Iranians, as crazy as they were (and still are), didn’t want to mess with the Gipper.
However, they have messed with every president since. Each of those men has promised that Iran would never be permitted to develop, far less deploy, nuclear weapons. Yet with the United Nations’ purblind nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (at one time headed by Egyptian Mohamed ElBaradei), Iran was able to lie and conceal its nuclear weapons development. The IAEA has since become aware of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and is more correct about them than the U.S. intelligence community.
The damage has been done. The ayatollahs have oppressed their country for too long. More than that, they have become so accustomed to their own propaganda that they believe it themselves. They are no different from any other Islamist nation or terrorist network. They have been drinking their own bathwater for so many years, they believe we won’t defend ourselves, our allies or our vital national security interests. The lessons we will have to continue to teach them may be costly in lives and treasure but may yet succeed in what our liberals insist is a teachable moment.
From the earliest reports, we have learned that Iranian missiles launched at our base in Qatar failed because all those missiles were intercepted and destroyed. Iran’s parliament (which exists only until it is visited by our B-2s) has authorized the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. It may try, and it may succeed for a few days. If it does, we should sink every ship in the Iranian navy, and we shouldn’t be alone in that effort.
Russia has threatened to supply Iran with nuclear weapons, which would be an act of incomparable madness. Not even Russian ruler Vladimir Putin is that crazy.
Operation Midnight Hammer is by no means the end of this conflict, but it is a good start for its effect on Iran’s nuclear weapons development, which must have been shattering, and for the re-creation of America’s tough-guy approach to foreign policy. That ought to appeal to Mr. Trump because it shows another side of him: If negotiations fail, as they did with Iran, we will be tougher than anyone else on the block.
Every alliance we have around the world would benefit from a reassertion of American exceptionalism. NATO will try to duck away from Mr. Trump’s demand that it now spend 5% of each nation’s gross domestic product on defense. Its members may now take his demand seriously, fearing a loss of U.S. support. Israel, our only real ally in the Middle East, is fighting for its life. Mr. Trump is, properly, standing fast in its defense despite Iran’s attacks on it.
American exceptionalism is not an empty concept. It must be brought back to reality and asserted at every opportunity. As for the ayatollahs, I’d tell them, “Have a nice day.”
• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and a contributing editor for The American Spectator.
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