OPINION:
If you are still waiting for the world’s political left to display something approximating gratitude for the U.S. and Israel’s operation in Iran, then you will be sorely disappointed.
Democrats and their international counterparts, aided by a global lapdog media, have not just failed to thank the U.S. and Israel for saving their collective keister, but they also have had the temerity to rail against them for doing so.
Still, the two nations have “saved the West.” Together, in less than a month, America’s Operation Epic Fury and Israel’s Sha’agat Arieh (Lion’s Roar) have produced heretofore unseen military results. They have struck more than 15,000 targets, slashing Iranian drone attacks by 83% and destroying more than 85% of Iran’s air defenses.
They have eliminated some of the planet’s most evil people, raw sewage parading as human beings: “supreme leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands, including hundreds of Americans, and at least 40 of his top military leaders.
Among the targets the U.S. and Israel have taken out thus far: critical missile-production sites in Parchin and Shahrud, facilities that “formed the core of the Islamic [r]epublic’s precision rocket production array”; underground storage and production sites at Tabriz, Shiraz, Karaj, Ahvaz, Isfahan, Kermanshah and Bushehr; approximately 1,500 in-production missiles; and the Iranian Space Research Center, which “served as a cover and a central platform for the development of advanced propulsion technologies for intercontinental ballistic missiles,” according to Alma Research and Education Center.
In response, European heads of state and Democrats in Congress have excoriated President Trump — the only American commander in chief in nearly 50 years who has had the guts to move against the murderous Islamist government — and the mission.
After the Feb. 28 assault, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hastily issued a statement saying, “The United Kingdom played no role in these strikes.” (No one who has paid any attention to the man’s tenure as prime minister could have thought otherwise, but my, what courage.)
Two days later, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced the strikes, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron urged the U.S. and Iran to return to negotiations.
Sen. Mark Kelly, Arizona Democrat, whined to The Independent last week, “This president got into this without any kind of strategic goal, without a plan, without a timeline and without an exit strategy. We already have, you know, dead Americans and many more injured, and we still haven’t heard a vision from the president. Straits of Hormuz closed down.”
Sen. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Mr. Kelly’s Democratic colleague, has called the U.S. strikes on Iran’s regime “an illegal war” and then gone on to complain about gas prices.
In the House, blinding intellect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York wasted no time getting on the how-dare-you-keep-us-from-being-incinerated Democratic bandwagon. Just after the strikes, she issued a press release saying, “Just this week, Iran and the United States were negotiating key measures that could have staved off war.”
Wrong. Those talks, the third round, ended without a deal two days before the U.S. and Israel struck. How many more such meetings did the Democrats think we should hold? Gosh, maybe another 47 years of talking was all it was going to take. Yes, there are costs in war. The U.S. and Israel have had civilian and military casualties, and each one is heartbreaking. There has been a loss of innocent life in Iran as well.
Yes, gasoline prices have increased, but Americans are not summoned hourly by sirens to bomb shelters, as Israelis are and frequently have been since the creation of the modern state of Israel nearly 80 years ago.
Our food is not being rationed, as it was for civilians on pretty much every continent during World War II. Military conscription has not been restarted.
The risks to Western democracies before Feb. 28 were not imagined. The 12-day war in June did significant damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities, but the ayatollahs had begun rebuilding.
Israeli intelligence recently uncovered a secret weapons development site outside Tehran that “could help [it] resume aspects of weapons development for a nuclear bomb,” The Jerusalem Post reported.
So, yeah, we were still in danger, and Messrs. Starmer, Merz, Kelly et al., and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and her “Squad” have the administration they hate — and the Jewish state they despise nearly as much — to thank for getting us out of it.
Even if the U.S. and Israel ended their campaign today, the damage they have managed to inflict these past few weeks would prove a serious challenge to Iran’s diabolical plans for its neighbors (most notably Israel), Europe and the U.S.
If the only price most of us must pay for that is a higher bill at the pump, then I consider it a small one indeed.
• Anath Hartmann is deputy commentary editor for The Washington Times.
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