OPINION:
Those who condemn the president’s attack on the Iranian theocracy from the perspective of isolationism or “peace at all costs” appeasement should consider a scenario.
Imagine for a moment if, during the mid-1930s, Western democracies had possessed the prescience to recognize Adolf Hitler’s true intentions. Imagine that they had the military wherewithal and political courage to act and had neutralized his war machine before he and it had the means to prosecute his terrible campaign.
What impact would that have had on preventing much of the suffering, death and destruction of World War II?
Obviously, the peaceniks, isolationists and appeasers won the argument for political paralysis. Western leaders, disbelieving what was unfolding before their very eyes in Nazi Germany, crossed their fingers and hoped against hope that Hitler wouldn’t pull the military trigger. When he did, they continued to cross their fingers and appease. We know where that led.
Since 1979, the apocalyptic theocracy that rules Iran has openly and repeatedly declared its desire and intention to obliterate Israel and the United States. After having been complicit in hundreds, if not thousands, of American deaths, the regime is racing to build a nuclear arsenal capable of reaching the U.S.
Should we cross our fingers and hope it’s not successful, or should we take the Iranian regime at its word when it declares over and over that it wants to obliterate us, and act preemptively to prevent that from happening?
Although 20th-century Western leaders lacked the foresight and political courage to preemptively confront Nazi tyranny before it was too late, today’s America has a president with both those qualities in spades. He will end Iranian nuclear capability to strike the U.S. and, more important, do so on our terms and timeline, not our enemy’s.
If we wait until the Iranian regime is in possession of even a small nuclear arsenal, then the Middle East will remain unstable in perpetuity and Iran will remain a mortal danger to the U.S.
KEN BECKERT
Fishersville, Virginia
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