President Biden needs to grab the mantle of leadership by presenting a bold and intrepid plan to stop Iran from wreaking further havoc
Op-ed by Fern Sidman - The Jewish Voice
(Images provided by Stop Iran Now)
As tensions in the Middle East continue to escalate and the entire region is keeping its eyes focused the nefarious machinations of Iran, Israel has been ahead of the curve in terms of being pro-active in its own defense against nuclear ambitions of the rogue regime.
Now, however, it has been reported that Israel is not keeping the United States informed of its increasing number of surreptitious attacks on nuclear targets in Iran. Multiple US officials confirmed this to CNN.
Jonathan Panikoff, head of the Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council and a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East at the National Intelligence Council said that Israel, “doesn’t seem to have a strategic plan right now to end the Iranian nuclear weapons development,” as was reported by YWN.
He added: “It’s hoping that through a series of tactical actions it can keep the pressure on and continuously delay Iranian progress. The more the Israelis push — especially if the Iranians decide JCPOA is dead — the more the Iranians are going to push back.”
The CNN report indicated that one of President Biden’s objectives on his upcoming trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia is to assure allies in the region that he has a concrete plan to constrain Iran as they prepare for a very possible nuclear attack against the aforementioned nations.
Thus far, the current administration in Washington has attempted to resuscitate the failed JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal) that was originally initiated by former President Barack Obama, yet this plan has not yielded any tangible results.
Rather than warning Iran of the significant consequences it faces should it decide to forge ahead with its pernicious military plans, the US administration has unsuccessfully attempted to offer Iran lucrative monetary incentives for them to quash their extensive nuclear enrichment program. This, too, has been an abysmal failure in every respect.
One US official said, “The situation with Iran is getting very hot. That is a huge part of why we need to do this trip — our allies want to know we are serious about dealing with this.”
A congressional aide familiar with the deliberations said,
“A lot of our partners feel strongly that the US Iran policy is making them inherently less safe. And when you tie that policy to the Afghanistan withdrawal, restrictive arms sales, the lukewarm embrace of the Abraham Accords, the advertised pivot to the Indo-pacific — we have a lot of partners willing to take matters into their own hands.”
Because the Biden administration has been reluctant to devise a plan that would serve as a realistic deterrent to Iranian aggression, such US allies as Israel are “going it alone” in their quest to defend the safety of their citizenry.
Clearly, Israel grasps the sad fact that it does not have the backing of US military might in any future conflict with Iran.
For those who have eyes to see and ears that hear, it is quite obvious that the drumbeats of war have already begun and Iran makes no secret of the fact that it is on the verge of developing a nuclear arsenal that will cause the kind of mass carnage that we only envisioned in our worst nightmares.
President Biden needs to grab the mantle of leadership; to take the proverbial bull by the horns, not only in guaranteeing allies that the US will have their back, but he must present a bold and intrepid plan to stop Iran from wreaking havoc on the civilized world.
If the world thought that Russian aggression against Ukraine and the thousands of innocents who were casualties of it was beyond shocking, it will pale in significance to the utter and complete devastation that Iran will foist upon the world.
This is a pivotal moment in contemporary history and the results of the actions and inactions by our leaders will be seared into the pages of our history books for all time.
Biden must be cognizant that this is his own, personal, Churchillian moment if he chooses to embrace it. If he acts with the sort of courage and wisdom that is required he can spare hundreds of millions of needless deaths. If he continues on the course of pathetic inaction and passivity in the name of feckless diplomacy, he will have blood on his hands and the world will never forget.
