It is embarrassing how clueless, timid, and appeasing the Biden administration has been in dealing with Iran. President Biden is clearly playing Iran’s game. This could be because Iranian agents and advocates have major roles in the Biden administration — or just because the Obama-era bias toward Iran is still in effect — remember the airplane full of cash.

Because of this ongoing appeasement, the Iranian dictatorship is the dominant aggressive force in today’s Middle East. It trains, funds, and equips its anti-West allies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza, and elsewhere.

When militant groups in Iraq, the Syrian government and its proxies, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, and other terror cells attack Western interests, they are doing so with the approval and support of the Iranian dictatorship.

On Iran’s eastern border, the regime is engaged in a continuous series of skirmishes and missile strikes with the Pakistanis. To the North, Iran is selling a great number of drones to Russia for its war with Ukraine.

Under Mr. Biden, the American response to Iranian aggression has ranged from giving the regime money — last year’s $6 billion for five hostages as an example — to lifting sanctions and allowing the dictatorship to make billions selling oil to Communist China and other countries.  

And when the administration does respond, it responds the wrong way. When the Houthis fired missiles at ships in the Red Sea, the United States, Great Britain, and a few allies responded by bombing Houthi targets. 

This is a loser’s game. First, the cost exchange of sophisticated weapons taking out simple weapons is greatly biased against the West. Iran replaces the cheap weapons faster than we can manufacture the sophisticated weapons on which we rely.

Further, previous efforts by the Saudis and others to defeat the Houthis with bombings have been total failures. Consider that the Houthis have been fighting for control of Yemen since 2014. 

The Saudis and their allies have launched more than 25,000 air strikes since then. Two-thirds of the people of Yemen are living in a disastrous humanitarian crisis — considered to be the worst in the world. Since 2002, there have been more than 400 air strikes by American planes against terrorist targets in Yemen.

Playing bombing games with the Houthis has no effect. They can endure as long as the Iranians send them money and weapons.

The director for defense strategy and policy for the National Security Council under President George W. Bush and a retired Navy captain, Bill Luti, outlined what we should do in a December 25, 2023, article, “How we Deterred Iran in the Gulf Last Time.” 

As Captain Luti warned, “bolstering deterrence requires the political will to impose a cost that far outweighs any gain the Houthis could hope to attain. Anything else is posturing that puts our sailors on the defensive and in harm’s way. 

“Fortunately, we know how to re-establish deterrence,” Captain Luti said. “We’ve been here before.” He noted that when an American warship was hit by an Iranian mine in 1988, President Reagan’s response was to send the U.S. Navy. 

The Navy, Captain Luti wrote, “in combined surface-ship and air attacks, engaged the Iranian Navy in a daylong battle named Praying Mantis…. the ensuing fight would become the largest naval and air battle since World War II.”

Captain Luti asserted, “Praying Mantis remains a case study in strengthening deterrence. Our victory kept Iran’s navy at bay for more than two decades and helped change the course of the Iran-Iraq War, which had upended the region for eight bloody years. Iran never laid mines in the Gulf again.”

Reagan — and for that matter President Trump — understood the decisive use of overwhelming force to achieve desired political outcomes — in his case, having Iran calm down and stop engaging in violence. It is clear Mr. Biden does not have a clue.

The scale of Mr. Biden’s subordination was captured in a devastating Wall Street Journal column by the deputy director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Alireza Jafarzadeh.

As he wrote: “Lasting peace hinges on strategic decision-making that recognizes the reality: The Iranian people, not the regime, hold the key to change. They are fighting for their fundamental rights against the repressive terrorists of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.” 

Mr. Jafarzadeh “must acknowledge the Iranian people’s legitimate right to confront their repressive rulers and achieve freedom. Only then can a path toward regional stability and lasting peace truly be paved.”

When Reagan was asked how he saw the Cold War ending, he answered simply, “we win, they lose.”

When Mr. Trump was presented with clear evidence that Iran was behind terrorism and violence across the Middle East, he targeted the most important leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, General Qassem Soleimani. America killed Soleimani in a surgical strike at an airport. Iran’s leaders got the message and backed off.

Mr. Biden’s appeasement and weakness is the worst possible way to deal with a ruthless, aggressive, and expansionist dictatorship. It will only lead to a decisive United States defeat — or a much bigger war. 

It’s clear Iran is the center of violence in the Middle East. Mr. Biden should learn from Reagan and Mr. Trump and stand up to the Iranian dictatorship.