‘Never Again’ Has Been Tested for the First Time Since World War II

The force and truth of the Jewish pledge “Never again” has been tested for the first time since it was widely invoked after the genocide committed against the Jewish people under the Nazis in Europe in World War II. That pledge has been redeemed with the vital and righteous help of the world’s most powerful nation. Yet no one should doubt that if Israel had been forced to deploy nuclear weapons itself, in self-preservation, and in the absence of any other method of assuring the survival of the Jewish state, it would have done so.With the events of this weekend, the Jewish people have achieved a level of security and unconditional entitlement to the status of a free and sovereign people that is unprecedented in the more than 5,000-year history of that talented and much-wronged people. At the same time, in the most dramatic circumstances, the Jews have been reassured that their ancient and infamous condition of being friendless and alone, with “every hand turned against them,” has been replaced by the decisive solidarity in a time of maximum danger, with the most powerful nation in the world.President Trump has demonstrated that at one of the most critical periods in their long and often tragic history, the Jews had earned and could rely upon the assistance of the country and people that has, on balance, been the greatest promoter of human rights of any nation. The successful American attack on the Iranian nuclear program has effectively erased the scandalous and shameful rout in Afghanistan, where the United States abandoned its supporters in that country, left its allies in the lurch, and gave the appearance of being chased out by a ragtag of mountain terrorists in an operation that President Biden dishonored his office by calling “an outstanding success.”The large number of governments in the world eager to believe that the United States is in decline, and has become, in President Nixon’s famous admonition: “a pitiful, helpless giant,” have been disabused of that view. It is precisely that belief that helped to prompt the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the invasion of Israel by Hamas. With a little perspective, it will be seen that the entire Islamic totalitarian experiment in Iran has been a disaster that has cruelly squandered 50 years in the history of Persia. With the shameful assistance of the Carter administration, the comparatively progressive regime of the shah of Iran was shuffled out of power, a government that rivaled Israel as America’s closest ally in the region. It was replaced by a fraudulent theocracy, dedicated to the primitive oppression of the people of Iran, and encroachment upon the Arabs for the purpose of destroying the Jewish state. The ayatollahs have been the most odious rulers in the 3,000-year history of Persia. Xerxes was a Lincolnian statesman in comparison with them. This retrogression to violent and heretical religious bigotry has now been completely unmasked, debunked, and degraded as the shameful experiment in hate-fueled tyranny that it has been.It is unlikely to attract emulators anytime soon. What has occurred in Iran is also almost certainly a death warrant for its hideous terrorist pawns: Hamas, Hezbollah, and if the Saudis will finish the job on the ground, the Houthis. Iran will be in no condition to continue to finance these evil terrorist operations that Israel has so admirably reduced and decapitated.Among their many other accomplishments, Israel and the United States have made racial and religious terrorism both unfashionable and impracticable. Their determined and judicious use of force is a refreshing contrast to the havering, waffling, and outright cowardice not just of those who condemned Israel for defending itself, but most of the principal Western allies who in fatuous calls for cease-fires and “de-escalation” have effectively championed the continuation of terrorist outages and the mortal threat to Israel.The combined action of Israel and the United States has also thrown a lifeline to the bedraggled farce of nuclear non-proliferation. If Iran had achieved a nuclear military capability, dozens of other countries would have concluded that deterrence was the only method of safety and become nuclear powers also. Striking these weapons of mass destruction from the hands of the criminally diseased regime in Tehran preserves the option of restraint in nuclear deployment.We appear to have set a low bar in eligibility to be a nuclear power: no one less politically mature than Pakistan or North Korea. It is an imperfect version of what has generally been a pious fraud conducted by the nuclear powers, but at least we have established that countries promising to use their nuclear weapons to destroy other peoples run a high danger of being interdicted. Not the least achievement on the weekend was a bruising and resounding slap in the face to Communist China, which in order to promote as much mischief in the West as it could, and though a militantly atheist regime, has been the chief backer and enabler of the fanatical Iranian terrorist state. The sooner the Chinese recognize that they are not on an inexorable progress to world domination, the better. Learning from or even acknowledging mistakes are not the forte of the People’s Republic. It is a remarkable economic development story, but supporting Paleolithic terrorist states to discomfit one’s rivals is not a forced march to world leadership.President Trump’s skillful management of both the diplomatic and military options has been the greatest demonstration of American geopolitical skill since Nixon triangulated the great power relationship with China and the Soviet Union, while concluding the greatest arms control agreement in history, which incidentally restored American nuclear superiority, and extracting the United States from Vietnam while preserving a non-communist government at Saigon.Mr. Trump may have undone all the damage that Carter did in Iran, and President George W. Bush did promoting elections in Lebanon and Palestine that elevated the terrorists, and his Iraq war that gave control of most of that country to Iran, and President Obama did in his appeasement of Iran and his absurd nuclear agreement with Iran, under which it would now be entering the nuclear club with the blessing of the world, as well as the contemptible spectacle of weakness presented by Mr. Biden. Americans are right to celebrate, but they should not forget that the performances of some previous recent occupants of the White House have been dangerously inadequate.The Democratic and occasional Republican congressmen, claiming that the president has committed an impeachable offense, and that the office of commander-in-chief is really divided amongst all the elected officials in Washington, are idiots and should be treated like idiots. As a bonus, this was the most crisp, professional military operation America has conducted since General MacArthur’s landing at Inchon in 1950, that annihilated the North Korean army.Many of Mr. Trump’s critics will require defibrillation in contemplation of this, but he has done a great deal to restore the credibility of the office of president. It is a remarkable turn, less than a year after the Democrats almost drove the whole country through the guard rails of constitutional democracy with their political perversion of the prosecution system. Mr. Trump has given the nation the greatest July 4 present since Jefferson 249 years ago.

‘Never Again’ Has Been Tested for the First Time Since World War II

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