Let’s be clear: Hamas would not be able to operate without the support of the Iranian regime. Iran funds its terrorist operatives, arms them, trains them. Without that Iranian support, Hamas would never have been able to carry out an attack of this scope and sophistication. Iran works through proxies such as Hamas precisely so it can blur responsibility for attacks such as this. And the Biden administration appears more than willing to cooperate with that ruse to avoid having to acknowledge the catastrophic failure of its Iran policy and impose consequences on Tehran for the American blood on its hands.
When Donald Trump was president, he did not let Iran get away with hiding behind proxies. His administration drew a clear red line with Iran’s leaders, warning that if they or their stand-ins killed a single American, the United States would draw no distinction between Iran and the terrorists it sponsors; we would respond militarily against Iran.
For a time, Iran danced around Trump’s red line, careful not to cross it by taking American lives. It was blamed for attacks on Japanese and Norwegian oil tankers but did not attack American ones. It shot down an unmanned U.S. drone, while avoiding a manned American P-8 aircraft that was reportedly flying in the area (which Trump called “a very wise decision”). In each case, Trump showed restraint, tightening sanctions, approving a cyberstrike against Iran’s military computer systems and designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization — all while warning Tehran that his restraint had limits.
Then Iran apparently miscalculated. Its proxy militia in Iraq, Kataib Hezbollah, was blamed for rocket attack on a military base in Iraq that killed a U.S. military contractor and injured four U.S. service members. Believing his red line had been crossed, Trump struck back: He hit Kataib Hezbollah targets in Iraq and Syria. And after supporters of the militia set fire to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, he launched a strike that took out both the militia leader and Iran’s terrorist mastermind, Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force. And Trump warned Tehran that if it retaliated against Americans, “Iran itself WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”
Iran backed down. Trump’s actions not only deterred Iranian aggression; they opened the door for peace in the region. In the wake of the Soleimani strike, Trump brokered peace accords between Israel and not one, not two, not three, but four Arab nations — the first such agreements in more than a quarter-century.
Now an Iranian proxy has crossed that red line again — and Iran knows that, unlike Trump, Biden is more afraid of “escalation” than Iran is. Biden inherited a strong deterrence posture in the Middle East and squandered it — begging Iran to rejoin the Obama nuclear deal, easing enforcement of oil sanctions resulting in tens of billions of dollars in Iran’s coffers, and releasing five Iranian prisoners plus effectively paying Tehran a $6 billion ransom for five American hostages. In the wake of this weekend’s Iranian-sponsored violence, it is time for Biden to recognize the folly of this approach and restore deterrence with Iran.
The first step would be to publicly declare that the red line Trump drew remains in force and that we will hold the Iranians responsible for any harm that comes to American hostages now held by Hamas. If a single American hostage is killed, Soleimani’s successor, Quds Force commander Ismail Qaani, should meet the same fate as Soleimani. According to the Wall Street Journal, Qaani is the official “leading the effort to wrangle Iran’s foreign proxies under a unified command,” including Hamas. The message to Iran should be: Every time you or your proxies kill an American, a Quds Force commander will meet his maker.
Biden should also reverse his policy of appeasement and fully enforce the crippling sanctions Trump imposed on Tehran. The president should further isolate the regime by banning all airlines (such as Air France and Lufthansa) that serve Tehran from landing in the United States. And if it is true, as the administration insists, that the $6 billion ransom Biden approved for Iran’s American hostages has not yet been distributed, then those assets should be restricted again.
Sometimes it falls to presidents to enforce red lines set by their predecessors. After Trump took office, he twice enforced President Barack Obama’s red line against Syria’s use of chemical weapons, striking the Assad regime when it used a toxic nerve agent on innocent men, women and children.
Now it’s Biden’s turn to enforce a red line set by his predecessor. Iran has already gotten away with the murder of 22 Americans. We cannot allow even one more to be killed with impunity.
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