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This is a guest essay by Vanessa Berg, who writes about Judaism and Israel.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
In October 1980, a 34-year-old Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Rona Barrett and delivered a blistering assessment of America’s response to the Iranian hostage crisis.
For readers too young to remember, the crisis began after the Islamic Revolution toppled the Shah of Iran in 1979. Revolutionary students stormed the American embassy in Tehran and seized 52 American diplomats and citizens. Those hostages would remain captive for 444 days while the world’s leading superpower appeared powerless to free them.
Trump was disgusted.
The United States, he argued, looked weak. The government’s handling of the crisis was “absolutely and totally ridiculous.” When Barrett asked whether America should have sent troops into Iran, Trump replied, “I absolutely feel that, yes. I don’t think there’s any question.”
He argued that America’s failure to act projected weakness, invited disrespect, and encouraged enemies to test American resolve. The United States had every right to intervene, he said, and doing so would have established the “right attitudes” around the world.
Forty-six years later, history has delivered a remarkable irony.
American media outlets recently reported that the U.S. military formulated plans for a ground operation inside Iran to seize the regime’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium — the very material necessary to produce a nuclear weapon. According to the report, a senior American general secretly traveled to U.S. Army headquarters in Florida to receive a personal briefing on the operation. The rushed nature of the activity reportedly suggested that the administration was close to approving the mission.
But then Trump was warned that the operation could trigger a severe Iranian response, including disruptions to global shipping and energy markets that could send shockwaves through the world economy. Trump also expressed concern about potential American casualties.
According to the report, Iran was preparing a devastating economic response if negotiations failed. The Houthis would reportedly close the Bab al-Mandab Strait, while Iran could move to close the Strait of Hormuz, threatening two of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints.
Instead of a military operation, the United States now appears poised to sign another “agreement” with Iran. After weeks of war, after enormous military expenditures, after countless declarations that Iran would never be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons, Western leaders are once again preparing to celebrate an agreement.
Once again, they are selling “victory.”
The emerging agreement reportedly calls for Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile to be removed and destroyed while the United States declares that Iran’s nuclear program is being dismantled. American officials are describing the arrangement as a major diplomatic breakthrough. Iranian officials are speaking optimistically about the negotiations and preparing the final stages of approval.
We have seen this movie before.
In 2015, then-U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration assured the world that the nuclear agreement with Iran would prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The deal imposed restrictions on enrichment, reduced stockpiles, limited centrifuges, and created an inspection regime intended to guarantee compliance. Supporters promised that diplomacy had solved the problem.
Yet here we are, a decade later, and the world finds itself discussing military operations to seize Iranian enriched uranium by force. That fact alone should be enough to expose the illusion. If the previous agreement permanently solved the problem, why was there a need to discuss sending American troops into Iran to remove nuclear material?
The answer is uncomfortable: Because the problem was never solved. It was managed, delayed, postponed, kicked down the road for someone else to handle. And the consequences extend far beyond Iran’s nuclear program.
What the reporting revealed was not merely a military debate. It revealed how thoroughly the free world has allowed itself to become hostage to rogue actors.
According to reports, Iran was preparing a devastating response if negotiations failed. The Houthis would reportedly close the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Iran could move to close the Strait of Hormuz. Global shipping routes would be disrupted. Energy markets would be shaken. The world economy could suffer immense damage.
Think about what that means.
A regime facing the prospect of losing its enriched uranium stockpile was apparently able to deter military action not because it could defeat the United States militarily, but because it could inflict enough economic pain on everyone else. This is what decades of appeasement produce.
Every time the West avoids confrontation in favor of postponement, adversaries learn a lesson. Every time threats are rewarded with concessions, they become more effective. Every time rogue regimes discover that disrupting global commerce is enough to force negotiations, they gain leverage over the international system.
The result is the world we inhabit today: Iran threatens shipping lanes, the Houthis threaten global trade, Russia threatens Europe’s energy supply, and China threatens Taiwan and the world’s semiconductor production. Increasingly, authoritarian powers have discovered that they do not need to win wars. They merely need to convince Western leaders that the costs of stopping them are too high.
The free world has become trapped by its own fear of disruption. Instead of forcing rogue actors to bear the consequences of escalation, Western governments increasingly allow rogue actors to dictate the terms of stability. This is not deterrence. It is extortion — and every successful act of extortion invites another.
This is the defining weakness of modern Western leadership. Western leaders increasingly pursue outcomes that can be presented as victories rather than outcomes that actually secure victory. They prefer announcements to achievements, ceremonies to conclusions, press conferences to practicality. Every difficult problem becomes a public-relations exercise.
The objective shifts from solving the threat to convincing voters that the threat has been solved — and Iran has become the ultimate example. For nearly half a century, the Islamic Republic has demonstrated exactly what it is. It is a revolutionary regime that funds terrorist organizations, destabilizes neighboring states, threatens Israel openly, and routinely places ideology above prosperity.
Yet Western leaders continue behaving as though the regime’s signature on a document transforms its nature. It does not. No agreement can change the character of a regime. No memorandum can eliminate intentions. No diplomatic ceremony can erase forty-seven years of behavior.
The central question is not whether this agreement removes uranium. The central question is what happens next.
Will Iran be permanently incapable of rebuilding its nuclear program? Will Iran lose the industrial capacity, scientific infrastructure, and strategic ambition required to pursue nuclear weapons? Will the regime suddenly become trustworthy because another agreement has been signed?
The answer to all three questions is obvious: The agreement may reduce the threat, it may delay the threat, it may even significantly weaken the threat, but weakening a threat and eliminating a threat are not the same thing.
History also offers a lesson that many Western leaders only seem to understand years after the fact. In 1981, Israel launched Operation Opera, a daring airstrike against Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. At the time, the operation was widely condemned. Governments denounced it. International organizations criticized it. Israel was accused of recklessness and unilateralism.
Yet history has a way of separating fashionable opinion from reality. Years later, former U.S. President Bill Clinton offered a remarkably candid assessment of the operation:
“Everybody talks about what the Israelis did at Osirak in 1981, which I think, in retrospect, was a really good thing. You know, it kept Saddam from developing nuclear power.”
That observation deserves attention.
When Israel destroyed Osirak, the world condemned the action because it focused on the immediate disruption rather than the long-term danger. Years later, after Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait, launched missiles at Israel, and destabilized the region, many of those same critics quietly acknowledged that preventing him from obtaining nuclear weapons had been a blessing.
The pattern repeats itself throughout history: Preventive action is condemned before its consequences are known and praised after its necessity becomes obvious. The uncomfortable reality is that successful prevention often looks unnecessary precisely because it succeeded.
No one can know what the Middle East would have looked like if Saddam Hussein had acquired nuclear weapons. No one can know how many wars were avoided because Israel acted when others would not. But Clinton’s observation captures an enduring truth: The world frequently rewards restraint in the present and recognizes necessity only in hindsight.
Israel cannot afford to make decisions based on what future historians might conclude. It must make decisions based on the threats that exist today. That was true at Osirak. It remains true with Iran.
If another agreement with Iran comes to pass, Israel should welcome any genuine reduction in Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Every centrifuge dismantled is better than a centrifuge operating. Every kilogram of enriched uranium removed is better than a kilogram retained.
But Israel must never confuse an agreement with security.
Israel’s greatest strategic mistake would be outsourcing its future to international guarantees. The Jewish state has learned repeatedly that documents are temporary while capabilities are permanent. Israel survived before American security guarantees. It survived before international support. It survived before peace treaties with Arab states. And it survived because it maintained the ability to defend itself.
That principle must remain unchanged.
Israel should continue investing aggressively in intelligence, cyber warfare, missile defense, air power, and independent military capabilities. It should maintain the ability to monitor Iran’s activities, expose violations, and, if necessary, act without waiting for permission from Washington, Brussels, or the United Nations.
The lesson of the last several weeks is not that Israel is weak. The lesson is the opposite: The United States and its allies possessed the military power to impose a decisive outcome on Iran. Yet when faced with the risks, costs, and consequences of finishing the job, they stepped back and chose negotiation.
Israel does not have the luxury of such illusions. For America, a failed agreement is a geopolitical setback. For Israel, a failed agreement could become an existential threat. That is why Israelis cannot afford to share the optimism currently being marketed by Western leaders.
Perhaps this agreement will work. Perhaps it will buy years of stability. Perhaps it will achieve more than its supporters expect. But history teaches Jews skepticism. The same leaders who once promised that Iran’s nuclear ambitions had been contained are now promising that they have finally been dismantled.
Forgive us for asking for proof.
Western leaders may soon hold press conferences, issue triumphant statements, and declare that diplomacy has prevailed. They may call it peace. They may call it stability. They may call it victory. But victory is not an announcement. Victory is a condition.
And until Iran permanently loses the ability to threaten the region with nuclear weapons, what Western leaders are selling is not victory. It is hope disguised as strategy.
Very well written 👏 👌
In global geopolitics, Israel is expendable as long as the petro-dollars keep flowing.
There are many excellent clean energies to replace fossil fuels ⛽️ such as wind, sun, hydroelectric, nuclear energy and hydrogen energy. In fact Germany and Japan are already well advanced in hydrogen technologies - 0 emissions. It's only a matter of political decisions.
Western politicians are weak. Their whole modus operandi is surviving the next elections. Economics and security are too complicated. Propaganda, MSM and mass psychology is easier to sell than achievements. There's always a scape goat 🐐 for failures. Blame the Jews ✡️.
Regime change, regime change, and regime change is the only way to stop a nuclear armed Iran! Trump held back the Iranian Kurds because of his new best friend, the self proclaimed “Sultan” of Türkiye who hates and fears the Kurds.