Like a lot of people of center-right/center-left political leanings, I’ve spent the past few decades detesting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, especially as he has grown increasingly authoritarian, bellicose and inhumane.
And yet those of us in the Bibi critics’ club do have to confront an uncomfortable fact: Especially over the past 10 months, Netanyahu has impressively followed through on his aim to remake the face of the Middle East. He’s degraded Hamas and Hezbollah, two of the vilest terror regimes on the planet. He has made the Iranian theocracy look pathetic and decrepit. Israel has demonstrated its vast military and intelligence supremacy over its enemies, establishing total freedom of the skies over much of Iran. It has shown that its agents can penetrate enemy organizations and find and kill their militant leaders. Netanyahu’s actions have contributed to the toppling of the Assad regime in Syria and have helped the legitimate Lebanese government regain control of its own territory. The Axis of Terror is in shambles.
This includes the Israeli-U.S. assault on Iran’ s nuclear program. We don’t yet know how much damage that assault has done. An early Pentagon report found that the attacks set the Iranian project back only a few months, which was picked up big-time on one side of the internet. But several other reports, including one from the Institute for Science and International Security, found that the attack “effectively destroyed” Iran’s enrichment program.
We may know in time what the bombings accomplished. In the meantime, we do know that Israel and the United States have the will and capacity to attack Iran anytime and anyplace. We do know that if Iran reconstitutes its nuclear program, Israel and America have the capacity to deliver a much more devastating and regime-threatening blow. We also know that Iran and its proxies have made some insanely self-destructive miscalculations since Oct. 7, 2023, and they must know that, too. These are ominous omens for the theocrats in Tehran.
No, I am not saying I support all the ways Netanyahu has responded to the Oct. 7 attack. I supported the aim of the war in Gaza — to degrade Hamas — but the way Israel has done this has often been uncivilized and barbaric, exercising a callous disregard for human life. And I’m not saying Netanyahu and his settler allies have any sensible vision for how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute in the years ahead, beyond bullying, bigotry and cruelty.
But I am saying that people like Netanyahu and Donald Trump, who I generally regard as forces for ill in the world, turn out to be, at least on the broader issue of the Iranian threat, forces for good. I am saying that those of us who detest Bibi and Trump should show a little humility and do some rethinking.
