The Lion Shall Rise
Some rapid reactions to Israel’s stunning devastation of the Iranian regime.
In a world where positive geopolitical news has been scarce – just look at what I’ve written about in the past few months – today is a truly wonderful day. Israel has, over the past 24+ hours, struck deep into the beating heart of the despicable Iranian regime, targeting its nuclear weapons program, its command-and-control network, its ballistic missile facilities, and its military leadership. Several top Iranian generals, including the head of the IRGC, Esmail Qaani, and the entirety of its key Air Force hierarchy, have been killed, as have several scientists working to weaponize nuclear material. The regime’s nuclear sites have been hit relentlessly, with massive destruction reported at facilities in Fordow, Isfahan, Tehran, and Natanz. And the assault is nowhere near over with, as Israel has stated that it will continue Operation Rising Lion until it has achieved its objective of ending the Iranian threat.[1] As of this writing, the Islamic theocracy is striking back, launching waves of ballistic missiles at sites in Israel, both military and civilian; videos have shown its missiles being mostly intercepted, but some have hit in Tel Aviv and its suburbs, causing deaths and damage.
These are the first salvos in a ramped-up regional conflict that America will be party to, even if mostly in an indirect fashion. The war did not start with this preemptive Israeli strike intended to stop Iranian progress on a nuclear bomb – and all reports suggest the regime was in the later stages of the process of creating such a weapon – but with Iran’s launch of a war of extermination against the Jewish state on October 7, 2023. This is merely the latest and most dramatic shift to making this fight a decisive one. Obviously, the situation is constantly evolving, but here are a few quick takeaways from the events of the past 24 hours.
The Israeli action is truly as astounding a feat of arms as we’ve seen in the past half century. The planning of this attack took decades, with tons of assets on the ground in Iran proper and exact intelligence on the whereabouts, routines, and actions of targeted military figures. The simultaneous destruction of Iranian regime officials, ballistic missiles, and air defenses was an enormous challenge that had to go perfectly if the greater assault were to be successful. And it went off swimmingly. Iranian officials were killed with almost no collateral damage, including by missiles sent into apartment bedrooms that did not harm the overall structure. Perhaps the most impressive combination of intelligence and execution was when the Israelis began the attack, waited for the inevitable emergency meeting of top Iranian brass, knew exactly where it would be and when, and took the entire thing out, killing a great deal of the decision-makers who would organize a response. This is deeply impressive stuff that puts the lie to the whole ridiculous accusation that Israel operates a particularly immoral military.
When you combine this campaign with the pager operation against Hezbollah and the recent Ukrainian drone attack in Russia, which destroyed a large portion of that nation’s strategic bombing fleet, you have some smaller American allies who carry vastly more weight than anyone could’ve expected. Both Israel and Ukraine began on the defensive, yet both have proven stalwart and innovative in the fight for survival. They have done so while dramatically undermining enemies they share with the United States, helping us greatly by doing the hard military work for us. And yet, there are still people on the right – both in the commentariat and the Trump administration – who want to cut both Kyiv and Jerusalem off, shifting allegiances to their (and our) sworn enemies. There have been myriad leaks from the administration over the past weeks, all targeted against Jerusalem and seeking to push the president into a functionally anti-Israel stance – the latest being DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s bizarre video about impending nuclear war just the other day. Thankfully, it seems the correct, pro-Israel view has won out for now; let’s see if that changes anything vis a vis Ukraine.
Iran’s ability to threaten the United States and attack Israel has been greatly diminished by these strikes. It still retains a formidable arsenal, but this is dwindling by the hour. Its military leadership is in chaos, there are still Israeli moles deep in Iran, and its responses thus far have not done anything to cripple Israel’s ability to counterstrike. Its regional terror proxies are either on the back foot (Hezbollah), hitting Palestinian villages with missiles aimed at Israel (Houthis), or in the midst of being totally destroyed (Hamas). Its nuclear ambitions, which may have been on the cusp of realization, have been dealt a hammer blow. This is not only good for America and Israel, but bad for China. Iran is tightly interwoven into the enemy bloc that faces us. It is one of the adversaries, alongside Moscow and Beijing, that seeks the destruction of the US-led world order and our downfall from global power. Weakening one plank of this group makes the whole edifice less stable and easier to undermine. As I argued with respect to Venezuela, a much less present threat, removing one of these malignant powers from the playing field in advance of conflict with China only helps us. We should be applauding the Israeli attack.
So far, the Trump administration has been quite cagey about what support we have given Israel during this series of attacks, although it has said that we were notified ahead of time. It is likely that we supplied intelligence support, mid-air refueling capacities, and other indirect forms of military aid. It has also been mooted that the US was a key cog in the Israeli disinformation effort targeted at Tehran, helping lull the mullahs into a false sense of security that Jerusalem capitalized on. We are also currently in the midst of aiding in its defense. THAAD missile batteries have been deployed to the area, helping shoot down Iranian missiles alongside other US hardware. All in all, the Trump team’s handling of this so far has been praiseworthy.
We should not only applaud this Israeli action, but join it. Let’s be the ones who aid our friends and strike the killing blow against Iran’s nuclear program; only America has the hardware necessary to do so and Israel has already proven the regime defenseless. Our stealth bombers are going to be near-impossible for Iran to stop, especially in its highly weakened state, and our bunker buster bombs are the sole munitions that can effectively destroy Iran’s deeply buried nuclear facilities. To make a crude video game analogy, we are in a boss fight against Iran and our partner Israel has staggered it, opening its weak points for our special attack – we simply need to inflict the mortal wound. As I argued back in April, it’s time to bomb Iran. The world will be far safer for it.
To shift briefly from the profound to the petty, all of the right people are extremely mad about this series of events. The so-called “restrainers” – in reality, a motley cohort of isolationists, useful idiots, and progressives – are livid with the fact that Israel launched this attack, has had success thus far, and that America has taken a positive view of it. The MAGA movement has apparently been split between a rump of diehard antisemites – Candace Owens, Darryl Cooper, Dave Smith, and their like[2] – and a whole bunch of normal people who think Iran having nukes is a bad idea, including, apparently, the president. Israel’s action is only unpopular on social media, and boy, is it unpopular there. Cries of “neocon,” “World War III,” and “I won’t die for Israel” resound throughout the online ecosystem, stoked by propagandists like the execrable Tucker Carlson. Thankfully, these are merely the breathless gasps of a movement that is dedicated to nothing more than weakening America on the world stage, destroying the regnant US-led world order, and comforting our sworn enemies. Their tears nourish all right-thinking American patriots. These are the folks whose ideology I am most virulently opposed to; I can’t pretend that the schadenfreude today isn’t especially delicious.
Lastly, we come to the name of this operation: Rising Lion. Lions have historically been associated with the various iterations of the Jewish state, with the Biblical tribe of Judah represented by the fierce predator. Additionally, the Talmud includes an admonition: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” Taken together, Rising Lion is a perfect name for the preemptive strike meant to destroy the Iranian nuclear program. But it also represents something else, something that may have far grander repercussions. Before the Islamic revolution in 1979 that deposed the Shah and installed the ayatollahs, Iran’s flag featured a Persian lion, rampant with a sword before the sun. The Israeli attacks are not only intended to wipe out the nuclear threat, but destabilize the Islamic regime and give the repressed people of Iran a chance to rise up and depose their evil oppressors. The mullahcracy is not the permanent state of being for Iran; it was instantiated within living memory, less than 50 years ago. And it is highly unpopular amongst the people that it rules, as it impoverishes them in favor of sending weapons and money to terrorist proxies. The regime has never been weaker than it is right now. The time is ripe for a civil revolt against the mullahs and their Islamist despotism. The time is ripe for the lion to make its proud return to the Iranian flag.
This war is just getting going. Things will get more chaotic before they settle down. People, including innocent Israelis and potentially Americans, will be killed. But this action is necessary, for far more people would be immediately and terribly endangered by the most millenarian and apocalyptic regime on the planet gaining nuclear weapons. Israel has done itself a favor. It has done America a favor. And it has done the whole world a favor. Let’s give them a hand in finishing the job and helping the Persian lion rise once again.
[1] For more specifics on the conflict – and you should absolutely read more about this amazing feat of arms and intelligence – check out outlets like the New York Times, the BBC, Fox, the Times of Israel, and yes, even Twitter.
[2] If you do not know who any of these people are, good for you. For the love of God, please keep it that way.