"I condemn Iran's attacks in the strongest possible terms and reaffirm America’s ironclad commitment to the security of Israel," Presidentish Joe Biden lied, right around the time he, his administration, and that collection of low-forehead mouth-breathers known as "world opinion" bullied Israel into just letting themselves get attacked by Iran.
At Iran's leisure and with Biden's blessing, I might add.
Imagine if Iran had launched 350 missiles and suicide drones at New Jersey — and the U.S. would be expected to do nothing in retaliation. Would we care if nearly all the missiles had been shot down or malfunctioned? Or would we make sure the Islamic Republic fully understood the consequences of directly attacking the United States?
New Jersey and Israel are almost exactly the same size and have roughly the same population. But Iran attacked an entire country, not just one smallish state in a nation of 50 of them.
Even aside from its sheer size and scope, Saturday's missile and drone raid on Israel was a major escalation.
Prior to this weekend, Iran was always careful to attack Israel, or Israel's interests, through proxies. Hamas in Gaza, Houthis in Yemen, etc. Last weekend, Iran didn't attack some Israel consulate in a foreign country with Syrian thugs. They didn't have their Houthi pals launch a missile at a ship carrying Israeli-made goods.
They launched 350 missiles and drones, mostly from Iranian territory and with Iranian aircrews, at targets across all of Israel.
What is the consequence when Iran launches a massive attack from Iran?
Nothing.
The Mullahs, like willful toddlers, are testing their boundaries. They're learning that effectively there aren't any.
"There now needs to be a massive, sustained, global initiative to isolate Iran," Thomas Friedman wrote for the New York Times Sunday, "not only to deter it from trying such an adventure again but also to give reason to Israel not to automatically retaliate militarily."
Nice words, Tom. But the last 45 years have shown that Tehran doesn't give a damn about being isolated so long as they can get on with the holy business of slaughtering Jews and re-establishing ancient Persia's hegemony over Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. We've also seen these last three years that the Biden administration will respond to Iran's threats with open arms and pallets of cash.
It doesn't matter that Saturday's barrage proved ineffective. Having paid no price for launching it, Iran now has all the time — and incentive — it needs to figure out how and when to launch an effective attack.
As of this writing, Israel is still publicly discussing whether or not to strike back at Iran. IDF spokesman Peter Lerner said Monday that Israel would retaliate in some form or other, involving "a strike or no strike." Like a violent toddler, Iran needed to be spanked hard and at once. The longer Israel takes to respond, and the less violent that response is, the more options Iran has to game the system even better the next time.
There will be a next time, make no mistake.
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