It turns out there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the far left and far right, at least when it comes to the Iran war.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene and commentator Tucker Carlson don’t agree on much, but they insist the United States has no stake in the outcome of Israel’s preemptive war against the Iranian revolutionary regime. America should stay far away. Involvement offers no upsides, but plenty of downsides, they all agree.
Referring to Iran, Omar asserted that “no one is attacking or has attacked Americans.”
Not to be outdone, Greene claimed that “we’ve watched our men and women in uniform go all over the world and fight in wars that most Americans don’t think that our country should be in. Americans are very sick and tired of that.”
Sounds like echoes of the appeasers and isolationists in the 1930s, who made the case that Nazi Germany posed no threat whatsoever to the US.
After all, wasn’t there a vast distance between us and Europe? And anyway, let Europe deal with its own problems. They’re of no concern to Americans.
We have our own issues to deal with, from high unemployment to farm foreclosures. Yet, on Dec. 11, 1941, Berlin declared war on the United States.
President Trump was elected in 2024 on an America First agenda. But does America First mean American withdrawal from the world? Does it suggest we can wall ourselves off and safely turn our backs on everyone else? Does it assure that we can be secure irrespective of what goes on elsewhere on the planet?
Not at all. Rather, the president says that America First means what he chooses it to mean, and not, say, how Carlson tries to spin it.
And herein lies one of the most consequential decisions faced by any American leader in decades. Iran has been an implacable enemy of the US since 1979, when the mullahs seized power in Tehran.
Despite Congresswoman Omar’s astonishing claim that no Americans have been attacked by Iran, the exact opposite is true.
Iran and its proxies, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, have kidnapped scores of Americans; killed hundreds of US soldiers; attacked American installations in the Middle East; plagued our shipping in the Straits of Hormuz; plotted to assassinate an American president and other top officials; pursued Iranian dissidents on American soil; and planned to blow up a popular restaurant in Washington.
All this while the regime cries “Death to America,” and seeks weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them with precision.
Moreover, Iran has provided drones to Russia to be used to kill and maim Ukrainians in Moscow’s war of aggression, not to mention seeking the annihilation of Israel, one of America’s closest allies.
It undermines the American-sponsored Abraham Accords, and its expansionist agenda has sought to destabilize US friends from Morocco to Kurdistan, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia. It cooperates with North Korea, another American foe, on advanced missile development. And it has been the principal sponsor of international terror, triggering deadly attacks across the globe, including in the Western Hemisphere.
So, the central question today is whether the United States should consider military action, which reportedly only it has the power to do, to ensure that Iran’s buried nuclear program never sees the light of day.
Those opposed argue it will draw us into endless war and put Americans in harm’s way, and, again, that it’s not America’s fight. They also claim diplomacy can solve the problem, so why resort to kinetic action?
But the truth is that Americans have been in harm’s way since the Shah of Iran was ousted in 1979. Moreover, Israel, which has bravely taken on the fight against Iran, though far smaller and acting alone, has never asked for American boots on the ground.
Rather, it sees an historic opportunity to end a 46-year-threat to regional and global peace, while making the world safer by severely weakening a messianic, aggressive regime. And American aerial assistance could thereby decisively change the course of history.
As for diplomacy, it’s been tried repeatedly. Each time, Iranian negotiators have proved masterful at lying, bamboozling, slow-walking and hoodwinking their Western counterparts — including Washington — most spectacularly in the disastrous 2015 deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Moments of historic opportunity may come along once in a generation. Decisions of such magnitude are never without risks. The chorus of naysayers will always prefer the pathways of appeasement, nonintervention, wishful thinking or stasis.
But the potential rewards are tantalizing and far outweigh the risks: A transformed Middle East; expanded Abraham Accords; reduced prospect of a regional nuclear arms race; an end to Iranian destabilization in the neighborhood; and perhaps, if the Iranian people take matters into their own hands, a more democratic and prosperous country of their own.
American interests at home and abroad will be incalculably advanced if President Trump makes the right decision. I pray he will.
David Harris is executive vice chair of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP).
This story originally appeared on NYPost
