By Hugh Hewitt
The Washington Post
The Politico report on Sunday about a possible Iranian plot to kill the U.S. ambassador to South Africa, Lana Marks, should have been a blockbuster coming out of the Middle East. But it has been overshadowed by the breakthrough in relations between Israel and the Arab world, superintended by President Trump and his team.
The White House signing ceremony for the agreement called the Abraham Accords, with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates normalizing relations with the Jewish state, was a historic moment and merited all the attention it received. Yet the Politico story, and its implications, deserve plenty of discussion too.
“The Iranian government is weighing an assassination attempt against the American ambassador to South Africa, U.S. intelligence reports say, according to a U.S. government official familiar with the issue and another official who has seen the intelligence,” reported Nahal Toosi and Natasha Bertrand. The reaction was instantaneous and bipartisan, as it ought to have been.
Former supreme allied commander of NATO and retired Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis declared Tuesday that should Iran act to harm any ambassador or indeed any American, the U.S. response should be “immediate and overwhelming.” Trump himself commented late Monday, on Twitter, about the threat: “Any attack by Iran, in any form, against the United States will be met with an attack on Iran that will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude!” A clear message made even clearer Wednesday.
House Armed Services Committee member Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who served in Iraq as a Marine, amplified the Stavridis formula Wednesday morning, saying a U.S. response to any attack on any American should be “immediate, overwhelming and disproportionate.”
National security adviser Robert C. O’Brien, also on Wednesday, said, “The message to the mullahs is don’t make that mistake. And if you do, there will be a severe, severe and decisive response.”
“Lana Marks is a great ambassador to South Africa,” O’Brien continued. “She’s a friend of the president … and a friend of mine, but this would apply to any ambassador, not just Ambassador Marks. So you know, the days of state-sponsored terrorism by Iran are over. And if they engaged in that kind of behavior, the consequences would be massive.”
Massive. Immediate. Disproportionate. The Trump administration, a defense expert in Congress and a respected national-security authority leave no doubt what should happen if Iran reverts to state-sponsored terrorism directed at American officials or even civilians.
Now what’s needed: prominent Democrats taking a similarly firm line to drive home a message that protecting Americans from rogue regimes isn’t a partisan matter. It was President Bill Clinton who set the admirable standard and a high bar here. When Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein attempted to assassinate former president George H.W. Bush while he was visiting Kuwait in 1993, Clinton ordered a powerful strike — 23 Tomahawk missiles — on the Iraqi regime. Message received. Hussein slunk back into his hole and did not threaten Bush again.
Trump ordered the killing of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani last winter because the terrorist mastermind was in Iraq organizing strikes on U.S. personnel through Iran’s proxies — an extension of Iran’s extraterritorial war on the United States that had claimed 600 American lives during the Iraq War and wounded thousands more. Soleimani was a terrorist in a foreign field, an international criminal, and the United States acted righteously to remove him and the threat he presented.
In response, the Iranians shot ballistic missiles at Americans in Iraq, an attack that, while wounding some soldiers, did not kill any. It is widely believed the Iranians let slip their intentions so that they could avoid fatalities that might have provoked a U.S. president who would not hesitate to strike at those who strike at Americans. Message sent and delivered, but also no need to escalate.
The Politico report on Sunday suggests the beleaguered regime in Tehran — financially broke, largely isolated and watching its regional rivals join Israel and the United States in opposing the mullahs’ hegemonist ambitions and “end times” theology — may be considering an unwise lashing-out at U.S. targets. That is a sign of desperation: No one in the Iranian regime would rest easy after provoking Trump.
But Trump would be helped, and the Iranians further discouraged from acting, if he had clear bipartisan backing for a strong, punitive U.S. response to any Iranian attack. Specifically, backing by Joe Biden could send a clear message that, despite his role in an Obama administration that appeased Iran, he, too, would respond forcefully as president and would support Trump in this. Yet, as of this writing, Biden has been silent. This isn’t an “R” or “D” matter, but an American one. The message must remain consistent, across administrations and across decades, about what happens to those who harm Americans.
Hugh Hewitt, a Post contributing columnist, hosts a nationally syndicated radio show on the Salem Network. The author of 14 books about politics, history and faith, he is also a political analyst for NBC, a professor of law at Chapman University Law School and president of the Nixon Foundation.
Oh i am sure they got the message.
Trust me. These boys , regardless of their shaky and finicky supporters on this site and al over the country and abroad know not to be mess with the big guys and know their place so well.
Obama was sympathetic toward Mullahs because Mullahs let his black people go back to America and kept the white hostages during hostage crisis in 1979. John Kerry's daughter also married an Iranian guy, so it was package of Obama, john kerry, NOT Democrat versus Republicans. Mullahs and their agents on this site hasn't got the message yet. They falsely think if Biden takes the office, which I personally doubt it, he will be kind to Mullahs and give them money as Obama did, so their Hezbollah blrothers in Lebanon won't suffer as they're struggling these days.
That is false hope. Mullahs' agent don't realize that America's policy is way different than Obama, John Kerry package policy. Specially, after all Arabs are getting closer to Israel, raidcal Islam and thier terrorist acitivites are on the verge of demise.
What goes around comes around.
Iran's akhoond are as ruthless as any of their counterparts in Washington, Tele Aviv or the Riyadh and they have proven for every tit there will be a tat, at their time and place of choosing.
ByeDon in 2020
When it comes to gun violence, don’t pray vote instead
Black Lives Matter
BDS to deprive the oppressive military of its bullets and bombs to end this illegal and military occupation
The impeached trump is helping to make Russia great again
“The time is always right to do what is right” – Martin Luther King
Radical Islam can NOT do a damn thing against modern world. Their laws are barbaric, premitive and belong to mediaval and stone age. Their mindset don't match with modern society or international standards. It is just hot air blowing to sky when they chant death to this death to that. Their only way of fighting against modern world is through terrorism Yes, They can cowardly implant bombs in public areas in Europe or America, but they won't be able to face confrontation directly with west. They can only fight with modern world through terrorism and killing innocnet people who are bystanders. No way of military confrontation with modern world. Islamists know it very well.
They have got to go.