Four words: Oil fields and Khamenei.
We all now better understand why it took so long, so many years. Many of us figured it out well in advance, but now we all know. It was not as “simple” as bombing and taking out the nuclear sites. A much wiser and more urgently critical strategy required, years in advance, planning also to take out as many drones and launchers and drone bases, and ballistic missiles and launchers and missile bases, and highest-ranking commanders of as many Iranian military branches (e.g., the central command, the Quds force, the IRGC) as possible, and the killing of as many highest-ranking and learned nuclear scientists, and as many surface-to-air defense missiles and launchers and bases, and so much more — all at the same time.
It is a sort of a Reverse “Dayenu” narrative: If the commanders had been killed but not the rest, it would not have been enough. Instead, Iran would have been on heightened guard. If the drones and missiles were hit, it would not have been enough because the commanders would have known how to immediately go into Plan B. If any and all the necessary steps were poorly synchronized, the other aspects would have gone into action. So many more ballistic missiles would have been sent, better targeted, and so many more would still remain on hand for longer-term attack. The command would have been situated to make the kinds of decisions and issue the kinds of orders that second-rank successor leaders would need hours or days to strategize and implement. And so on.
Instead, it was precision-based. On the other side of the world, for all intents and purposes. And no one on the map in between will let you over their air space. Three thousand years later — again, the Red Sea (Sea of reeds) comes to our defense by Chasdei Hashem, the grace of G-d.
Those who mock Prime Minister Netanyahu can mock all they like, but I cannot suppress my admiration. He is a lesser but serious variation on the other Jabotinsky disciples, Menachem Begin and Yitzchak Shamir. In more than half a century, Labour never produced anything even remotely comparable. Imagine Golda Meir with her suicide tablets in this moment or Moshe Dayan or Rabin having another nervous breakdown right now. And Bennett and Lapid attacking him for not acting again
The whole world — our beloved America, too — is quite prepared to live in a world without Israel. Even half of America would be relieved to see Israel gone. And none, except Huckabee and a few others, would ever be with Israel on Judgment Day. The world loves dead Jews. Macron will lay a wreath anywhere for dead Jews. Mertz and Merkel both would shed tears side by side. Carney would make his wreath out of maple leaves. Poor dead Jews. Whatever.
Netanyahu has to deal with things we cannot imagine. He seems to have blown it badly by letting Qatar send Hamas all that money.
But Bennett, Lapid, Gantz, Eisenkot, Liberman, Sa’ar, and all the others had a chance to change policy. Instead, they gave territorial waters and natural gas to Hezbollah. That’s better? And they did not stop Qatari money. I don’t remember them stopping tunnel construction, just endless attacks on Netanyahu and constantly saying how much better they would do. And while they talked, the Muslim Brotherhood started building illegal houses in the south, and we could not even plant on Tu Bishvat in the Negev. Sa’er picked Baharav-Meara with Bennett’s, Lapid’s, and Gantz’s blessings. That’s better?
But what was Netanyahu thinking when he gave Qatar carte blanche? He does not disclose to anyone what he really is thinking, and that is because he truly cannot trust anyone around him, except for Sarah and Yair, because they all cave in to Shabak threats to reveal their own life secrets. But there is a strong belief that, secretly in his head, his goal was to build up Hamas in Gaza so that Mahmoud Abbas’s Arab Entity in Judea-Samaria never would be able to unite with Hamas’s Gaza into one solid “[epithet deleted] State.”
If that was his strategy, it worked. He and Qatar effectively kept Gaza and Abu Mazan’s entity divided for 20 years, killing off the “Two-State Solution” while the Jewish population grew to 340,000 in the eastern parts of Jerusalem and 530,000 in the rest of Judea and Samaria — almost one million by now. His fatal flaw was not completely in the strategy but in the execution, relying too much on an electronic $1 billion fence, and on hubris — his, Hertzi Halevi’s, Ronen Bar’s, and others (but not Gen. Ofer Winter and David Zini, both of whom get penalized because they believe is G-d and did not believe in the fence that proved as “foolproof” as the Bar Lev Line that Israel’s arrogant G-dless military experts guaranteed was impenetrable until Sadat overran it in less than two hours in 1973). (Another point is that it seems that flow of money from Qatar was supposed to be in exchange for Qatar keeping the lid on Hamas, but surprise, surprise! Qatar didn't keep their end of the bargain, ed.)
And one more thing about Netanyahu that, really, makes him greater than we realize. Five years ago, I was stricken by a severe case of interstitial lung disease. I underwent a lung transplant in May 2022. For the past three years, I take 23 medicines daily, and I have a medical appointment or diagnostic exam (CT scan, X-rays, MRI, ultrasound) three times a week. Each such thing costs me nearly three hours lost that day: 30 minutes’ travel there, 30 minutes in the waiting room, 30 minutes for the appointment or test or medical procedure, 30 minutes’ travel back home, and 30 minutes to get back into my work groove. I lose three hours of work time three times a week. It drives me bat-crazy. The lost three hours causes me either to work that day on five hours’ sleep instead of eight or to cancel three hours of planned work, like not writing that week’s intended opinion column.
So I know, better than most, what this guy is going through as the Character Assassins of Kaplan and Shabak (same thing) force him to lose three hours of work several times a week by sitting in a corrupt courtroom to face bogus charges over champagne and cigars and other nonsense like a Bugs Bunny doll for his then young son that are not even indictable offenses in a true democracy.
Here he is, dealing with Starmer, Carney, Lammy, Macron, the ICC, the ICJ, the UN, Hamas, Hezbollah, the wolf in wolf’s clothing in Syria, Houthis, the Iranian mullahs, Lapid, Gantz, Liberman, Bennett, Yair Golan, Olmert, Barak, Baharav Miara, the corrupt Supreme Court “chief justice,” Haaretz, Kan 11, Keshet 12, Reshet 13, Ben Caspit, and all the rest — with the burden of protecting seven million Jews and one and only one Jewish country on his shoulders — and he is expected to sit through three hours of that garbage three days a week, begging for time off to undergo a urological procedure and to heal a few days because that precise procedure can result in severe and even fatal infection if not allowed to heal for a week. So there is that.
Netanyahu knows that no one from outside Israel surely will be there except for Huckabee, Javier Milei, Geert Wilders, and maybe Viktor Orban - maybe. America had its test run to protect Jews under FDR during World War II. The gates were shut, even to Otto Frank and the S.S. St. Louis, the Voyage of the Damned. The great Winston Churchill oversaw implementation of the White Paper while six million died. in 1967 with LBJ, who warned Levi Eshkol: “If you go to war, you go alone.” And the greatest hero of Republican conservatism, Ronald Reagan, who condemned the bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor and who blamed Israel for Sabra and Shatilla.
Israel is alone. The Jews are alone. Imagine: a war in the Middle East, and shuls all over the world have to hire security. “But we are not anti-Jewish, only anti-Zionist.” So why are shuls hiring armies of private-security Goyyim to protect them? Why is a Christian one of the two embassry workers shot to death in Washington outside a Jewish museum? Why are Jews in Colorado set on fire?
Only anti-Zionist, not anti-Jewish.
If this war is to be named from a phrase prophesied from G-d’s words but out of the mouth of the non-Jewish world’s greatest Biblical prophet — Rising Lion — recognize that Bamidbar (B’midbar) (Numbers) 23:24, speaking of the mother lion that will arise fiercely to defend her young, comes only a few sentences after 23:9, that same Prophet’s Divine words: “Behold, a Nation that shall dwell alone.” We dwell alone.
Be certain that, when word broke of Israel’s defensive preemptive strike, Emanual Macron and Keir Starmer and Mark Carney and the extra-despicable David Lammy all sat, quietly hoping that Israel would fail and almost fall. This would be their big chance: Rising Lion would fail. Iran’s counter-attack would be of Holocaust proportions. Millions of Jews aflame. Israel, burning everywhere like on Tisha B’Av and collapsing on itself like the last day of Planet Krypton, would be begging France, the UK, and Canada — also Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and the others — to save what is left b’khol m’chir, at any price. And they would come back:
“Yes, we will save you, as we always promised to save Israel from disappearing. Here are our terms: You will withdraw from Gaza completely. You will declare a permanent ceasefire. You will recognize a ‘[epithet deleted] State’ in the area we call the ‘West Bank.’ You will grant all the [epithet deleted] people their right to elect their own leaders when Hamas wins the election that will follow 89-year-old Abu Mazen’s soon-forthcoming demise. You will pay reparations to rebuild Gaza and Southern Lebanon. You will return half or all the Golan Heights to Syria. . . .
“. . . And we will save what is left of you.”
Well, it did not turn out that way. And it must be remembered forever — for . . . e . . . ver — that only Trump’s America helped shoot down the Iranian missiles while the UK, France, Germany and Canada sat this one out. It must never be forgotten. They watched those ballistic missiles fly, and they sat on their hands. So now the next strategy must be regarded:
I am not privy to the inner workings of Rising Lion. I must maintain that humility. But everything in me says that, as soon as possible — even now, if possible — now that Israel rules the skies of Iran, the time has come to utterly wipe out all of Iran’s oil fields, every last drop. Obliterate all their oil fields. If Israel, by now, has taken out the nuke sites everywhere and rules the skies from Teheran to everywhere, now is the time to choke off and strangle them, obliterating all their oil fields.
And Britain, France, Japan, Ireland, Spain, and the others can go buy their oil on Amazon. Saudi Arabia and the others, some in the Abraham Accords, will be delighted to step in with tripled prices. Ramadan in July. America will make a few bucks to pay down the debt. And let Starmer run his car on fish and chips, Macron on vichyssoise, and Carney on hockey pucks. We are not their problem, and they are not our problem.
The Iranian oil fields must be obliterated as soon as possible. Iran will be crippled, with no immediate solution. If anything can set off an uprising, that will do it. And if the Iranian public do not rise up, so be it. Let them swallow an economy that is bankrupt with no solution in sight. They can eat rice.
As a final kicker, unless there is something we do not know, it would seem to be the time to send Khamenei to his waiting virgins. No need for secrets. I do not see why it awaits. He is an international war criminal, worse than Adolf Eichmann. But there are things I do not know. I can only hope.
The oil fields and Khamenei. Please. ASAP.