For decades, the so-called “Western experts" had warned us that it was too risky to attack Tehran, that the Iranians had too many missiles, that their armed forces were too large, that their leadership was too cunning, that it was inevitable that Iran would build the atomic bomb and that there was nothing we could do except sign useless treaties that were not worth the paper they were written on.
Jacques Chirac theorized that the Iranian atomic bomb would not be “very dangerous." In an essay that caused a sensation, “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb," published by Foreign Affairs, the famous political scientist Kenneth Waltz theorized that an Iranian bomb would be a “source of stability."
Defeatism is the worn-out garment of decadent Western ruling classes.
The US-Israel military operations have so far been extraordinarily successful and, two weeks after the start of the conflict, the Islamic regime has been forced to attack ships, threaten to lay mines, bomb oil infrastructure and unleash economic terrorism in a last attempt to survive.
The leaders of the Islamic Republic, those who are still alive, that is, are underground. The regime has seen thousands of its sites reduced to rubble. It has suffered catastrophic losses. Its air defenses have been annihilated. Its air force is finished. Its navy lies at the bottom of Hormuz.
What remains is the work of dismantling the Iranian nuclear program and the liberation of Hormuz (regime change is more difficult).
And if we fail, all the revisionist regimes on the face of the earth will draw the appropriate conclusions. And many of our new Arab friends will also think that friendship with the “infidels" was not worth it.
Many, to tell the truth, already seem to have failed.
Many European countries have delighted the enemies of the West, discouraged our friends and humiliated themselves.
Just a single drone attack, without deaths or injuries, and the Italian contingent will be withdrawn from Iraqi Kurdistan, where we were training the heroic Kurds in the war against ISIS at a base named after the legionary fortress of Septimius Severus.
The “freezing" of the Italian military mission in Erbil is a sensational blow delivered by pro-Iranian militias in Iraq.
Is that all it takes to make us withdraw? Shame on my country.
Germany is also withdrawing its soldiers from Iraq while continuing to purchase weapons from Israel.
Spain is the great soft underbelly of Europe (sorry for the great politician José María Aznar).
Then there is England, which has just decided to remove the face of Winston Churchill from banknotes.
Who will replace him? Shakespeare? No - hedgehogs and badgers.
The glorious United Kingdom perhaps deserves to become the Islamic Kingdom.
A British Labour politician - speaking unofficially - said it bluntly: “Jordanians, Emiratis, Kuwaitis and even Canadians all ask: ‘What the hell are you doing? Whose side are you on?’"
While Iranians were being slaughtered in the streets, officials from the British Foreign Office were celebrating with regime leaders the anniversary of Khomeini’s revolution.
The key question was posed by former colonel Richard Kemp in the Telegraph: “How much longer will the United States and Israel fight for us?".
First the Houthi terrorists in Yemen attacked one of the most important trade routes in the world, the Red Sea, slowing global supply chains.
And we Europeans yawned.
Now the collective pacifist - who on TV and in newspapers complains about the cost of filling up diesel and gasoline because of “Trump and Netanyahu’s war" - would like to let Tehran control a quarter of the world oil market.
If Europe truly existed today, we would see a maritime coalition under the EU flag helping the United States and Israel free the passage at Hormuz.
Instead, the “collective West" is dead: all that remains are two rock-solid leaders in Jerusalem and Washington. If it weren't for them, Europe would already be learning the Shahada in Farsi.
Giulio Meotti is an Italian journalist with Il Foglio and member of MEF. He writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva and is the author, in English, of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter and of "J'Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel" published by Mantua Books, in addition to books in Italian. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Gatestone, Frontpage and Commentary.