Can a war be won while a deeply buried root of hatred remains? The ongoing conflict surrounding Israel provides us with a case study. While it is possible to achieve a military victory over Hamas in the sense that a militant terrorist organization can be reduced to non-military effectiveness through the force of arms, the idea that Israel could “permanently” defeat Hamas, a nationalist Islamic Sunni organization, Hezbollah, a radical Islamic Shiite sect, or even the Houthis, a Shia movement in Yemen which has recently targeted Israel as well as disrupted shipping in the vital Red Sea shipping lane, would entail something either very complicated or very simple.
Israel effectively has been at war since its founding in May 1948. Since then, Arab states, often in conjunction with one another, have repeatedly sought its extermination. However, in recent decades Israel has found paths to peace with many of its Arab neighbors, while tensions remain with others. Often the tensions that persist surround the fate of the native population who lost either land or identity (and often both) via the creation of the Jewish state. While some of these peoples eventually found permanent homes in surrounding nations like Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt or Arabia, others remained but relocated to either the region around the west bank of the Jordan river or the narrow strip of land near Gaza.
In both locations these people became increasingly radicalized in their religious and political views, and gained support from national and religious extremist patrons, not the least of which was the Shia Islamic Republic of Iran, which had declared itself the enemy of both Israel and its sponsor, “The Great Satan,” the United States. Iran is not Arab, but rather is Persian in its cultural descent, a fact that has placed it at odds with surrounding Arab states for much of its history. The Houthis, who count Iran as their primary sponsor, have been largely aligned against the House of Saud for much of their existence. This point, Iran’s use of proxies in a hydra-like organization allied against its enemies, is the important factor when considering that while Israel has been at war nearly continuously since its founding, the defeat of its current enemy, who is really one enemy, is achievable.
This change has come about because there is a growing international understanding of Iran’s strategy to use proxies to carry out military attacks upon its targets. Rocket attacks from Lebanon on Israel’s northern cities find their origin in Iran. The terrorist massacre of over 1,000 Israeli and international citizens, to include the raping of women and slaughter of children, also came at the direction of Iran. Attacks upon shipping in the Red Sea and the destruction of cargo is the result of plans from Iran’s leadership. The entire strategy and chain of events that have issued forth from it originate from the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the subsequent installation of a terrorist state under the leadership of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Hence, any attempt to defeat Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis to create a stable peace within the Middle East can only find success if the original source of the threat is the target. In other words, Iran.
For a lasting peace to be established in the region, Iran must be the focus of an overwhelmingly destructive aerial strike composed of cruise missiles and bombers targeted to severely damage Iran’s economic, industrial, and military capabilities and capacities. However, this is not to say that there should be a plan for the introduction of ground forces. There should be no plans to occupy Iran and rebuild its fractured state infrastructure. Five decades of suffering under terrorist attacks, and two decades of war in the region have created an aversion to “long wars.” Any strike campaign for Iran should not be conceived, sold to the public, or executed as a “Pottery Barn” campaign in which the nation, or coalition of nations, that inflict damage upon that state would expect to contribute to its rebuilding. There will be no reparations. The attack itself would represent the accumulated repayment for decades of terrorist attacks by Iran.
Such an attack would be aided if the strike force included the many nations who have suffered blows from Iran and its proxies over the past fifty years. Beyond Israel and the United States, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, as well as many European nations should be approached to join the coalition. Such a combined force could create the potential to hit the broadest portfolio of economic, industrial, and military targets necessary to destroy Iran’s ability to defend itself, generate wealth, and even administer itself. Planning for this attack should be done in secret, but the intent of the attack must be openly discussed in public for one simple reason: The attack need not happen.
Should the Iranian people come to understand the Damocles sword that has been forged and then suspended over their nation by their own leaders, they might, at last, summon the courage to overthrow the despotic religious zealots who have controlled their destinies for far too long, thus sparing their nation and themselves massive destruction.
Should Israel and its allies lack the national will to pursue such a strategy for fear of “escalation,” there is no other path to either victory or an enduring peace. While there is a school of thought that asserts that peace can be found by addressing the “root causes” of terrorism in the region, the terrorists themselves state that the “root cause” is Zionism and the presence of a Jewish state in the region. As such, their desired solution is a “from the river to the sea” Palestinian state, and, by implication, another attempt at the extermination of the Jewish people. Another much discussed strategy is the “two-state solution,” but this ignores the facts that Israel was founded as the result of a two-state solution when the British Mandate was subdivided into Transjordan and Palestine, with the latter forming the basis of the Jewish homeland. Still later, during a 2000 summit meeting at Camp David, the Palestinians were offered a sovereign state composed of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but walked out of the negotiations over the status of East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. They then declared the bloody Second Intifada.
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has raged back and forth for decades. Israel has taken the step of building tall walls to separate Palestinians from Israelis, creating isolated political and economic enclaves. However, the enduring nature of the Jewish state––as well as the rampant economic success of Israel in their portion of the Middle East, while the Palestinians continue to live in squalor despite billions in economic aid––has dug a moat between the two peoples that cannot be filled. Certainly, the wanton, horrific nature of the October 7, 2023, massacre will continue to divide Israelis from their nearest neighbors for years, if not decades, to come. Additionally, the clear and incontrovertible evidence that the massacre was perpetrated with the financial backing as well as political and military support of Iran, serves as a line in the sand within the region, especially since Iran has further fanned the flames of chaos through their support of the Houthis and Hezbollah.
A permanent peace in the Middle East can only be achieved when the nations of the region reconcile themselves to the return of the Jewish people to the lands of their ancient ancestors following two millennia of diaspora, oppression, and genocide. While there are clear signs of advancement that track from the Camp David Accords in 1978, to the 2020 Abraham Accords wherein increasing numbers of regional actors have signed economic and diplomatic agreements with Israel, the extremists in Iran continue to block the path to a stable comprehensive regional security arrangement.
Thus, the only path to a lasting peace in the Middle East must go through Tehran and the removal of its ruling Islamic Republican government. Israel understands this, and its actions since the October 7th massacre once again demonstrate that the Jewish state has no intention of going quietly into any state or non-state actor’s gas chambers again. Now the rest of the region, and the broader Western community must recall that ancient Roman dictum, si vis pacem, para bellum. If you desire peace, prepare for war. If a people are not willing to die for peace, they will nonetheless die slowly at first, then all at once.
Henry J. “Jerry” Hendrix is a senior fellow at the Sagamore Institute and is a retired Navy Captain with 26 years of active service.
