Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.
Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal.
There’s been a lot of talk in connection with the ongoing Iran war about our allies. Specifically, people are suggesting that Israel has an inordinate role to play in our decision to attack the theocracy in Iran.
And there’s even posters going around of Israeli puppeteers and we’re the puppets, which is kind of ironic when we’re a country of 340 million people and Israel is tiny at 11 million, and they, of course, don’t direct American foreign policy.
But before I get to Israel, I’d like to talk about our other allies. Here we are in an existential fight with Iran, and remember, it’s a 47-year war.
They have attacked our embassies in Beirut, Kenya, Tanzania. They blew up our Marines, 241 deaths in Beirut. We’ve had Khobar Towers. They killed people. They’ve sent assassination teams all over the world. Killed a lot of Jewish people in Argentina. They tried to kill former national security adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and President Donald Trump.
It’s not true that they only killed 600 Americans with shaped charges. I think most people in the military that were acquainted with that … It’s more like 1,500, and thousands were maimed. And it was not just in Iraq. It was also in Afghanistan.
In other words, they sent shaped charges into the hands of Islamic militants who used them in a variety of ways, specifically IEDs, to kill Americans.
That went unanswered as well.
They’ve taken hostages. They killed 41 Americans, their surrogates, Hamas did, on Oct. 7. Of the 1,200 Israelis that were butchered—men, women, older people—41 were American citizens.
I could go on, but we’ve been in a 47-year war with this country since its birth in 1979.
And remember, it was birthed on one fact: It took over the American Embassy and took our diplomatic personnel as hostages. That was never really replied to.
And now they have bragged in the negotiations … They had an out. They had an out. Just don’t make a bomb. Don’t keep giving 50 million a month to Hezbollah, 50 million to Hamas, or 50 million to the Houthis. Just don’t do that. And they wouldn’t do it.
So, here we are in a war, and now we’re blaming many people in the United States, Israel, as the instigator.
But I’d like to talk, as I said, about our other allies.
First, Spain has already announced that we could not use the NATO base near Gibraltar—a key base that governs traffic in and out of the Mediterranean. We cannot use it for operations against Iran.
In other words, they’re saying that they don’t want any part in this war, and you the United States cannot use this base, which is supposed to be for NATO operations. And NATO has been on the record criticizing Iran and saying it should denuclearize.
This is kind of ironic.
Spain did the same thing, if you remember, in 1986. It told President Ronald Reagan, if you’re going to hit Libya, you cannot fly over our territory from bases in England. I think it cost them about 2,500. France did the same thing. Can’t fly over the Iberian Peninsula—2,500-mile detour for us to do that. They’ve been very vocal that they will not meet their 5% armament. They have barely, I don’t think they’ve quite met the 2% unless they did it recently.
Then we turn to France. France has already said from the very beginning that this was a dangerous war and basically wanted no part in it.
The most surprising though is the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom, under Prime Minister [Keir] Starmer, has said that they cannot use that key base for long-range bomber operations in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. England has always allowed us to do that, but they said we can only use it for defensive operations.
What does that mean? What does it mean when you fly into Iran to stop them from shooting missiles at the Emirates or Israel? That’s an offensive operation? It was incoherent. And then, in addition, it decided it would keep away from … It wouldn’t really weigh in.
And then when it had a base in Cyprus that was hit, or was going to be hit, targeted, then all of a sudden, the U.K. said, well, we’ll send one destroyer. But we’re not even able to send it for the weekend because we don’t want to pay overtime pay.
What’s going on with our allies?
Does Mr. Starmer remember the 1982 Falklands Wars? Remember, Falklands. Argentina took it. Britain wanted to go halfway around the world. They didn’t have the wherewithal to do it.
We didn’t really want to offend Argentine, even though that was a dictatorship in Latin America, we were trying to create a solidarity in our backyard.
The dictatorship in Argentina was reprehensible, but not as reprehensible as the Iranian dictatorship.
And what did we do? Al Haig, our secretary of state, said we should triangulate. Reagan said no. Give them 2 million gallons of gas. They’re out of gas. They’ll be stranded. Give them satellite reconnaissance. Give them 200 Sidewinder missiles. Give them anything they want. If they lose a carrier, you give a United States Marine carrier and give it to them.
It was just a blank check to Margaret Thatcher.
Do they forget that? Because they’re going to remember it because we’re not going to do that again in extremis from what they have done.
Germany. Well, no need to talk about Germany. Chancellor [Friedrich] Merz was in the White House. He kind of had a hangdog look. He had a hangdog look because a week or two earlier, into a huge crowd in Germany, he was trashing the United States and Trump himself.
Then we get to Israel.
Besides that Israel is the only democratic consensual government in the Middle East that has been a lifelong friend of the United States that has provided essential intelligence to us about our enemies and the people who have been killing us, such as Hamas on Oct. 7 and Hezbollah for 40 years, we haven’t replied to them effectively.
We’ve sent some battleship shells under Reagan. We’ve done a few things. But they are the ones that have taken out our enemies.
And by the way, it’s very rare for the United States to have a capable ally. Israel is capable.
I’ll give you one example. If you count all of the planes that are ready to fly, jet fighters that Britain has, Israel has more. A lot more. A hundred more.
If you count all the planes that France does—200. Israel has 300.
If you count the planes that Germany has, 150, Israel has 300.
What I’m getting at is the so-called big powers of NATO themselves, with these huge populations of 80 million, 60 million, 55 million, they don’t have the air capability that tiny Israel does.
And right now, they are fighting side by side with us, and those 300 planes are being used every day to take out the ability of the Iranians to do what? Fund the people who’ve killed Americans—Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis. Make sure they do not send missiles toward Europe.
Remember Barack Obama? He gave missile defense away in 2012 in Seoul in that quid pro quo with the Russian government. That missile defense was aimed at protecting Europe from a potential ballistic missile attack from where? Iran.
In conclusion, we have a very strong ally in Israel. It’s one of the most capable countries in the world.
And we have some unreliable allies in our formal alliance. We should remember that before we start making accusations that the Jews or the Israelis are pulling the strings of American diplomacy and military decision making.
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