(Telegraph-UK) Col. Richard Kemp - Tehran claims that the air strikes which killed Iranian military commanders in Damascus were "Israel's latest war crime against a foreign mission with diplomatic immunity." They were nothing of the sort. The target was an Iranian command center coordinating military action against Israel, adjacent to the Iranian consulate. Israel is perfectly entitled to hit military facilities in another country that is engaged in active hostilities. It was merely the latest move in a war that Tehran itself has launched against Israel and the West. The flow of arms to Hizbullah could now be further impeded. Since Oct. 7, that terror group has launched missile strikes against Israelis near the Lebanese border, leading to the evacuation of nearly 100,000 civilians. Do Jerusalem's critics really expect it to sit back and let those attacks continue? But the real question is why it only seems to be the Israelis who are taking the Iranian threat seriously. Iranian proxies have attacked international shipping in the Red Sea and Iranian-backed militias have launched more than 150 strikes against U.S. forces in Syria, Iraq and Jordan since Oct. 7. Tehran is a major weapons supplier to Russia in its war against Ukraine. Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, Tehran has ordered hundreds of terrorist attacks and assassinations in more than 40 countries. Meanwhile, Tehran is on the verge of acquiring a nuclear capability. The response by the U.S. and its allies to all of this has been pitiful. Indeed, they have actively encouraged Iranian aggression by failing to respond in kind. Instead of appeasing Iran, our countries should stand by our Israeli ally in its vital defensive action, and maybe even consider taking a leaf out of its book. The writer, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, was chairman of the UK's national crisis management committee, COBRA.
2024-04-09 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive