While cautioning against jettisoning the nuclear agreement with Tehran, John Allen and Michael O’Hanlon urge the U.S. to act more aggressively to contain the Islamic Republic, and outline some of the particulars:

[O]ver the last generation, no foreign government has more American blood on its hands than Iran’s post-1979 revolutionary theocracy. It orchestrated the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon in 1983 and the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996. In Iraq since 2003, Iran’s Quds Force has provided weaponry to both Sunni and Shiite insurgents who have killed hundreds of Americans. . . .

[A] security strategy to contain and challenge Iran regionally needs to include, [first], a pledge to maintain a U.S. military presence in Iraq for a longer period of time and extend the aid package for the country. . . . A stronger, more stable Iraq will be much better positioned to resist domination by Iran. . . .

[In Syria], the United States and like-minded states—as well as global aid agencies—need to help provide security and economic assistance to regions free of Bashar al-Assad’s rule as well as of Islamic State’s. Some of these regions should be treated as temporary autonomous zones and help govern themselves as well. Additionally, more Western and [Arab] military strength and support for moderate insurgents is needed in northwest parts of the country, such as in and around Idlib, where the al-Qaeda affiliate formerly known as Nusra Front is still active. Otherwise, either the latter group or Assad’s forces backed by Russia and Iran will be the likely victor.

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.