Earlier this week, reports circulated that National Security Adviser John Bolton had asked to see the Pentagon’s plans for striking the Islamic Republic after one of its Iraqi proxy forces fired mortars in the direction of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Ray Takeyh argues that, contrary to the horrified response of the media, force—and even the credible threat of force—has a track record of success in dealings with the ayatollahs, unlike the approach taken by some American presidents:

No president was more concerned with the Islamic revolutionaries’ sensibilities than Jimmy Carter. Even after Iranian militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took American diplomats hostage, Carter hoped to resolve the crisis in a manner that did not jeopardize the possibility of resuming ties with the theocracy. Such deference helped prolong the crisis for 444 days and essentially doomed Carter’s presidency. . . .

[By contrast, in] the summer of 1988, there was an ongoing conflict between American naval ships and Iranian speedboats laying down mines in the Gulf waters. As the confrontation on the high seas was taking place, an Iranian passenger plane was making its way to Dubai. As the aircraft approached, the USS Vincennes mistook it for a hostile vessel and shot it down, killing 290 passengers.

Despite days of mourning and incendiary speeches, Iran’s reaction was basically subdued, as Tehran appreciated that the asymmetry of power militated against escalation of the conflict. The one dramatic consequence of the downing of the passenger plane was that it finally convinced the clerical elite that it was time to abandon the war with Iraq, [which had been going on for eight years, since] they mistakenly believed [it] was a prelude to America’s entering the war on Saddam Hussein’s behalf with the purpose of overthrowing the Islamic Republic. Even Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who was indifferent to loss of human life, proved too respectful of American power to persist with a war that he felt might now include the United States. . . .

Donald Trump and Bolton are the latest American policymakers to unsettle the Islamic Republic. The signs coming out of the White House may at times be ambiguous, but the tough talk and the tough actions have had an impact in Tehran. The U.S. has withdrawn from the flawed Iran nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions on Iran that have knocked off nearly a million barrels from its oil exports and crippled its economy. And yet the U.S. has faced no retaliatory Iranian response. . . . Why? Because it respects and fears the power of the United States when wielded appropriately.

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.