Whether last weekend’s attacks on the Saudi oil industry were launched from Yemen (by Iran-backed Houthi rebels), from Iraq (by Iran-backed Shiite militias), or from Iran itself, there is no doubt that Tehran is the culprit, writes Ray Takeyh. Noting the long history of the Islamic Republic’s attacks on America’s soldiers, citizens, and allies going unpunished, he urges Washington to take action:

In the coming days, the [Trump] administration will be advised to cool the temperature in the Middle East. It will be cautioned against forceful measures for they could only lead to a wider conflict. It will be accused of somehow instigating this crisis and thus having an obligation to switch tracks. The underlying assumption of all these claims is that the U.S. is somehow responsible for Iranian mischief. But the Islamic Republic responds to resolution, not a retreat from punitive measures. It respects strength, not blandishments.

The task ahead for the Trump administration is a formidable one. It must marshal evidence demonstrating Iranian complicity at a time when most Democrats and European leaders are inclined to blame the [U.S.] instead. It must convince its jittery allies in the Middle East, particularly in the Persian Gulf, to come together and unite behind an anti-Iran stance. It should continue its pressure campaign to reduce Iranian oil exports. It must draw its red lines clearly and unambiguously.

All this is not to suggest a rush to rash action. The Islamic Republic has offered us a unique opportunity to mobilize the international community against it. . . . The theocracy’s most important vulnerability is still its weakening economy, and it is that nerve that Washington should continue pinching. Given this latest Iranian act of terror, the Trump administration may have stumbled on a unique opportunity to make its strategy of maximum pressure a multilateral one.

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.