Last week, an Iran-backed militia fired rockets at an American based in Iraq—the eleventh such attack in the past three months—killing an American contractor. Washington, at last, retaliated by striking five different targets belonging to Katai’b Hizballah, the most prominent of these militias, in both Iraq and Syria. In response, the group sent a well-organized mob to attack the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Behnam Ben Taleblu points out that this is not a case of “nationalist backlash” against the American presence in the country, but an Iranian intimidation tactic. He adds:

For Washington’s strikes to create a deterrence dividend, Iran, as well as its proxies and partners, . . . need to see any U.S. show of force as a signal of resolve, rather than a one-off, which would in fact signal weakness and thus invite Tehran to escalate further. Washington therefore cannot shy away from using all elements of national power. By keeping hard power in reserve until the loss of an American life, the administration may have inadvertently signaled that the rest of Iran’s malign activities—so long as they don’t threaten Americans—will be treated as [of only secondary importance].

In just six months, Tehran went from damaging oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz to launching cruise missiles against what is arguably the most important oil installation on the planet. At no point was there any [U.S. military] retribution against a regime asset or interest—even indirectly, outside of Iranian territory. And because of that, at no point did Tehran look for an off-ramp.

In fact, the motive behind the crescendo of aggression by Iran is clear. The Trump administration’s overall approach is working. . . . Greatly akin to asphyxiation, the sanctions regime unlocked by Washington’s departure from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal has choked-off Iran’s revenues. . . . But like trying to choke an adversary in a fight, . . . the greater the asphyxiation, the more flagrant the hand-waving (in this context: regional and other escalation) and flailing.

This flailing, Taleblu concludes, must be met with a firm response, preferably military.

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.