The latest anti-Israel line is one that claims that America entered a war against a country that did not truly pose any imminent threat to the USA. Let’s analyze this argument through the lens of the wars in the 20th century.
Unquestionably, the two greatest wars of the 20th century that the United States partook in were World War I and World War II. From the perspective of decades following those wars, it is crystal clear that without those two major wars, the United States of America would not have emerged as the world leader that it became – partially as a result of America’s involvement in those two major world-changing events.
What is debatable is when the best time would have been for the United States to involve themselves in those wars. Many will argue that had the United States gotten involved in World War II a few years earlier – as Churchill had championed – the price that the Western world would have had to pay for ensuring freedom would have been far less costly. But following the costly battle of World War I, millions of Americans were far from eager to get involved in another worldwide conflagration. FDR understood this well. But he also knew that Churchill was right and that it was just a question of time till the United States would join. So, FDR waited for Pearl Harbor and only then made the move to engage and send troops abroad.
Ultimately, battling the Germans on the beaches of Normandy was far more challenging than had the United States and England invaded Germany before Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Hundreds of thousands of American and British lives may have been saved, and Germany would probably have never invaded Russia. This is of course speculation, but it is based on sound analysis of where Germany was holding back in 1939 before it invaded Poland. The logical conclusion from World War II is probably that it would have been advantageous had the United States attacked Germany before Germany attacked Poland.
But in Korea and Vietnam, it was a completely different story. First of all, until today, the debate continues as to whether it was correct for the United States to get embroiled in those two wars of containment of Communism. There may have been other methods to contain Communism than placing hundreds of thousands of American soldiers on the ground in Asia. But in both situations, it was not the United States that initiated hostilities. The question is whether or not the response was correct. The jury is still out on those wars.
In the Persian Gulf War of 1991, it was argued back then that the United States was not in imminent danger. True, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia and the worldwide economy. But Americans did not feel any danger back home. Nonetheless, enough people understood that this was a just war that was necessary to keep the bad actors from causing worldwide economic instability and the assumption – which proved to be true – was that the war would not be very costly. The United States initiated hostilities and calmed down the threats to the rest of the world. Iraq was driven back and George H. Bush was able to convincingly speak of a New World Order.
This was probably the prototype of the kind of war that President Trump had in mind when he decided to give the go-ahead to attack Iran. It is true that Iran did not seem as if they would imminently attack the United States. But Iran had already attacked Israel in around 10 different ways via Iran’s proxies, and it was clearly just a question of time until Iran was going to have to be confronted or it would blackmail much of the Western world with its nuclear weapons.
It is wholly justifiable and wise to initiate hostilities against a hostile country that it is hell-bent on taking over the world and killing millions. Waiting for an imminent threat is like saying that the United States should have waited till Hitler’s submarines were right off the coasts of New York, Washington and Florida, and only then it would have been fine to attack. That argument is pathetic and obviously detached from logic.