Jerusalem Post Editorial
On Friday at dawn, Israeli F-35s roared out of Nevatim, threading the needle over hostile airspace toward Iran’s nuclear heartlands.
By sunrise, Natanz’s nuclear enrichment halls lay in ruins, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps missile bunkers around Kermanshah and Bid Kaneh smoldered. Yet, inside Tehran’s inner sanctum, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sat unfazed, his resolve as cold as the desert night.
Even as Israel’s jets returned home, its supreme leader doubled down on his vow to erase both Israel and its principal backer, the United States.
Consider these chilling declarations:
‘Israel is a malignant, cancerous tumor in the region that must be cut off and eradicated…’
‘Zionists… act like the guard dogs of global arrogance. Their nature is to bark and bite…’
‘The cancerous tumor called Israel must be uprooted from the region…’
‘It is the Islamic Republic’s mission to erase Israel off the map…’
‘If they commit even the smallest wrong, [we] will level Tel Aviv and Haifa to dust…’
‘By Allah’s grace, in 25 years, nothing will remain of the Zionist regime in our region…’
‘The Zionist virus that has lingered for years will soon be eliminated…’
‘Death to Israel…’
These are not offhand barbs but strategic threats, calibrated to rally hard-liners at home and intimidate adversaries abroad. In Khamenei’s worldview, Israel and America are twin embodiments of ‘global arrogance’ and ‘Zionist aggression’ – cancers, dogs, viruses, and Satanic foes that must be expunged.
Trump must take decisive action against Iran
Mr. US President Donald Trump: It’s time to match words with decisive action.
Embrace regime change as a policy. Iran’s leadership has shown time and again that its ideology is impervious to deterrence; military strikes only feed its propaganda. You should publicly declare that the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Khamenei is an outlaw regime and that its removal is a US strategic objective.
Sharpen economic warfare to knife-edge precision. Existing sanctions must be intensified to target every revenue stream sustaining the regime. Freeze all assets tied to the IRGC and its Quds Force, sanction the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and levy secondary sanctions on foreign banks and firms transacting with Tehran.
Ramp up covert operations inside Iran. If Tehran welcomes violence, let it find the fight at home. Expand cyber offensives to disable IRGC command-and-control networks, disrupt missile guidance systems, and interfere with nuclear control software.
Designate the IRGC a foreign terrorist organization and pursue its global networks relentlessly. Force banks worldwide to choose between processing dollar transactions and facilitating money laundering by the IRGC.
Project overwhelming military readiness. Surge US carrier strike groups into the Persian Gulf, pre-position Aegis destroyers in the Arabian Sea, and deploy long-range bombers to deter any Iranian reprisal.
Forge a Middle East coalition for Iran’s partition. Encourage long-term plans for a federalized or partitioned Iran, recognizing that Khamenei’s theocratic regime cannot be reformed. Offer security guarantees to Sunni, Kurdish, and Balochi minority regions willing to break away.
Khamenei’s genocidal rhetoric demands a radical response. A half-measure of sanctions and occasional airstrikes will only embolden Tehran’s hard-liners and lengthen the regime’s lifespan.
Mr. President, this extreme theocracy needs to fall. Make its destruction as explicit a policy as the defeat of Nazi Germany or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Harness every tool of American power, be it diplomatic, economic, covert, or militarized, to dismantle Ayatollah Khamenei’s regime before it can realize its vow to erase Israel and America from the map. Only then can the region breathe free of tyranny and terror, and the cancer of radical theocracy be excised once and for all.
20JUN25
It’s odd. We see two theocracies each derived from the same source with a mutual intransigent, hateful sense of the other’s world view. Is it surprising that the detestable attributes and solutions ascribed by each to the other are almost identical? I think the two should be left to “duke it out” and let the world outcast the winner!
DM