The Patriot Post® · Israel Airmails Message to the Ayatollah

Since the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump and the unexpected end of Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, there’s been plenty of buzz on the American political scene.

And while most Americans are focused on the Trump vs. Kamala Harris matchup, events around the world are quickly spinning out of control. Consider, for example, the recent massacre of 12 Israeli children by a Hezbollah rocket and the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Haniyeh was attending the inauguration of Iran’s new president and had just met with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei before he was killed.

In response to the assassination, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council issued an order to retaliate against Israel in an unspecified manner.

According to The Washington Times, “While he didn’t confirm Israel’s role in the death of Mr. Haniyeh, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjaman] Netanyahu acknowledged that the IDF on Tuesday killed a senior Hezbollah commander, Fouad Shukr, in an airstrike in southern Beirut, Lebanon. The killing was in retaliation for the deaths of 12 children in a July 27 strike on the Israeli Druze.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. denies any responsibility.

National Review reports: “U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Singaporean news outlet CNA that the U.S. had no involvement in the attack on Haniyeh, and declined to predict the potential consequences of his death. Blinken is hoping cease-fire negotiations can continue instead of further escalation across the region, but it remains unclear how Haniyeh’s death will impact the discussions.”

Although seemingly a world away, these events could help determine the candidate voters ultimately choose to lead the free world in 2025.

For now, America’s response is in the hands of Joe Biden, a president whose physical and mental limitations were on full view during his debate with Trump that must have emboldened our enemies and left them concluding there’s no one in charge in the Oval Office.

And in a fast-paced news cycle, where today’s headlines are forgotten tomorrow, we should remember that Iran has long enjoyed the support of Democrat administrations.

Biden sent $1.5 billion to the West Bank and Gaza supposedly for social services and infrastructure, allowing the Palestinian Authority to access the money for Hamas and other organizations.

Likewise, the Obama administration sent $150 billion to Iran, including $400 million in untraceable cash for a prisoner release. The result of this appeasement and support? Iran has gone on a terrorism spree ever since and the region has become more unstable.

For some reason, Democrats think funding our enemies around the world is a way to keep the peace, but we’re now seeing the consequences of that failed approach.

Amit Segal writes at The Wall Street Journal that “the Iranian proxy Hezbollah has been firing at Israel for months, destroying villages and slaughtering innocent children playing soccer. There is no ‘siege’ and no ‘occupation,’ yet the Biden administration is mediating between Hezbollah and Israel like a real-estate broker. Instead of sending Iran an unequivocal, threatening message, it is sending adviser Amos Hochstein to plead with Hezbollah to halt the rocket fire and offer Israeli territorial concessions.”

And now the United States is getting involved with more than words. Just this week, U.S. fighter jets struck Iranian-backed militia groups near Baghdad. The strike came on the same day that Israel killed Shukr in Beirut.

Joe Biden won’t be president in a few months, so it’s worth considering how Kamala Harris and Donald Trump might deal with a world on fire when they enter the Oval Office in January.

Harris has never strongly condemned the hateful and violent anti-Israel protests that swept across college campuses earlier this year, or those more recently in which rioters defaced statues in front of Union Station in Washington, DC. Harris also refused to attend Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress, cementing the perception that she’s anti-Israel and ill-equipped to broker any peaceful resolution should she become president.

Now, the New York Post reports congressional Republicans are now investigating the national security advisor to Kamala Harris, Philip Gordon, for possible connections to an Iranian influence operation.

Harris made a brief statement on Israel this week, stating that Israel has a right to defend itself and that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. But her solution to the situation was vague, suggesting diplomacy but offering no specifics.

As much as Kamala Harris tries to thread the needle and look like she’s neutral, her record is one that suggests otherwise. Conversely, when Donald Trump was president, he signed the bipartisan Taylor Force Act into law, which prevents U.S. funding of terrorists through the Palestinian Authority. (Biden funded the PA anyway, claiming it wasn’t a violation of the act.) And in 2020, President Trump took decisive action when the United States launched a precision strike in Iraq that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, leader of Iran’s elite terrorist forces.

When Trump was president, his administration acted with strength to make the American position very clear. Meanwhile, Harris and the Democrats have bent over backwards to secretly fund Iranian interests.

That leaves it up to the American people to decide who’s more capable of stepping up and handling a complex and dangerous situation in the Middle East — one that may very well turn out to be the decisive issue of the 2024 presidential campaign.