How Biden should respond to the Iranian attack against Israel

Iran's attack against Israel is a game-changing event not only for Israel but for the whole region, as well as for the U.S. Launching drones, cruise and ballistic missiles from Iranian territory directly toward Israel proper is unprecedented. It warrants a significant response. 

Some have suggested that this is an opportunity for Israel to finally attack Iran's nuclear program, which has been advancing toward a point of no return and will change the Middle East forever and for the worse. Israel might need American help to target Iran's many deeply buried nuclear facilities.

However, it is very doubtful that in an election year President Biden wants to get America directly involved in offensive actions against Iran that could snowball and draw the U.S. into another Middle East war. Worse than inflation, a war could torpedo the Biden reelection campaign. According to Axios, Biden told Netanyahu “that the U.S. won't support any Israeli counterattack against Iran.”

Even so, there is something America could do that wouldn't require American missiles and would be an appropriate response to this Iranian aggression, where words, not bombs, would be the answer. 

Biden should say that this attack against Israel was long in the making. Iran has been the world’s leading state sponsor of terror for decades. It is one of the worst human rights abusers of its own people since its founding 45 years ago. During its revolution, the Iranians took over the American embassy and held our citizens hostage for 444 days.

Biden should announce a change in U.S. policy toward Iran — that it will be pro-Iranian people from here out, and completely against their regime.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has been a blight on the Middle East for far too long," Biden should say. "We will no longer allow Iran to claim plausible deniability by using its proxy networks, which have killed and maimed Americans, as well as our ally's citizens."

Such an American policy would at last be fully supportive of the Iranian people, to chart their own course to take control of their future — to change the face of their nation and become a country that is part of the community of nations. They would finally be able to throw off the shackles of abuse, terror, torture, imprisonment and political-religious capital punishment for those who merely want to be free. 

No Israeli or American weapon can be more powerful than a united front calling for regime change in Iran.

Indeed, this is not unprecedented. Biden felt comfortable endorsing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D-N.Y.) call to replace Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, a freely elected leader of a democratic nation and an American ally. He should be completely comfortable calling for the end of the reign of terror of the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran and his henchmen, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, an American-designated terrorist organization. 

The pen is mightier than the sword. Biden could accomplish a great deal by calling for regime change — by supporting Iranian protesters, instead of ignoring them as President Barack Obama did during the Green Revolution of 2009, when Iranians came out into the streets by the millions to protest and call for regime change. 

In 2022, a young woman, Mahsa Amini, was murdered by Iran's infamous morality police. What was called the "most "widespread revolt" in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 was the result, and Biden said, "Don't worry, we're gonna free Iran."

Unfortunately, the Biden administration chose not to meaningfully support the Iranian people who risked their lives, all because the administration wanted Iran to reenter a nuclear deal that had already been breached by Iran many times, and whose limits on Iran's nuclear program would expire within a decade anyway. 

Biden still has another chance to do the right thing. After Iran's strike on Israel from Iranian soil, he can tell our allies to stand with the Iranian people and against the regime that oppresses them.

This attack should be the straw that breaks the Iranian camel’s back. No amount of appeasement can deter the revolutionary Shiite jihadist ideology’s goal of annihilating Israel, diminishing America and dominating the Middle East and our Sunni allies.

America, at its best, creates a foreign policy that helps people throw off the chains of repression. President Biden has the chance to do what President Reagan did when he called the Soviet Union an "evil empire," something far too few were willing to say. Reagan told the Soviet Union's last leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to tear down the Berlin Wall and let the millions of people behind the Iron Curtain control their own destiny. 

Biden can do the same for the Iranian people, who, if given the opportunity, would probably become allies of America. If the Iranian people can topple the regime on their own, the Middle East will be a safer and more stable place. It is possible. 

Most regime change occurs without violence. According to Erica Chenoweth, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, “Historical studies suggest that it takes 3.5 percent of a population engaged in sustained nonviolent resistance to topple brutal dictatorships.” 

It all begins with a few simple words from Biden: "We stand with the Iranian people and will not appease the mullahs in Tehran anymore."

Eric Mandel is director of the Middle East Political Information Network and Mandel Strategies. He is the senior security editor for The Jerusalem Report.