Some recent history is worth revisiting:

"The “Twelve Day War” [of June 2025] seems so yesterday, but we can happily observe that many hysterical observers were wrong: bombing Iran’s nuke sites did not presage a new “endless” “war of choice” aimed at “regime change” in Iran. That said, a short, sharp war has not definitively resolved issues, which was the point of my first essay about this business involving Iran: whether or not the United States would make an effort to “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear capabilities, there would still be an Iran to deal with going forward. There would still be an Iran to deal with just as there will still be a Russia to deal with after the war in Ukraine war wraps up. There will still be running questions about nuclear proliferation: who should or shouldn’t get the bomb? Who should or shouldn’t be situated to decide who gets the bomb? Should we all not worry too much about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and simply learn to love the bomb—serious people had invested serious energy into debating this matter in the late 1940’s—or should we be ready to aggressively police a nuclear proliferation regime that bars the prospect of Mahdist (Chiliastic) regimes like that of Iran ushering in the Second Coming with a nuclear strike on the rest of us?

I put classic questions of nuclear proliferation aside in this essay and instead give some attention to two other aspects of the strike on Iran: First, the strike on Iran marked the end of a campaign that has, for the foreseeable future, neutralized Iranian adventurism in the Middle East and beyond. More pointedly, it’s been a very tough year for the anti-Israel crowd, because its members had seemed so hopeful that Iran and its proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Yemen, would finally deliver the great prize, the destruction of the State of Israel. Hamas would press in from Gaza in the South. The greater force, Hezbollah, would launch thousands of missiles from Lebanon in the North. Iran would supply Hezbollah through Syria. Even Yemen would make some effort to harass “the Entity” (Israel) with the occasional ballistic missile strike.

Second, the Iran strike has inspired much expression of isolationist sentiment, and some (not all) of that sentiment may be animated by deeper anti-Israel sentiment. So, what’s going on? Some ideas and observations: ..."