For Israel, revenge should be a dish served cold

An Israeli attack now would lack an additional advantage – the element of surprise. It isn’t just Israel’s technology that is superior to Iran’s. It’s also its intelligence, the kind that has been on display with Israeli hits on Iran’s top nuclear scientist, senior commanders and the spectacular 2018 heist of its secret nuclear dossiers. The clandestine nature of the warfare has helped to keep Tehran paranoid, vulnerable and guessing. It’s the sort of place where a wise nation wants its enemy to be.

None of this is to say that Israel should simply stand down.

Israel will find opportunities to hit its enemy where it hurts, at a time of its choosing. So, of course, will Iran – but Iran would do that anyway. Israel’s diplomatic facilities have always been vulnerable to Iranian attack, as have civilian Jewish targets. We were reminded of it again Thursday, when an Argentine court finally held Iran responsible for the 1994 attack on a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that killed 85 people and injured hundreds.

Nor is it to say that Israel doesn’t deserve President Joe Biden’s full support if it chooses to retaliate for Saturday’s attack. Khamenei surely noted the friction between Israel and the West over Gaza when he ordered the strike; daylight between Israel and the United States is often an invitation to mischief by the common enemies of both. The president has political reasons to avoid another full-scale regional war in an election year. But the best way to avert such a war is to leave Tehran with no illusions that it could separate Israel from the United States by starting one.

The key decisions of the past halfcentury that have driven the Middle East to the place it is in today have a common origin: Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979, which brought to power a theocratic despotism intent on sowing fanaticism, brutalizing its own people, destroying Israel and causing misery across the region for the sake of its ideological aims. Saturday’s missile attack is the latest example of a long and ugly record. But as Israelis decide how to react, they would serve their interests best by recalling the useful adage that revenge is a dish best served cold. –