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The accusation that Israel dragged the United States into launching Operation Epic Fury against the Iranian regime is a pernicious conspiracy theory rooted in deep-seated antisemitism. President Donald Trump does not take directions from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or any other foreign leader for that matter, as his addled sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome claim. When the president was asked whether Prime Minister Netanyahu pulled the United States into this war, he said that “if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”
President Trump tried the diplomatic path first, while amassing a huge military armada in the Middle East region. He wanted to give peace a chance while also sending the Iranian regime a message that he meant business if it did not agree to his demands, principally to abandon its uranium enrichment program. The Iranian negotiators thought they could use the negotiations to stall for time while the regime reconstituted its program of nuclear enrichment to weapons-grade capacity, built huge stockpiles of ballistic missiles and drones, and rearmed its terrorist proxies.
According to Steve Wycoff, who was negotiating with the Iranians along with Jared Kushner, “both of the Iranian negotiators said to us directly, with no shame, that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60%, and they were aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs. That was the beginning of their negotiating stance… they were proud of it. They were proud that they had evaded all sorts of oversight protocols to get to a place where they could deliver 11 nuclear bombs.”
After President Trump concluded that the negotiations were going nowhere after three fruitless sessions, he decided to pull the trigger and launch Operation Epic Fury.
Contrary to the lies used to justify the Israel-haters’ claims, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not say that President Trump decided to enter the war against the Iranian regime only after Israel left the United States no choice. They have taken Secretary Rubio’s remarks out of context. While he said that the precise timing was influenced by Israel’s tactical plans, he also made it crystal clear that President Trump decided to launch Operation Epic Fury to secure America’s own vital national security interests.
Secretary Rubio explained that “we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it. But this had to happen, no matter what.”
The regime was producing ballistic missiles at a far greater rate than the rate that missile interceptors could be produced, he said. Unless the regime was stopped in its tracks now while in its weakened state, the fanatical theocrats would have far too many advanced ballistic missiles and drones to overcome in a future attack on their nuclear weaponization facilities. That would amount to “impunity,” which would allow the Islamist theocracy to “hold the whole world hostage.”
Moreover, failure to crush the Iranian regime’s nefarious activities and military infrastructure now would have risked an imminent danger to American personnel located on land and at sea in the region.
The United States is fighting alongside Israel, not because of Israel or at Israel’s behest. Each country has its own strategic national interests at stake in their coordinated but distinct military campaigns to defang a common enemy.
The antisemites in this country pushing the Jewish tail wagging the dog canard could not care less about the truth. And they have a kindred spirit in Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. He said that “Mr. Rubio admitted what we all knew: US has entered a war of choice on behalf of Israel. There was never any so-called Iranian ‘threat.’ Shedding of both American and Iranian blood is thus on Israel Firsters.”
Uttering the same sentiment as Iran’s foreign minister, Maryland’s Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen said, “so here we are, doing what Prime Minister Netanyahu said he wanted to do for 40 years, which was to attack Iran. It’s just Netanyahu had not found a president stupid enough to drag the United States into that war before. And now Donald Trump has done it.”
Senator Van Hollen, who loves illegal immigrants but hates the Jewish state of Israel, did not spare Joe Biden either during the former president’s term. Van Hollen claimed that Mr. Biden had “essentially been played by Netanyahu from day one.”
Joe Biden and Barack Obama were played from day one. But by the evil Islamist Iranian regime, not by Israel.
Senator Van Hollen is not alone in spreading Israel-bashing disinformation and conspiracy theories. He has joined company with far-left and far-right Israel-haters.
Vermont’s Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders charged that “Trump is gambling with American lives and treasure to fulfill Netanyahu’s decades-long ambition of dragging the United States into armed conflict with Iran.”
Democrat Representative Rashida Tlaib from Michigan, a Palestinian-American who has falsely accused Israel regularly of being an apartheid state and committing genocide against the Palestinian people, wrote, “Trump is acting on the violent fantasies of the American political elite and the Israeli apartheid government,”
Mondoweiss, a website that promotes pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel propaganda, published an article claiming that “the U.S.-Israel Axis has launched an unnecessary, unprovoked, and deeply immoral attack against the sovereign nation of Iran.” The article was written by Craig Mokhiber, a former senior United Nations official who resigned less than a month after Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists launched their unprovoked genocidal attack against Israeli civilians inside Israel. He was dissatisfied that the UN had not done enough to address what he claimed was “the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology.” Even the ardently pro-Palestinian United Nations did not live up to Mokhiber’s expectations.
“What could possibly explain Trump’s decision to opt for such self-inflicted wounds to U.S. interests?” Mokhiber asked in his article published by Mondoweiss. “The answer, in a word, is Israel.” He added that “The Israeli regime and its proxies and lobbies in the U.S. have worked for decades to achieve precisely this outcome.”
Tucker Carlson has become a leading spokesman for the far-right isolationist fringe. According to Mr. Carlson’s demented narrative, America’s Operation Epic Fury “happened because Israel wanted it to happen. This is Israel’s war. This is not the United States’ war.” Rolling out a well-worn antisemitic tripe, Carlson accused former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who is now the U.S. ambassador to Israel, of dual loyalties. “Mike Huckabee’s loyalty is to Israel over the United States,” he asserted with total disregard for the truth.
The extremist white nationalist Nick Fuentes declared that “We all know that Israel is the boss, that Israel controls our country. Now you know it for a fact.”
Republican Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie is an isolationist who often crosses swords with President Trump and the Republican House caucus. Rep. Massie charged that the president involved the United States in “a war of aggression that the United States took on behalf of Israel.”
Nobody should be surprised that Massie would accuse the Trump administration of doing Israel’s bidding. He is so extreme in his hatred for the Jewish state of Israel that he was the lone vote in 2023 against a House resolution affirming Israel’s right to exist. Even the far-left House Democrat members of the Squad did not vote against this resolution.
In fact, Rep. Masse has little use for the Jewish people in general. In 2022, Massie was the only member of the House of Representatives to vote against a resolution that called upon the House to take “all possible steps to improve the physical security of Jewish institutions and organizations.” This resolution, which even the Squad supported, also called upon the House to ensure “the safety, security, and dignity of American Jews in all aspects of their lives, including the workplace, college and university campuses, synagogues, and at home.”
Destroying the Iranian regime’s escalating missile and one-way attack drone programs, its Navy, its capacity to continue arming and funding its terrorist proxy network and ensuring it does not have a nuclear weapon are clearly defined, condition-based objectives. And these objectives are squarely in America’s national interest to fulfill as soon as possible rather than kick the can down the road.
Those accusing President Trump of allowing Israel to drag the U.S. into combat with the Iranian regime are shamelessly misleading the American people, fueled by their blind hatred of the Jewish state. Contrary to their lies, President Trump’s historic decision to launch Operation Epic Fury is stopping the Islamist megalomaniacs from endangering America’s national security and harming Americans right now and in the near future.
