When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence with the help of Franklin and Adams, he used an interesting turn of phrase. “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” he wrote, when describing the natural state of equality the framers believed underpinned the act of revolution that led to the Declaration and independence from the hegemonic British monarchy.
Having laid out the rationale for independence, Jefferson reminded future generations that the status quo they were used to had to change, and it had to change because the assumptions they had been operating under - that there was a justified and natural system of colonization, mercantilism, landed aristocracy and empire - were not the natural state, and were indeed a construct of repression, if not terror (like that of Col. Tarleton in the Carolinas) that had to change.
Watching, reading, and listening to what passes for journalism over the past three weeks, I’ve concluded that there are truths about the conflict with Iran that would, could and should be self evident, but they have been obfuscated, whether by agenda or by ideology - on all sides of the political spectrum. For me, as a Jew and a Zionist, but also as a student of history for almost five decades, those self evident truths shape my understanding of the conflict, even if the loudest, most shrill voices speak differently. I’ll share these, but I first wanted to remind readers of something that happened about 24 years ago.
The IDF launched Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 in response to the deadliest wave of terror during the Al Aqsa war (also known as the 2nd intifada). They were determined to root out the terrorists (mostly Hamas, PIJ, and PFLP) in Jenin, in Samaria. Though they could have stood off and simply pummeled the city with jets or artillery, they sent in ground troops to finish off the heavily armed terrorists in the Casbah. Then PLO spokesman Seab Erakat spread the story that “at least 500 have been massacred” and that false narrative was taken up, even by the Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan (the man who ignored and missed opportunities to prevent the Rwandan Genocide until it was much too late). Annan said, as Israel denied the blood libel of Jenin, ‘The whole world can’t be wrong.” Alas for him, even the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry itself eventually concluded that fewer than 60 people had been killed, of which at least 52 were combatants.
The whole world could, indeed, be wrong.
The first truth evident to anyone who has paid attention to real conflict throughout history is that wars that conclude swiftly, with no setbacks, surprises, opportunities or casualties are so rare as to be exceptional. Conflicts are most often much longer than they appear, with periods of quiet while belligerents consider their next move or response. Israel’s war with Lebanon, for example, began in 1948, when Lebanon invaded newly sovereign Israel. Though the fighting stopped and started many times, Lebanon has never, until now, revoked its state of belligerency, even though Israel has many times sought to conclude a peace treaty (in 1982 negotiating one with Lebanese President-Elect Bashir Gemayel before he was killed by Iran-allied Syrian nationalists). That is almost 80 years.
As I shared evidence of last week, the Iranian regime has been at war with the US (and with Israel) for 47 years. It has never given up its goal of eliminating both the great and the little Satan, it has continuously used its proxies, agents, cutouts and allies to attack, kill, kidnap and torture its American and Israeli enemies, while developing the means to execute on its threats of annihilation.
To contend that this is a new adventure insults the memory of hundreds of American and Israeli service members killed in these long wars, as well as their families, and as well the civilian victims of Iran’s terror from dozens of countries around the world.
These are generational wars, and they don’t end in two weeks. This isn’t a video game.
The next self-evident truth, to anyone who has truly been paying attention, is the emerging narrative around the attempted closing of the Straits of Hormuz by the Iranians. It has been described that the Americans (and by extension the Israelis) didn’t anticipate that Iran would try to close them, and they had no plan to deal with this.
Considering that the US Navy in 1987 and 1988 deployed one of the largest naval operations since WWII to open the straits, successfully, while destroying Iran’s naval capabilities in the process, and understanding that the professional military leadership has planned for situations and operations like this for decades, the assertion makes no sense. It seems to some of the most clear headed military and mideast analysts around (Haviv Rettig Gur, Aaron MacLean, and many others) that the campaign is progressing in an anticipated manner - and some analysts have even asserted that the Iranian approach of permitting passage of oil shipping to China and India is being allowed to continue by the US because it moves more than 10% of the world’s oil needs and actually keeps oil prices from escalating further, undermining Iran’s own strategy. Either way, there is no world in which this was unanticipated by those responsible for planning in the military.
Another canard raised by many in the media is the repeated question of why the Iranians haven’t risen already if the US and Israel anticipate or want regime change. Both the President and the Prime Minister have repeatedly said - wait, your time is coming - and the only ones anticipating or expecting immediate movement are those who have no skin in the game except the price of their gas at the pump. Israel has been taking on the responsibility of degrading the instruments of repression in Iran, and according to Rettig Gur, as well as analyst Nadav Eyal, there is much evidence that Iranians are beginning to help identify IRGC and Basij targets for them. In fact, less time has passed since the outset of this chapter of the conflict than from the beginning of the protests at the end of 2025 to the slaughter in the streets of Iran in January 2026. And it is not by anyone’s calculation a sure thing, not Israel’s nor the US’s.
It would be foolish and naive to assert that there are not multiple rationales and outcomes that went into the decision to write this last chapter of the generational war now. Both US and Israeli leaders have additional considerations. But I will share one last thing. I met Prime Minister Netanyahu in the very early 1990s, after his tenure as UN Ambassador and at the outset of his political career. Even then, as I stood with several fellow student leaders listening to him recount experiences at the Intercontinental Hotel on Har Hazeytim in Jerusalem, he was warning about Iran, its terror apparatus, and its nuclear ambitions. This effort has animated his life for at least that long, and the US armed forces have been planning for it for even longer.
There are many perspectives on this conflict that could be informative. But they are all, including mine, subjective. What you conclude is certainly your prerogative, but whatever it is, it is best informed by facts and the kind of informed analysis I seek out from a range of experts, not only from the politicized narrative of the media - or the propaganda of the Iranian regime. And remember, the whole world can, indeed, be wrong.