Netanyahu, Addressing Iranian People, Calls for “A Free Iran”
Plus, Krugman spins Bidenflation; Wanted at Treasury: “Fear of God”
Prime Minister Netanyahu, in his second address in six weeks to the people of Iran, outlined a vision of “a free Iran” in which “Israelis and Iranians will build together a future of prosperity and peace.”
In a video address released November 12 with Farsi subtitles on a special “@israelipm_farsi” account on X, Netanyahu spoke directly to the people of Iran, as he had done on September 30.
“I want you to imagine, just imagine how your life could be different if Iran was free. You could speak your mind without fear. You could make a joke without wondering if you’d be carted off to Evin Prison,” Netanyahu said. “Imagine how your childrens’ lives would look if billions of dollars were invested in them instead of being wasted on wars that can’t be won.”
The Israeli premier said that millions of Iranians had watched his first address, delivered on September 30, and that afterward, many of them had reached out to Israel. Since then, the Iranian regime unleashed an October 1 missile attack on Israel.
“I wonder, did he tell you how much that attack cost?” Netanyahu asked. “Well, I’m not guessing. It’s $2.3 billion. That’s how much of your precious money they wasted on futile attacks, $2.3 billion. The missiles did marginal damage to Israel, but what damage did they do you?….That sum could have added billions to your transportation budget. It could have added billions to your education budget. But instead Khamenei exposed the regime’s brutality and turned the world against your country. He robbed you of money that should have been yours.”
Netanyahu described a better Iran, with “beautiful roads, advanced hospitals, clean water,” that he said would be possible without the Iranian regime. “They obsess about destroying Israel rather than about building Iran,” he said.
“Another attack on Israel would simply cripple Iran’s economy. It would rob you of many more billions of dollars,” he said.
“There is one force putting your family in grave danger, the tyrants of Tehran,” he said.
“But there is also good news. Every day that regime gets weaker. Every day Israel gets stronger. The world has seen but a fraction of our power. Yet there is one thing Khameini’s regime fears more than Israel. You know what it is? It’s you, the people of Iran. That’s why they spend so much time and money trying to crush your hopes and curb your dreams,” he said, urging the Iranians, “Don’t let your dreams die.”
“Know that Israel and others in the free world stand with you,” he said. “I have no doubt that one day, in a free Iran, Israelis and Iranians will build together a future of prosperity and peace.”
Israel has long pursued a policy of deterrence rather than regime change in regard to Iran, but that policy appears to have shifted in recent months. Netanyahu and at least some of his inner circle seem to have concluded that a long-term improvement in Israel’s strategic situation depends on ousting the Iranian regime. The Iranian regime has backed Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, and it is pursuing nuclear and chemical weapons. It also tried to kill President Trump.
Wanted at Treasury: “Fear of God”: As President Trump searches for a Treasury secretary, a subscriber of the Editors forwarded to us, with permission, an email from the proprietor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, James Grant, on the qualities that make for a successful occupant of that cabinet post. The one that caught our eye was “the fear of God.”
Grant writes, “I add the last point because that very phrase was how the president of the old Chemical Bank answered a reporter’s question on the occasion of his retirement long, long ago (‘To what do you attribute your success?’ the news man asked). Today’s Treasury secretary must have a proper understanding of the gravity of America’s debt predicament.”
Our friends at the New York Sun have an editorial (“The Ideal Treasury Secretary”) out this morning on the same wire from Grant, emphasizing the monetary policy angle, as the New York Sun editors are wont to do. It’s a wonderful editorial, but to our mind they missed the headline phrase, which is the fear of God.
The Constitution — not in the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause but in Article VI—specifies that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” The secretary of Treasury certainly qualifies as an office under the United States; his signature is on the dollar bill, on the side opposite “in God we trust.”
The Chemical Bank president was worried enough to make sure there was adequate liquidity and solvency in case of a downturn or a run. What a Treasury secretary needs to worry about, among other things, is the danger that America’s debts would grow so large that lenders would grow skittish, demanding high rates or refusing altogether to buy American bonds. It’s a remote risk but one the consequences of which would unleash something much like the wrath of God. The way to reduce the risk is to spend less and to pursue policies that support economic growth.
Michael Mandelbaum, who presciently warned, a few years before Covid-19, of the risk of a global pandemic, wrote in a recent piece for The Editors (“Spend More on Defense and Less on Everything Else, Mandelbaum Warns”) of the danger of “a financial disaster of some kind — which would make the need for a change of fiscal course unavoidable and urgent.”
Meanwhile, Amity Shlaes is out with a big new research paper on “The Economic Consequences of Populism,” describing it as “truly insidious” when “politicians advertise those subpar policies,” such as “tariffs” as “optimal economics, a guarantee of prosperity.”
“The Great Depression did not endure because God struck America. It endured because our leaders played God. And because we let them,” Shlaes writes.
Maybe what we really most need in a Treasury Secretary now is the ability to distinguish, reliably, between God and Donald Trump.
Here at The Editors we are bullish about the growth prospects of the American economy in the incoming administration and Congress. Yet we are also clear-eyed about the risks. The best Treasury secretary is one who would balance loyalty to Trump and his agenda with the independence of mind necessary to keep the confidence of the capital markets. He or she might have the stature, when needed, to put some fear of God into Donald Trump.
Krugman on Bidenflation: Paul Krugman writes: “Even President Biden’s big spending in 2021 took place in an economy with depressed employment.” The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion “stimulus,” was enacted in March of 2021, when unemployment was at 6 percent, not exactly “depressed.” And Biden followed it up with the Orwellian-named Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, an additional $1 trillion spending binge enacted when the unemployment rate was 3.7 percent. “Deficits — contrary to what you sometimes hear — don’t always cause inflation,” Krugman writes. Okay with “always,” but we’re dealing here with a specific, concrete case of the past few years, one with which many Americans are familiar firsthand in a way that no amount of Krugmansplaining is going to make evaporate. I’m not saying the spending or deficits were the only factor—the Fed was a factor, too, as was supply chain—but big deficits when there is low unemployment can backfire, and they did for Biden.
