What’s the Right Historical War Analogy for Iran Conflict?

Plus: Remembering FedEx founder Fred Smith

What Israel is calling “Operation Rising Lion” has some resonance with a symbol of Iran before the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Politicians talking about how to handle Iran are ready with references to previous conflicts. But the most relevant example may be one that has been widely neglected.

In announcing Operation Rising Lion, Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “80 years ago, the Jewish people were the victims of a Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime. Today, the Jewish state refuse to be a victim of a nuclear holocaust perpetrated by the Iranian regime.”

Netanyahu went on to expand on the World War II history. “Nearly a century ago, facing the Nazis, a generation of leaders failed to act in time. They were paralyzed by the horrors of World War I. They were determined to avoid war at all costs. And they got the worst war, ever. They adopted a policy of appeasement. They closed their eyes and ears to all the warning signs. That failure to act resulted in World War II, the deadliest war in history. It claimed the lives of 60 million, including 6 million Jews, a third of my people. After that war, the Jewish people and the Jewish state vowed, ‘never again.’ Well, ‘never again’ is now.”

Now Senator Bernie Sanders, the socialist from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats, is out with a June 22 statement about the American military action against Iran. The Sanders statement doesn’t mention World War II but it does mention the Iraq war and Vietnam war:

In the 1960s the United States government lied to the American people and took us into a terrible war in Vietnam. The result of that war was that over 58,000 young Americans died and many more came back wounded both in mind and in spirit. Millions of Vietnamese were also killed. Hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money was wasted.

In 2002 we were told that we had to go to war against Iraq, that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction, and that if we did not act quickly and decisively nuclear weapons would fall on America. Among those who told us that was none other than Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, who stated in testimony before Congress: “There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking… nuclear weapons… If you take out Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations.” The United States invaded Iraq and became embroiled in a long civil war there. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. That war was based on a lie – a lie which cost us 4,492 young Americans, 32,000 wounded, over half a million Iraqis and trillions of dollars.

The American people were lied to about Vietnam, with tragic consequences.

The American people were lied to about Iraq, with tragic consequences.

The American people are being lied to again today. We cannot allow history to repeat itself. The U.S. faces enormous problems here at home, which we must address. We cannot allow ourselves to be dragged into another Middle East war based on lies.

The World War II, Iraq War, and Vietnam War history is all worth thinking about and learning the lessons of. In the cases of Iraq and Vietnam, I see it differently than Sanders, but that’s not the key point. (Tom Friedman makes a good point about this in a new column, observing, “Those who caution against regime change in Tehran often point to Iraq as a cautionary tale. But that analogy is flawed. America’s nation-building effort in Iraq failed for years largely (but not exclusively) because of Iran, not in spite of it. Tehran, with the help of its proxy in Syria, did everything it could to sabotage regime change in Iraq, knowing that if the U.S. was successful in creating a multisectarian, reasonably democratic, secular government in Baghdad, it would be a huge threat to Iran’s theocracy.”)

I can understand Netanyahu dwelling on World War II and appreciate it because it is relevant in some dimensions, including those highlighted by the prime minister.

The most relevant example to the Iran situation, though, may not be either World War II, Iraq, or Vietnam. It could be, instead, the Cold War. Let me explain.

During the Cold War all the American and Europeans peaceniks and their allies in the media were pushing negotiated arms control agreements as a solution. Scaremongers floated armageddon-like disaster scenarios in which failure of the U.S. to embrace the arms control agreements with sufficient alacrity and flexibility would result in nuclear catastrophe.

Yet the Cold War victory eventually came not by means of an American military bombing run, but, significantly, by American support for Solidarity, the Polish trade union. I’ve been looking back at some previous Editors pieces to put the current Iran events in context.

There is Richard Perle’s October 2024 article, “Tell the World the Truth About Iran, Says Richard Perle,” which advised, “We could express full support for those hoping for an end to the dictatorship. We could encourage the millions who long for a future democratic Iran…If we want to promote freedom, democracy, and the rule of law, we need a new policy. The first place to try should be Iran.”

There is my January 29, 2025 article, “U.S. Has Chance To Support Activists for Freedom in Iran,” based on an interview with Mehdi Yahyanejad. “President Trump and the new administration can help, Yahyanejad said, by stopping ‘wrong signals’ that they are still engaging the regime in Tehran, and instead ‘giving the right signals’ to the opposition that they are ‘supporting them to overthrow the regime.’”

Anyone who thinks things are not heading rapidly in that direction has not been paying careful attention. Secretary of State Rubio joining Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business today for her Sunday Morning Futures show. “What can you tell us about your expectations with regard to regime change in Iran?” she asked. He replied, “Well, that’s certainly not the goal of what we’re working on here. …I don’t like the regime, but we’re not into the regime-change business here. We’re into the safety and security of the United States business.”

That’s the Same Secretary Rubio who, after Israel began Operation Rising Lion, issued a statement saying, “Israel took unilateral action…we are not involved.” Soon Rubio’s “we’re not into the regime-change business here” is going to look as obsolete as “Israel took unilateral action…we are not involved.”

Not that America needs to take the lead—it just needs to support the Iranian people and new leaders, as it did with Solidarity in Poland. Trump and Netanyahu are working closely as a team on this, tightly coordinating. Netanyahu’s statements to the Iranian people suggests he understands the possibilities. Even the name of the operation against Iran may be a signal. Israel is calling it Operation Rising Lion, an apparent reference to Numbers 23:24, suggesting that the rising lions are the Israeli Air Force pilots, soldiers, and Mossad operatives. Yet the lion and the sun were features of Iran’s national flag until the 1979 revolution of Ayatollah Khomeinei and have centuries of resonance in Iranian imagery. The fact that Israel hasn’t more aggressively hit Iranian economic and energy targets is also a sign that it plans to hand them, in good shape, to help a new regime build a more prosperous future. If the U.S-Israeli plan were to leave Khameini in place, Kharg Island would already be in flames.

Rubio can insist from here to tomorrow that he isn’t in the regime change business. The available alternative is endless, fruitless American pursuit of diplomatic agreement with a radical Islamist regime that isn’t interested in diplomatic agreements but in death to Israel and death to America. Iranians themselves who enter the regime change business may soon find themselves with sufficient support from abroad. If the strikes on the nuclear facilities are any indication, Trump and Netanyahu are aiming not for deterrence or containment but for victory.

Fred Smith: FedEx founder Fred Smith, who died Saturday at 80, is remembered by Michael Granoff as “Perhaps America's most under-appreciated entrepreneurial hero.”

I mentioned him back in 2010: “Federal Express was founded by Fred Smith, a student at Yale who also worked as a charter pilot at New Haven airport. His Yale paper on an idea for a new transportation company got ‘a mediocre grade,’ but it turned out to be a good concept that he was able to make happen.”

There are two policy-related points. First, FedEx’s explosive growth was really made possible by the deregulation of air cargo during the Carter presidency. Cynics and critics see deregulation as a giveaway to incumbents in industry at the expense of consumers, but in the case of FedEx, the result instead was dynamic change that led to further changes and new entrants—just-in-time inventory systems, online retailers such as Amazon.com. FedEx benefited customers by offering faster, more dependable service.

Second, the U.S. post office used to have, essentially, a government monopoly on mail delivery. Part of Federal Express’s business was competing with the government provider on speed and reliability. The advertising tagline was: “when it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” What other government services might be better provided by private sector risk-taking, innovation, efficiency, and incentives?