By Seth Mandel
Monday, March 02, 2026
Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Iran in October 2024 were
carefully designed to avoid hitting Iran’s nuclear program or destroying its
energy infrastructure. They did, however, prove to Tehran that Israel had the
capability to hit targets inside Iran virtually at will and to take control of
Iranian airspace.
This is what we call an “off-ramp.” It was recognized as
such at the time. “Israel’s Calibrated Attack On Iran Gives Both Countries An
Off-Ramp,” pronounced
Radio Free Europe. Jonathan Schanzer, contributing editor to Commentary
and executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, concurred:
“I think the Israelis are, from what I can tell, listening to the Biden
administration, allowing for that off-ramp to its enemies. Even though they
have the upper hand from what we can tell, we’ll see whether the Iranian regime
and we’ll see whether its proxies are willing to comply.”
So did the Atlantic Council’s Jonathan Panikoff, who said
Iran would probably take the out: “Israel’s attacks, which may continue in
different guises, were clearly calculated and targeted. Their impact may be
significant. But if Iranian officials downplay them—and reports they claimed to
have successfully countered the attack are a good start—consider it a signal
that Tehran is looking for an off-ramp, even if it claims otherwise.”
Giving Iran an off-ramp after October 7 was
extraordinarily kind. Iran, as we know, didn’t take that latest of many, many,
many chances to “de-escalate” its forever war against the Jews. Its continued
pursuit of nuclear weapons and its continued use of proxy militias to attack
Americans and Israelis and hold global shipping lanes hostage necessitated
action. (Iran also rejected diplomatic solutions to the crisis.) The U.S. and
Israel did what had to be done, destroying nuclear infrastructure and taking out
terrorist figures.
Iran didn’t take the hint that time either. So here we
are: The ayatollah is dead, and the remnants of his regime have more punishment
coming.
At work here is a very simple principle: Those who start
wars don’t retain the right to decide when they end, with the exception of
accepting the other side’s terms of settlement.
The reason that Israel’s earlier strikes were considered
“off-ramps” is because they demonstrated that Israel had capabilities to hit
Iran in ways the Iranians perhaps didn’t realize. Therefore, the strikes served
as a warning: Push this war too far and you will pay a high price.
It shouldn’t need to be said but it apparently does: The
fact that Iran ignored repeated warnings isn’t America’s fault. The fact that
Iran rejected an off-ramp offered by the country it has been trying to destroy
for decades isn’t Israel’s fault.
Yet years and years of the international community’s
warping beyond repair terms like “proportionality” have gotten bad actors used
to the idea that they can choose not only to start a war but also to determine
how far its victim can go in response—especially when the victim of the attack
is Israel.
This dynamic has launched a thousand and one “I abhor the
attacks on Israel, but…” declarations. Now that Israel isn’t fighting
this conflict alone, those statements fall by the wayside because nobody wants
to apply such equivocations to their own population. Thus we have Keir
Starmer’s initial reluctance to help the war effort and then suddenly
discovering his moral compass when British targets came under Iranian missile
attack.
Starmer announced
yesterday that he will now allow the U.S. to use British bases to launch
counterattacks against Iran for a very simple reason: “The only way to stop the
threat is to destroy the missiles at source, in their storage depots or the
launchers which are used to fire the missiles.”
Suddenly even those who don’t want to get involved in
this conflict abstain from making self-degrading, pusillanimous statements
about proportionality, or “just taking the win,” or other such euphemisms for
permitting one’s attacker to remain on his feet. Now that Britons are being
threatened, Europeans find clarity: You must neutralize the threat, not because
you like war but because you have an obligation to neutralize the threat.
Suddenly even Keir Starmer knows he cannot settle for
some point-making retaliatory strikes and call it a day.
Welcome to the real world, everyone. You’re late.
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