At an event in Pennsylvania marking the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, President Joe Biden donned a “Trump 2024” cap handed to him by a Republican in the audience. The White House said this was a show of unity in the face of foreign threats. I can believe this and embrace it at a time when bitter and divisive partisan campaigning is encouraging much larger acts of aggression against our security interests.

I was working in an office two blocks from the White House on that violent 9/11. One of the hijacked airliners was supposed to hit the President’s office, but tall buildings like the one I was in blocked the approach, so the plane veered towards the Pentagon, a target too big to miss. A close friend of mine was in the Pentagon parking lot when the plane hit. A fearless member of a military family, she drove towards the blast and rendered aid to two wounded soldiers. My most vivid memory of that day was not as dramatic as hers but was still inspiring. Traffic around the capital was as chaotic as the rumors, so I did not head home until late. As I was driving down the Fairfax County Parkway, a large pickup truck came roaring past me blaring its horn. Waving from the cab was a giant American flag. Americans were not scared, they were mobilized. Al-Qaeda had badly miscalculated.

Terrorism is about fear meant to weaken the will to fight. The only way a weaker party can win a conflict is to convince the stronger party not to use its superior strength. Indeed, it hopes the enemy is weak in character and will not fight at all.  Osama bin Laden’s deputy was Ayman al-Zawahiri, whose efforts to overthrow the Egyptian government had failed, He blamed American support for Cairo. He convinced Osama that if America could be scared out of the Middle East, jihadist revolution could topple all the Arab regimes. Since Osama’s revolution in Saudi Arabia was also being suppressed, he fell for this argument and plotted the 9/11 assault. Like so many others, he failed to understand the American character. As an insular realm, we ignore a lot, but we cannot ignore a punch in the face. We always hit back.

Today, the Middle East is again in turmoil. However, the U.S.-led coalition in the region is stronger than ever. Osama was right about the role of American power in the region backing anti-revolutionary movements. Israel and the Arab regimes the jihadists hate are aligned against Iran, the region’s true revolutionary force. And Tehran has the resources of a nation-state rather than a mere terrorist group. It uses those resources to arm terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezb'allah, and the Houthis, who are in action daily. Tehran, however, knows it is in the weaker position and hides behind its proxies as Hamas hides behind civilians in Gaza. Against civilians (women and children in Israel, merchant ships in the Red Sea), the proxies are bold, but they cannot stand against Western military forces who have escalation dominance.

The Biden administration has been slow to bring this advantage to bear. When President Biden entered the White House, he immediately cut off all aid to the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen and pushed for a cease-fire because Yemen was called the world’s worse humanitarian crisis (the same argument as in Gaza today). Biden’s action reflected the majority view of Congress (comprised of Democrats, including Sen. Kamala Harris, supported by a handful of isolationist Republicans led by Sen. Rand Paul) which had voted to cut all aid in 2019, legislation vetoed by Trump. Now, American forces are in direct combat with the Houthis, who were rescued by the ceasefire and allowed to acquire more Iranian weapons. Israel is correct to assume the same dire outcome if there is a ceasefire in Gaza. 

The Biden administration has feared escalation into a regional war. When Iran escalated with its first direct attack on Israel on April 13, it was successfully met by a united American, European, and Arab response backing up Israel’s defenses. Yet, Washington pressured Israel not to retaliate in kind. Four months later, the U.S. deployment of naval forces in the region looks markedly different. The Navy continues to intercept Houthi attacks, but the two carriers strike groups in the area (as this is being written) are not in the Red Sea. The Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carriers are both in the Sea of Oman near Iran, poised to strike at the head of the beast. In addition to the two carrier groups with their cruiser/destroyer escorts, three additional guided-missile destroyers are also present to provide offensive as well as defensive firepower. This is not a deployment merely to sustain a “forever” war but to end it.

Also notable is the deployment of the nuclear missile submarine Georgia to the region. This is an Ohio-class boat that has been converted from nuclear ballistic missiles to conventional land-attack missiles, 154 of them. This is not a warship armed for defense, but for retaliation and hence deterrence. This seems to have worked so far. Tehran has not launched the promised revenge attacks for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. The attempt to shift this mission to Hezb’allah failed when Israel preempted a mass missile attack on August 25. We have taken Iran’s measure and they now fear us. And the chants of pro-terrorist human drones on college campuses cannot change that fact.

The same logic and strong character should apply to Ukraine as well. The Russo-Iranian connection links the two conflicts as joint attacks on the West. Tehran has supplied Russia with drones and other munitions since the start of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Now the U.S. and the United Kingdom have placed new sanctions on Iran for sending ballistic missiles to Putin. Russia provides support, including air attacks, to Iran and its proxies in the Syrian civil war to crush the Arab majority and protect its naval base at Tartus.

Putin has also resorted to fear tactics based on nuclear terrorism. Like Tehran, he has used proxies to make alarming statements about using nuclear weapons to support aggression. Recently, Alexei Mikhailov, head of the Bureau of Political-Military Analysis, has suggested building replicas of London and Washington buildings in the Arctic and then blowing them up with a nuclear warhead as a show of force. Even more insane is Putin advisor Sergei Karaganov, honorary chair of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. Last year he wrote, “We will have to make nuclear deterrence a convincing argument again by lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.” He actually argued that if Russia used nuclear weapons first in Ukraine, the West would not retaliate but withdraw. Osama’s 9/11 idea writ large.   

Putin has wisely not acted on this suicidal advice, though his threats have gotten the defeatist reaction in the usual western circles of leftists and isolationists whom our enemies always hope will win in a decadent democracy. Kaiser Wilhelm II first made this mistake when he unleashed his U-boats in 1917. The use of even tactical nuclear weapons would make Putin’s regime a global pariah state. Despite its general support of Moscow, Beijing has warned against any nuclear use. And Putin has been assured there would be retaliation, devasting even if conducted only with conventional weapons (nuclear retaliation held in reserve). The balance of power favors the massive U.S.-NATO alliance which can escalate beyond the ability of Russia to respond. Our policy must not be to sustain “forever wars” but to end them by putting to use the advantages our superior civilization has given us and in so doing, maintaining that civilization.

William R. Hawkins is a former economics professor who has worked for conservative think tanks and on the Republican staff of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. He has written widely on international economics and national security issues for both professional and popular publications including for the Army War College, the U.S. Naval Institute, and the National Defense University, among others. 

Image: Tim Vrtiska