Opinion: Leland Vittert’s War Notes: Debt of Gratitude

Media News: Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight’s 9 pm ET show. Subscribe to War Notes here.

“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning,” said Winston Churchill in 1942 at the height of World War II.

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu loves Winston Churchill – if asked where in Israel’s war with Iran we are, he might quote his hero.
• Iran's counterattack on Israel, while ineffective, will be met with an even more aggressive Israeli bombing campaign.
  • Remember: Israel targets Iran’s military facilities. Iran targets all of Israel’s civilian population.
    • At this point, Israel has no choice but to fully dismantle Iran’s military.
    • This will go on for weeks.

Programming alert: Tomorrow, Anna Kooiman and I will anchor “ Tribute to America: A Live Media News Special from 6-10 p.m. ET – we hope you join us.

Ground Truth

By every available measure, the world is safer today than it was yesterday. America is safer. Peace-loving people owe the Israelis a debt of gratitude.

• If Iran had obtained a nuclear weapon, it would have all but guaranteed World War III – the Israelis say they have intelligence showing Iran was days away.
  • Now, the ayatollah is on the run.
  • All Iranian Revolutionary Guard generals are wondering which one of them is Israel's inside source.
  • The Iranian nuclear program is on its way to smithereens.
• How do I know things are going to be okay?
  • Ben Rhodes from "Pod Save The World" says that "war is breaking out."
  • Tucker Carlson thinks the same.
    • Carlson wrote in his daily note that it could be his "final newsletter before all-out war."
• Usually taking the other side of what Rhodes and Carlson think is a safe bet.

The scope and scale of Israel's attacks are far bigger than they may appear on the surface.

• The impact of this will continue to be far bigger than we imagine.
• Israel has released a lot of information about its spy novel operation, but there are far, far more details and far more operations. When the actual book is written on this attack, it will be a spy series, not a single novel.
  • Israel's Mossad – their spy agency – sneaked in commando units, drones, truck-mounted weapons, and more.
    • But that's just what they have admitted to.
    • If you wrote the Mossad operation as a spy novel, nobody would believe it.
      • How Mossad covertly prepared Israel's attack from deep inside Iran, Headlines: The Washington Post .
  • For decades, America’s CIA tried to penetrate Iran – just to get sources – and failed.
    • Israel secretly established an entire drone base.
    • They knew where the IRGC generals slept.
    • They had a complete understanding of Iran's Air Defense Force system and took it apart from the inside.
• Almost more important than the surgical elimination of top Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders and nuclear scientists is the distrust and discord that Iran’s top leadership now feels.
  • Israel's first-wave strike required deep human intelligence penetration into the top of the Iranian regime – they killed one target with a missile through his bedroom wall.
    • It is impossible to overstate the paranoia that must exist in Tehran right now.
      • Click here for more on the Iranian leaders killed in the attack.
• The Israelis have been planning this for 20 years – it might be the finest military and intelligence operation in history.
  • Trump trickery President Trump playing cover for Israel’s attack is pretty epic.
    • Trump all but took credit for giving the green light, saying he gave the Iranians 60 days to make a deal back on April 12th – the Israeli attack began around midnight on the 60th day.

Let’s look at the Middle East now and before October 7, 2023.

• Pre-October 7:
  • Hamas and Hezbollah were the first in an Iranian ring of fire around Israel, capable of raining thousands of rockets and guided missiles on the Jewish state.
• Now:
  • These terrorist groups are decimated – they were once Iran's insurance policy against this week’s attack on Israel.
  • The rest of Iran's proxies are either gone or severely degraded:
    • Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
    • The Iranian militias in Iraq.
    • The Houthis in Yemen.
• Pre-October 7th:
  • Iran could begin building a nuclear weapon whenever it wanted and appears to have run a parallel secret weaponization program.
• Now:
  • Much of Iran’s nuclear facilities are rubble.
  • Many of its top scientists are dead.
  • Iran will never have a nuke.
• Pre-October 7th:
  • The Biden administration gave Iran carte blanche – and access to capital.
    • With Biden in power, Iran built up its ballistic missile arsenal, drone manufacturing facilities, and exported terror… the list goes on and on.
  • Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the Middle East was the quietest it had been in decades – the October 7 attacks happened just days after his remarks.
• Now:
  • Iran is crippled and unable to project power.
  • The Arab world is almost all covertly supporting Israel, save milquetoast statements condemning the attack.
  • The Iranian regime is on the rocks.

I can't imagine how anyone thinks Israel attacking Iran was a bad idea.

• But some do: This was the start of World War III"; "What if Iran reconstitutes its nuclear program"; "This empowers hardliners in Iran"; "But the Iran nuclear deal under Obama was working.
  • The above are supremely stupid takes.
    • They are either objectively pro-Iran, anti-Israel or simply contrarian for the sake of it.

• They all prevented action against Iran for 20 years, and look where it got us.
• These are the same people who said that Trump killing Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in 2020 or moving the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem would end in war … they didn’t.

BUT BUT BUT:

What about the 50,000 U.S. troops that are within range of Iran’s weapons and would be within range of Iran’s soon-to-be nuclear weapon?

• More importantly, they would be within range once Iran felt emboldened and protected by having a nuclear weapon.
  • They were within range yesterday, except now:
    • Iran's nuclear program is no more.
    • Iran's surface-to-surface missile capability is severely degraded.
    • Iran's drone forces are largely destroyed.
    • Iran's military is on its heels.

The world is safer today than it was yesterday. We all owe Israel, its pilots and intelligence operatives a debt of gratitude.

Tune into "On Balance with Leland Vittert" weeknights at 9/8 CT on media news. Find your channel here .

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the media news.

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