Immediately after the horrors of October 7, Edward Rothstein thought some things might change about the way the West saw Israel. Not only was he wrong, he soon realized, but he was wrong in almost the exact same that he had been wrong in the days after September 11, 2001:

As it turned out, in the aftermath of 9/11, the doctrines of the intellectuals became even more . . . doctrinaire. In the following decades, the “root-causes” argument was heard anytime a particular kind of terrorism was confronted. The extremism of a terrorist act was taken to be proportional to the size of the grievance. Think of what awful things had to have been done to inspire that kind of primordial fury!

Not only that, but as has been reiterated again and again over the decades, if you respond to terror in any combative way without addressing the purported injustice, then clearly you are becoming part of a “cycle of violence.”

What has been made clear over the past month is that under current ideological conditions, anything done to the Jews in Israel would be justified. Anything. And that something very close to nothing would be tolerated in response.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.