Whether last weekend’s attacks on the Saudi oil industry were launched from Yemen (by Iran-backed Houthi rebels), from Iraq (by Iran-backed Shiite militias), or from Iran itself, there is no doubt that Tehran is the culprit, writes Ray Takeyh. Noting the long history of the Islamic Republic’s attacks on America’s soldiers, citizens, and allies going unpunished, he urges Washington to take action:

In the coming days, the [Trump] administration will be advised to cool the temperature in the Middle East. It will be cautioned against forceful measures for they could only lead to a wider conflict. It will be accused of somehow instigating this crisis and thus having an obligation to switch tracks. The underlying assumption of all these claims is that the U.S. is somehow responsible for Iranian mischief. But the Islamic Republic responds to resolution, not a retreat from punitive measures. It respects strength, not blandishments.

The task ahead for the Trump administration is a formidable one. It must marshal evidence demonstrating Iranian complicity at a time when most Democrats and European leaders are inclined to blame the [U.S.] instead. It must convince its jittery allies in the Middle East, particularly in the Persian Gulf, to come together and unite behind an anti-Iran stance. It should continue its pressure campaign to reduce Iranian oil exports. It must draw its red lines clearly and unambiguously.

All this is not to suggest a rush to rash action. The Islamic Republic has offered us a unique opportunity to mobilize the international community against it. . . . The theocracy’s most important vulnerability is still its weakening economy, and it is that nerve that Washington should continue pinching. Given this latest Iranian act of terror, the Trump administration may have stumbled on a unique opportunity to make its strategy of maximum pressure a multilateral one.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.