General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently praised Israel’s extraordinary efforts to prevent civilian casualties in Gaza and mentioned that the Pentagon sent a team to Israel to learn from the IDF’s policies. Yet the U.S. State Department is standing by its critique of Israel for not doing enough on this score. David Bernstein writes:

Incredibly, when asked about Dempsey’s statement, State Department spokesperson Jan Psaki asserts “it remains the broad view of the entire administration that [Israel] could have done more and they should have taken more—all feasible precautions to prevent civilian casualties.” First, Dempsey is an Obama appointee, so the idea that the “entire administration” agrees with this is nonsense. Second, we have the informed judgment of America’s top military commander against State Department civilians who don’t even bother to wait until the facts are established before condemning Israel, plus Benjamin Rhodes, whose only claim to military knowledge is that he’s been serving as President Obama’s mouthpiece on foreign-policy matters since 2007 . . .

With the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program damaged, and its regional influence diminished, the U.S. must now prevent it from recovering, and, if possible, weaken it further. Benjamin Baird argues that it can do both through economic means—if Congress does its part:

Legislation that codifies President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policies into law, places sanctions on Iran’s energy sales, and designates the regime’s proxy armies as foreign terrorist organizations will go a long way toward containing Iran’s regime and encouraging its downfall. . . . Congress has already introduced much of the legislation needed to bring the ayatollah to his knees, and committee chairmen need only hold markup hearings to advance these bills and send them to the House and Senate floors.

They should start with the HR 2614—the Maximum Support Act. What the Iranian people truly need to overcome the regime is protection from the state security apparatus.

Next, Congress must get to work dismantling Iran’s proxy army in Iraq. By sanctioning and designating a list of 29 Iran-backed Iraqi militias through the Florida representative Greg Steube’s Iranian Terror Prevention Act, the U.S. can shut down . . . groups like the Badr Organization and Kataib Hizballah, which are part of the Iranian-sponsored armed groups responsible for killing hundreds of American service members.

Those same militias are almost certainly responsible for a series of drone attacks on oilfields in Iraq over the past few days