When Iran Says ‘Death to Israel,’ It Means It

Excerpt

In the days leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, distinguished journalists, analysts, and activists argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin was unlikely to green-light an assault that could go wrong in so many ways and instead might be bluffing. They employed a variety of political rationales to explain away the military buildup and escalating rhetoric. At the core of each explanation lay a troika of errors: denuding an adversary of agency, engaging in mirror-imaging, and, perhaps most of all, projecting a separate and more palatable logic onto the grim reality painted by the words and actions of a foreign leader.

Many people who should know better assume that political leaders obscure the goals they wish to achieve or muddle the ideas that animate them, even though the historical record suggests the wisdom of taking them at face value. Clearly the world should have heeded Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitism during his rise to power in Germany in the 1930s, and Osama bin Laden’s declaration of jihad against America in 1996.

Seen in this light, Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine offers an inflection point for policy makers, journalists, and lay observers to stop misjudging adversaries by disregarding what they have said plainly and publicly. Now would be a prudent time to survey where else invective from world leaders could trigger a calamitous conflict.

There may be no better example of this than Iranian leaders’ quest to destroy Israel.

Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.