On Point: Israel's Airspace Defense Victory: Credit Reagan's SDI


by Austin Bay
April 17, 2024

Battlefield -- or battlespace -- results tell the tale. Iran's ayatollahs hadn't a clue as to the sophistication of Israel's air and space defenses. They fired 350 to 370 (is CENTCOM still counting?) drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles in their massive April 13-14 strike on Israel.

The military results: Iran's brazen airspace attack left shrapnel splinters on Jordan and the Negev desert, minimally damaged an Israeli airbase and cruelly wounded a 7-year-old girl.

Diplomatic damage: The ayatollah clique may have expected U.S. participation in Israel's defense, but Jordanian and Saudi action? It happened. Other facts: The U.S. has radars and surveillance assets in Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and at sea. Turkey's Erdogan may be a mouthy Islamist poseur, but Turkey's Incirlik Air Base is a NATO air and space surveillance asset. America's space-based infrared satellites (SBIRS) orbit the planet tracking enemy missile tracks.

Does Arab military participation surprise you? Recall the Trump administration's Abraham Accords. That diplomatic endeavor worked. Arabs and Jews are Abraham's descendants. Iranians -- Aryans, yes, Iran is Aryanistan -- despise Arab and Jewish Semites.

Back to the military results: Based on the Israelis' successful airspace defense results, Iranian ayatollah headspace (meaning their brain cases) have to be strange, angry, isolated and delusional places.

For the ayatollahs to admit definitive Israeli superiority in airspace defense would be more than a loss of face. It would tell Tehran's messianic megalomaniacs their investment in missiles, their expensive quest for nuclear weapons, their expensive drones and proxy armies -- their whole violent game is a waste of petrodollars and the billions the delusional Obama and Biden administrations gave them in Democrat-progressive hopes Tehran would spend the cash on providing Iranian cities with clean, nonsaline water.

Yes. Cool, clear water. Drinking water, the true elixir of life, is an issue in Iran. StrategyPage.com has been reporting that since 2018. Financial survival is also an immediate issue for Iranians. The BBC reports tens of millions of Iranians are "struggling with the cost of living" and a "military confrontation with Israel (is) the last thing most Iranians wanted."

But on Oct. 7, 2023, the Iranian people got a war with Israel when their ayatollahs launched a "proxy" rape and murder invasion of Israel. More bad news on Iran's homefront: the official inflation rate is over 40% and the real inflation rate is 55% or higher.

Once more we return to Iran's military failure: The ayatollah government proclaimed, "Tel Aviv is our battleground, not Tehran." More than 350 drones and missiles said the ayatollah government wanted to execute a Russian-type "Ukraine infrastructure attack." Iran wanted to swarm Israeli defenses and destroy Israeli buildings, kill Israelis and leave video propaganda craters.

But no craters. Tel Aviv has no smoking ruins.

Let the grand failure of Iran's airspace assault flummox pro-Hamas leftist media and slowly drive a reality spike into ayatollah skulls.

Israel will retaliate -- how and when I don't know, but trust it will deal high explosive jolts of justice that send several ayatollahs and Islamic Revolutionary Guard officers to Hell.

Israel's missile defense victory was 50 years in the making. Recall Desert Storm's miss-then-hit Patriot shots against Saddam Hussein's SCUDs. Beginning with the Reagan administration's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the U.S. and Israel developed "layered" air and space missile defenses.

Over the years, left-liberal Democrats devoted a great deal of ink and oratory to demonizing missile-defense advocates. Why? Because warmonger Ronald Reagan supported missile defense! In 2003, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: "The United States does not need a multi-billion-dollar national missile defense against the possibility of a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile. What we need is a strong nonproliferation policy with other nations to combat the most serious threat to our national security."

A stupid, ignorant and benighted statement, one deserving historical damnation? You bet. Credit SDI with enabling Israel's successful 2024 airspace defense.

Read Austin Bay's Latest Book

To find out more about Austin Bay and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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