As the aftershocks of Operation Midnight Hammer play out, Arab nations have the chance for an entirely new Middle East — at peace and headed to mass prosperity.
Iran’s nuclear threat is off the table, its chief proxies devastated and its allies either out of power or conspicuously failing to offer the regime any concrete support in its hour of direst need.
And if the Islamic Republic should attempt any kind of retaliation, such as trying to close the Strait of Hormuz, it must expect a devastating US response that can only add to the risk that the Iranian people will rise up to dislodge the entire clerical regime.
This leaves the Arab world poised for a new future: The leftist vision of “pan-Arabism” bottomed out decades ago in the dead-end tyrannies of Moammar Khadafy and Saddam Hussein; the obsession with destroying Israel has only poured out lives and treasure on the sand while radicalizing populations that could be building prosperity.
And a century of Europeans’ advice and agendas for the Middle East has proved even less useful than the prior century of European imperialism.