“There are some moments in history,” writes Andrew Roberts, author of deeply sourced and bestselling biographies of Winston Churchill, George III and Napoleon, in The Free Press, “when a sudden act of opportune ruthlessness readjusts the world toward a safer path.” He cites Francis Drake’s fireship attack on the Spanish Armada in 1588 and Winston Churchill’s agonizing decision in July 1940 to destroy the French navy lest it fall into the hands of Hitler’s Nazis. While many on the Left like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and some on the Right like former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson oppose any U.S. military action against Iran, polling earlier this year showed supermajorities of voters favor the destruction of Iran’s “nuclear weapons facilities.” The upshot is that the final public verdict on any actions will come not in this week’s polling but over the long term. “A neoconservative,” said the late Irving Kristol, “is a liberal who’s been mugged by reality.” Some angry MAGA figures have been calling Trump a neoconservative for his insistence that Iran not get nuclear weapons, and in their view, Netanyahu is a neoconservative, too, and so are the great majority of Israeli voters.
Author: Michael Barone
Published at: 2025-06-21 20:00:00
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