President Biden made a serious error in his decision to reject Israel’s request for early delivery of long-range military tanker aircraft that Israel has purchased. These planes would provide Israel the ability to make a conventional and surgical response to its declared Iranian threat. To the Israelis, this is a very serious danger because Iran is working feverishly to develop an atomic bomb and has threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.”

This problem leaves Israel with an existential threat. It also creates horrible uncertainty for Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf states which are currently under attack by an Iranian proxy, the Houthis. While gasoline prices are high now, the threat to the vital oil rich region could literally send oil prices through the roof if the Gulf oil fields go up in smoke.

Iran’s outright aggression and support of terrorism by the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas will become much worse when backed up by an Iranian nuclear bomb. If Iran were to take over Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, its appetite for further expansion would not stop but become worse. The world faced a similar situation in 1933 with Nazi Germany. It declared an existential threat to Jews and western democracies. The Jewish nation is painfully conscious of this reality, even if much of the West has forgotten it.