"You don't make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies."
That aphorism, attributed to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, has always struck me as more hopeful than convincing.
Americans didn't make peace with the Nazis. We made peace with those we permitted to hold power in Germany after we decisively defeated the Nazis.
Today, there is no conceivable way that Israel can make peace with Hamas, a military wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, and a Tehran-backed terrorist organization committed to jihad, the annihilation of Israel, and the genocide of Israelis.
Since its invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas's strategy has been Leninist: "The worse, the better," meaning the more that Gazans suffered, the worse it would be for Israel and the better for them.
They understood the animus toward Israel of UN officials, faux human rights organizations, leftists in the media, and radical activists on campuses.
Hamas gave Gazans a choice: "Conquest or martyrdom!" Those preferring a third option were out of luck.
The most important backer of Hamas has long been Ali Khamenei, the "supreme leader" of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
He sees himself as a revolutionary and a jihadist. He claims to be the "deputy" on earth to Imam Mahdi, a messianic figure in Shi'a Islam.
Like his friends in Hamas, he has no interest in making peace with those he regards, for theological reasons, as his enemies.
It is not true that his hatred for Israel, America, and the West has to do with "grievances," such as the 1953 overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.
As an aside, Iranian-born scholar Ray Takeyh's essays on the topic in "Foreign Affairs" and "Commentary" make clear that the CIA and MI6 were not key players in that affair.
President Trump hoped last month's Twelve-Day War might persuade Mr. Khamenei to curb his ambitions, to conclude, however reluctantly, that peacemaking was in the best interest of his regime.
On Truth Social, the president posted: "Iran has to get back into the World Order flow, or things will only get worse for them."
But the Ayatollah is insisting that his regime was "victorious" in the conflict and that it "delivered a heavy slap to America's face."
Threats to assassinate President Trump as an "enemy of Allah" have been renewed.
Mohammad-Javad Larijani, a top Khamenei advisor, declared on Iranian state television that Mr. Trump "can no longer sunbathe in Mar-a-Lago" because a "small drone might hit him in the navel."
According to the best assessments, American B-2s and Massive Ordnance Penetrators set back Tehran's nuclear weapons program by roughly two years.
The regime's fangs may need to be trimmed again. Such dentistry can be performed by the U.S., Israel, or both.
Absent that, the theocrats will rebuild their nuclear weapons programs while continuing to support terrorists abroad. Their brutalization of civilians at home – especially minorities – has only accelerated over recent days.
Vladimir Putin is another unsavory enemy with whom it is not possible to make peace. His immediate mission is to turn Ukraine into a vassal state, like Belarus, or a colony like Chechnya and Tatarstan.
So long as he believes that goal remains achievable, he'll persist in raining death from the sky on Ukrainian civilians. Over recent days he's deployed nearly a thousand drones, more than a thousand guided aerial bombs, and almost 100 missiles.
President Trump now appears to grasp that reality.
During a cabinet meeting last week, he said: "We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin." He added: "I don't think he's looking to stop, and that's too bad."
With that in mind, the president reversed an order from "restrainers" in the Pentagon to halt munitions shipments to Ukraine.
Those restrainers apparently don't understand what a serious mistake it would be for President Trump to abandon Ukraine as President Biden abandoned Afghanistan.
Xi Jinping, China's ruler, would reason: "Biden capitulated to the Taliban and now Trump won't even sell American weapons to Ukrainians being slaughtered by Putin. That tells me I needn't worry about any American president sending his warships and fighter jets to defend the Taiwanese."
On Monday, President Trump said he would impose 100% "secondary" tariffs on Russia's trading partners – the countries financing Russia's war machine – if Mr. Putin doesn't conclude a ceasefire within 50 days.
He also said he will send Ukraine Patriot missile defense batteries which NATO members will pay for.
Left unclear was whether Ukraine also will receive long-range rockets and permission to use them to strike military targets deep inside Russia. Such permission – which President Biden refused to grant – is necessary to convince Mr. Putin that, in the end, the war he takes will be equal to the war he makes.
Two final questions for today:
- What's the chance that Mr. Xi will accept the fact that the free people of Taiwan don't want to be ruled by the Communist Party of China and that he should therefore make peace with them?
- What's the chance that Kim Jung Un will accept the fact that the free people of South Korea don't want to live under his jackboot and that he should therefor make peace with them?
You know the answers.
It's also unrealistic to believe that the rulers of Russia, China, Iran, and South Korea – an axis grounded in anti-Americanism – will make peace with America.
What is realistic is for Americans to limit the ability of these unsavory enemies to successfully wage war against us and other free nations.
"Peace through strength" implies nothing more – and nothing less – than that.