Requiem for the Containment Doctrine - Immediate and decisive action is the new policy, both for Israel and the USA.
It was not long after WWII, and the onset of the Cold War, that President Harry Truman inaugurated the Containment Doctrine in 1947. The attempt to contain the spread of communism by the Soviet Union, without risking a nuclear confrontation with the USSR, served as the impetus for the doctrine. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu exercised similar reasoning, prior to the October 7 massacre, in the hopes of containing Hamas.
President Jimmy Carter essentially continued Truman’s containment doctrine, thinking he could work with the Soviets by somehow making human rights, rather than Cold War national interests, a policy. It backfired. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. And the world also watched in 1979 as the Shah of Iran was deposed and the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who returned from exile in France, grabbed the reins of power of the Islamic Republic.
The murderous, theocratic regime in Tehran sanctioned radical “students” to invade the U.S. Embassy, resulting in the holding of 52 American diplomats’ hostage for 444 days. Iran’s “invasion” of a U.S. territory — which an embassy is — was essentially a declaration of war against the U.S. Jimmy Carter’s reaction was weak and indecisive. Instead of using full force against the mullahs, he oversaw a bungled military rescue operation.
George W. Bush picked on the wrong country to flex U.S. muscles. On the pretext that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had rejected cooperation with the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on inspection of suspected sites in contravention of U.N. Resolution 1441, the U.S. invaded in March 2003. No nuclear materials were found. The Islamic Republic was strengthened, and it reacted to the U.S. action by convincing itself of its need to acquire nuclear weapons.
President Barack Obama chose another form of containment: bribing the mullahs into agreeing to a nuclear deal. In July of 2015, the nuclear deal known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed.
The JCPOA was a temporary and limited deal that only modestly addressed one of the crucial issues presented by the regime: its nuclear program. Most importantly, all restrictions on the ayatollahs pertaining to their nuclear enrichment were to expire in 2025.
At the same time, the deal provided tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief that enabled Iran to escalate its campaign of terrorism, its regional destabilization, and a whole host of other actions that threatened the world — a bad deal, and one that President Donald Trump would pull the U.S. out of on May 8, 2018.
The Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran was the essence of a containment policy. Rather than taking decisive action that would eliminate the nuclear threat from the top state sponsor of global terrorism — the administration sent pallets of cash that totaled $1.7 billion to the Iranian regime.
President Joe Biden sought to revive the JCPOA and continued the containment policy of his former boss, Barack Obama. The Tehran regime refused to negotiate and proceeded to increase its enrichment of uranium to levels that would enable the production of an atomic bomb.
In fact, according to Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, in meeting with Iranian negotiators, the latter claimed that Iran had “enough enriched uranium to make 11 nuclear bombs.”
In the meantime, Netanyahu also followed the containment doctrine. He and top Israeli military leaders believed that Hamas could be deterred. In all previous skirmishes with Hamas — 2008–2009, 2012, 2014 — Israel sought limited operations, essentially seeking quiet along the border. Rather than taking decisive action to eliminate the Hamas threat, once and for all, they opted for containment. The limited responses did not deter Hamas from seeking a permanent war and the destruction of Israel.
Operation Cast Lead (2008–2009) lasted three weeks. Israel then withdrew its forces and left Hamas, with little damage to Hamas’s infrastructure, in a position to provoke the next war.
Operation Pillar of Defense (November 14–21, 2012) was an eight-day Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip targeting Hamas and Islamic Jihad leadership, initiated as a response to intense rocket fire. Key actions included the killing of Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari and significant damage to rocket launchers. The operation ended with an Egypt/U.S.-brokered ceasefire.
Operation Protective Edge was a 50-day military operation launched by Israel against Hamas in the Gaza Strip from July 8 to August 26, 2014, aimed at stopping rocket fire and destroying cross-border infiltration tunnels.
In May 2023, Israel responded to rockets from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad by launching Operation Shield and Arrow. Significantly, Hamas was not actively involved, giving Israel the impression that Hamas had been deterred.
October 7, 2023 changed Israel’s strategic thinking. No more opting for temporary “quiet time” to give Israelis a little respite. Instead, the new policy called for decisive action in dealing with Iran and its proxies. This time, Israel will not stop until it achieves the elimination of the existential threat to its people.
Trump, unlike his predecessors, no longer believes in containment. Instead, he is engaged in peacemaking to solve global conflicts. But when Iran refused to negotiate a stricter nuclear deal, eliminate its lethal rockets, and cease seeking to produce long-range rockets with potential nuclear payloads, while continuing its engagement in worldwide terror, including support for its terror proxies Hamas, Hezb’allah, and the Houthis in Yemen, the U.S. took decisive action to destroy Iran’s ability to pose an existential threat to the U.S. and its allies.
China and Russia are now facing a strong U.S. president who fortified America’s defense budget and is willing to exercise power on the global stage. The U.S. is acting with confidence and that sends strong signals to its adversaries — do not provoke Trump’s America.