President Biden is warning Israel against striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, and France is imposing an arms embargo on the IDF. Is buying safety today when the price may be far greater tomorrow worth the gamble? Not when Iran’s leaders have made their intentions clear and a historic analogy for the danger of rolling the dice is right next-door in Iraq. 

For 50 years since radical Islamists took over Iran, they have spread terrorism across the globe, killing their own citizens as well as those of America, Israel, France, and others. The unelected leaders in Tehran have led chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” while appeasers have shouted back versions of “They don’t really mean it.” 

Prime Minister Netanyahu isn’t joining this see-no-evil chorus. “Israel,” he said in a statement on Saturday, “is defending civilization against those who seek to impose a dark age of fanaticism on all of us” and “will fight until the battle is won — for our sake and for the sake of peace and security in the world.” 

“Fortune,” the Latin proverb holds, “favors the bold,” but boldness is in short supply when it comes to Iran. In a “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday, Vice President Harris was asked if she’d take military action if presented “proof that Iran is building a nuclear weapon.” She rejected “hypotheticals” and wouldn’t say if Mr. Netanyahu is “a real close ally.” 

Last week, Mr. Biden was asked by a reporter if he’d back Israel destroying Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons. “The answer is no,” he replied, adding that he’d just met with the Group of Seven: America, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.K. 

They all “agreed,” Mr. Biden said, that Israelis “have a right to respond” to Iran’s attacks, “but they should respond in proportion.” Proportionality is a popular buzzword in diplomatic circles — snug enclaves far from the seven fronts where Mr. Netanyahu is fighting Iran’s cat’s paws.

During a campaign event at North Carolina on Tuesday, President Trump said Mr. Biden’s answer “should have been: Hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later.” On Tuesday, the Conservative Party of Canada’s leader, Pierre Poilievre, favored to be the country’s next prime minister, said such a strike “would be a gift by the Jewish state to humanity.”

Israel has wrapped such a present before. In 1981, it destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor 11 miles west of Baghdad, sending the atomic dreams of their dictator, Saddam Hussein, up in smoke. In private, President Reagan called it “a terrific piece of bombing,” but his administration’s public stance was much harsher.

America condemned the attack, approved a UN resolution calling it a violation of international law, and suspended F-16 sales to the IDF. Fast-forward to 1991 when an international coalition went to war to eject Hussein from Kuwait. There were fears that he’d unleash chemical or biological weapons. Thanks to Israel, he had no nuclear arrows in his quiver.

The IDF commander of the Osirak raid, General David Ivry, later hung an American satellite photograph of Osirak in ruins on his office wall. The Gulf War-era secretary of defense, Vice President Cheney, signed it “with thanks and appreciation for the outstanding job he did on the Iraqi nuclear program in 1981, which made our job much easier in Desert Storm.”

Safe behind a nuclear shield, Iran’s dictatorship will be able to make good on their death threats. If Mr. Netanyahu destroys those atomic ambitions, expect Western leaders to condemn him in public and breathe sighs of relief in private — delighted that Israel has again had the boldness to gift humanity a safer world.