Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on a plane over the Atlantic Ocean last Thursday, when U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emanuel Macron announced a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, to begin “within hours.” The timing seemed suspicious, with the IDF actively engaged in operations and Netanyahu effectively unable to respond. Immediately after landing in New York, Netanyahu said the ceasefire reports were “incorrect.” The following morning, even as Netanyahu addressed the United Nations, Israeli fighter jets entered Lebanese airspace to carry out an operation that would change the Middle East: the assassination of arch terrorist Hassan Nasrallah and his top commanders.

While acknowledging that Nasrallah’s death constituted long overdue justice, the White House also reiterated calls for “ceasefire” to prevent a “regional war.” Yet recent events show that the American obsession over “regional war” is not only unfounded, but makes no logical sense.

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Most of the world remained silent during 11 months of relentless Hezbollah bombardment, which depopulated northern Israel, claimed dozens of Israeli lives (including 12 children on a soccer field), and made tens of thousands homeless. Then in the course of a mere 10 days, Israel launched a stunning attack on the Hezbollah military pager and walkie-talkie network, destroyed thousands of missile launching sites, and wiped out most of Hebollah’s top command structure, all before finally killing Hassan Nasrallah: the head of the terror organization and the key link to its Iranian backers.

Israel’s strikes have been extraordinarily careful.  For example, a week ago Monday, Israel destroyed some 1,600 Hezbollah military targets in a single day – in itself an astonishing military feat.  According to unconfirmed Lebanese reports, some 500 people were killed, however, like Hamas, Lebanon does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.  Even so, basic arithmetic demonstrates that Israel killed, on average, far less than one person per strike, and over two thirds of Israel’s strikes killed, on average, no one at all: a record of caution and restraint that is almost unheard of in modern warfare.

Nasrallah is merely the latest terrorist killed by Israel in recent weeks who was also a specific target of the United States: for killing thousands of civilians, as well as 241 U.S. Marines in their barracks in 1983. (Others, such Hezbollah commanders Fuad Shukr and Ibrahim Aqil, were subject to multi-million dollar US bounties.)  It is therefore no exaggeration to say that Israel is not only defending itself, but also fighting America’s wars for it.

Yet after months of near total silence, even as Hezbollah pummeled Israelis with impunity, America suddenly opened up calls for a “ceasefire,” and “de-escalation,” while U.S. Secretary of Defense Llloyd Austin was reportedly “furious” at Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant for not informing him of the attack sooner.

The cruel irony is that there is already a “ceasefire” in place:  UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which for almost 20 years the United Nations and the world failed to enforce.  The current violent situation is, therefore, exactly what an international ceasefire looks like.

America, and much of the West, nonetheless remain obsessed with preventing a so-called  “regional war,” through pressuring Israel. Yet it’s hard to understand who would even participate in this fictional “regional war”:

• Hamas is no longer a strategic military threat, thanks to nearly a year of intense Israeli operations.

• In a mere 10 days, Israel reduced Hezbollah from the world’s most powerful non-state militia to a chaotic group unable to take coordinated action, and Israel is further eroding its capabilities by the hour.

• After years of devastating civil war, Syria is essentially a non-factor except as a host for Hezbollah and other Iranian militias.

• The Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Iranian linked militias in Iraq, are violent but essentially “rag-tag” operations, and not a significant opponent to any modern military.

• The Sunni Gulf states stand strongly against Iran and see themselves effectively as siding with Israel and the United States.

• Muslims throughout the Middle East, including within Iran and Lebanon itself, have been cheering Israel’s bold steps, and expressing euphoric visions for a better future: free from oppressive Iranian backed regimes .

All of which leaves only Iran and Israel: not a regional war, but a two party war.  Given that Iran has already been at war with Israel and the United States through its proxies for decades, this isn’t even a new war, merely an ongoing one.

In recent days Hezbollah asked Iran for direct military assistance, which the Islamic regime flatly refused. Even after the assisination of Nasrallah, Iran’s direct military activities seem to have been limited to moving its leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, to a “secure location.” In other words, the Middle East is already moving toward a greater degree of stability, not due to American or UN ceasefires, but due to Israeli boldness and strength.

The danger has not yet passed: Iran continues to arm its proxies, meanwhile Israel is being hit by limited rocket and drone attacks out of Iraq and Yemen and continuing short range fire out of Lebanon.

Yet there is no “regional war,” there is no “new” war, there isn’t even an “escalation” in the classic sense.  There is only the potential that Israel might, at long last, defang the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East and perhaps the world:  the current government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It is time for the United States to drop its pretense of seeking a fictitious “stability” which is anything but stable, and to instead stand on the right side of history:  on the side of moderate Muslims, of the Iranian and Lebanese people, on the side of its ally Israel, and on the side of millions of Americans who deserve a better, safer world.