There is a reliable tell in modern politics when the progressive Marxist left erupts in outrage at the use of Western power, it is often because that power has disrupted a narrative it prefers. One in which the West is always the aggressor and its adversaries are forever cast as reactive victims.

The joint pre-emptive strike by Israel and the United States on Iran reportedly conducted under the operational name Operation Epic Fury has produced precisely that reaction.

For years, Tehran has funded proxies, threatened Israel’s existence, targeted American interests, and advanced military and nuclear capabilities that unsettle not only Jerusalem and Washington but much of the region. Yet in the wake of decisive action, the loudest condemnation has not been directed at the regime in Tehran, but at the governments that moved to counter it.

This reflex reveals more about ideology than about strategy.

October 7 Changed the Equation This is a war no one wanted. But it did not appear out of nowhere.

On 7 October 2023, the terrorist organisation Hamas murdered roughly 1,200 people inside Israel and abducted around 250 hostages into Gaza. Entire families were slaughtered. Civilians were paraded through the streets. Among the dead and kidnapped were dual nationals — including Americans, Europeans, Asian among others, making the atrocity not merely an Israeli tragedy but an international one.

The attack shattered any lingering illusion that Israel could indefinitely “manage” the threat posed by Iranian-backed proxies. Tehran’s support for groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi movement is not rhetorical solidarity. It is material, financial, strategic and, as October 7 made clear, deadly.

To disconnect the current confrontation, named Operation Epic Fury from that massacre is to erase cause and effect.

Much of the progressive commentary treats Iran as though it were merely misunderstood, provoked into belligerence by Western hostility. That romanticism collapses when one examines the record of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The IRGC is not simply a branch of Iran’s military. It is the regime’s ideological enforcer, tasked with crushing dissent at home and exporting revolution abroad. Its Basij militia played a central role in suppressing the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022. Demonstrators were met with live ammunition. Thousands were detained. Reports detailed torture, coerced confessions and death sentences handed down after opaque trials.

Women have been arrested and prosecuted for allegedly breaching mandatory hijab laws. Journalists, students and labour activists are imprisoned. Families of executed protesters have been threatened into silence. The regime’s message to its own people is stark: obedience or punishment. When Iranians are freed, we’ll start to really hear the true stories.

Abroad, the IRGC’s Quds Force has long been linked to plots and attacks targeting Israeli and Western interests. Security agencies in multiple Western countries have warned of Iranian-linked intimidation campaigns and operational activity. In Australia, authorities have investigated extremist threats against Jewish institutions, including the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne and Lewis Continental Deli in Sydney, a reminder that regime-linked hostility does not respect geographic distance.

A government that represses women for dress code violations, executes protesters and projects coercive influence beyond its borders cannot plausibly be cast as a passive victim of Western policy.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the need to “cut off the head of the snake”  to confront not merely the tentacles but the regime that animates them. Whether one admires his politics or not, the logic is straightforward: a state cannot indefinitely absorb proxy warfare orchestrated by a hostile power.

In his superb address following the launch of Operation Epic Fury, US President Donald Trump spoke of bringing “permanent change to the Middle East” arguing that the era of tolerating regimes that sponsor terror while negotiating in bad faith was over. He framed the strike not as an open-ended war, but as a decisive act designed to restore deterrence and reset regional calculations for the future.

Critics hear hubris in such language. Supporters hear moral clarity: the recognition that cycles of proxy escalation will not break themselves.

The first duty of any leader is not rhetorical elegance; it is the security of citizens. Statesmanship is not hashtag activism. If only Australia’s government showed such leadership. It is the acceptance of responsibility when inaction carries its own risk.

Operation Epic Fury represents that calculation: that the cost of waiting had begun to exceed the cost of acting.

On X and in progressive circles, the predictable chorus of voices have condemned the strikes as imperial overreach. Commentators such as Mary Kostakidis in Australia frame Western force as the principal moral offence in any conflict. Politicians like David Shoebridge of the Australian Greens warn of escalation and international law breaches while placing no emphasis on the regime that incubated the instability. I am sure that real leaders understand international law and don’t simply throw around propaganda phrases loosely.

Their worldview is consistent: Western power is uniquely culpable and force is inherently suspect. It is their critical race theory in overdrive. When did we ever hear them call out the IRGC’s oppressive behaviour against its citizens? I hear crickets. One thing was for certain, they paraded on the Sydney Harbour Bridge last August among flags of Iran’s terrorist proxies and portraits of Ayatollah Khamenei.

To be on the “right side of history” is not to oppose every use of force. It is to judge whether force prevents a greater catastrophe.

Pre-emption is never easy, and war is always tragic. Civilian suffering is real and unavoidable. Yet the threat posed by regimes that oppress their own populations while exporting violence cannot be ignored. For a country like Israel, which faces existential danger every day, pre-emptive action has proven an effective tactic in the past. A striking example is the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel struck first, neutralising the threat from its Arab neighbours before they could launch coordinated attacks.

The progressive Marxist left measures morality by the absence of Western action. History tends to measure it by outcomes.

When Operation Epic Fury removes a regime that brutalises its own people, sponsors regional and global terror and threatens broader instability, then the judgement of history may look rather different from the outrage of the moment. One thing is for certain, these Progressive Marxists will be remembered for their lack of moral clarity and for sitting on the wrong side of history.

One thing is for certain, the tears on social media will not settle the matter. Results will. Israel and the United States, under the leadership of Trump and Netanyahu, are about to liberate the people of Iran and, if successful, establish real peace and stability in the region. If we left it to the progressives, hostages would still be suffering in Gaza and the people of Iran would still continue to suffer.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)