Morning Glory: Why does President Trump care so much about an American Iron Dome?
"First of all, do not assume this is nothing."
According to Israeli reporter Nadav Eyal on the most recent "Call Me Back"Podcast with host Dan Senor, this is what the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces ("IDF") Lt. General Herzi Halevi writes to himself on a notepad in preparation for a status call at 3:30 AM on the morning of October 7, 2023. The call was triggered by early reports of unusual activity in the early morning hours of the day that Hamas would invade across the southern border of Israel, massacring nearly 1,200 people, kidnapping more than 250 and taking them back into Gaza, and injuring approximately 5,000.
When the head of the IDF wrote that atop his notepad, it was three hours before sirens sounded in the Israeli-Gaza border communities of Nahal Oz, Ofakim, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz, Kissufim, and Be'eri, as well as the city of Sderot, and more than three hours before the first terrorist crosses into Israel.
Whatever was said in the call with Halevi that morning did not trigger the sort of alert that would have positioned the IDF to destroy the Hamas forces before they killed and kidnapped.
The IDF recently released the first report into the events of that terrible day. As reported in the podcast, this report from the IDF is actually the product of 80 different investigations into every aspect of the IDF's actions or lack thereof on that day.
This is not the "whole of government and the nation" inquiry which will come down the road after the war is finished. Such inquiries always happen. It is part of the culture of the Jewish State.
It is not part of American culture. The 9/11 Commission and the Warren Commission are the exceptions to the rule in America where political jockeying almost always precludes a serious look back at terrible failures.
The most pressing need in the United States right now is not for an inquiry into the infirmity of President Joe Biden during his presidency, nor into the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, nor a look into whether "weaponization" of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation occurred in the last four years. Opinions on each of these controversies and more are fixed.
What the United States needs now is a deep dive into our most glaring vulnerabilities to attacks from abroad. We were victims of surprise attacks on December 7, 1941 and on 9/11. What about today?
In his new book, "Seven Things You Can't Say About China," Senator Tom Cotton reviews the open-source evidence about General Secretary Xi Zinping's ambitions, his iron control of the Chinese Communist Party and through it the People's Liberation Army and Navy and its vast intelligence and espionage establishments. China also possesses hypersonic missiles which pose the gravest threat as has ever menaced the continental United States, as they move faster than all previous nuclear missiles and can blanket the country in less than an hour—perhaps much less. The Wall Street Journal produced an early report into the new threat in September 2023, but much has changed in the 18 months since that report.
When President Trump talks about the need for an Iron Dome for America, it's not capriciousness or puff talk on a global scale. It's a pressing need, as is the Columbia-class ballistic missile-carrying submarine and the B-21 bomber, two kegs of our nuclear triad that need deployment as the old legs at sea and in the air age out.
There are problems and there are problems. Do not assume that the threat of a first strike on America "is nothing." It's real. And we ought to take real steps now to deter it.
Hugh Hewitt is host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show," heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel's news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University's Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.
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