Iran and World

Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, had a saying: “The Americans cannot do a damned thing.” Tehran has tested that proposition time and again — conspiring, over three decades, to kill Americans in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan.

Now we have learned of an audacious plot to launch terrorist attacks on American soil. One hesitates to imagine the consequences if, after this, we allow Khomeini’s heirs to acquire nuclear weapons. No one will be able to say we were not warned.

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Lessons? Short term, Iran must be made to pay a price. The sanctions implemented so far have been only a shot across the bow. There is much more that can be done to isolate Iran economically and diplomatically. In addition, the millions of Iranians who oppose the theocratic regime should be supported and empowered. And there are other measures, more painful, that can be taken. We need to make clear that they are very much on the table.

Longer term, we need to finally recognize that Iran and other self-proclaimed jihadi regimes and groups are waging a war — a real war, not a metaphoric war. In response, America’s economic policies must become national-security policies. As Bernie Marcus, the entrepreneur who founded Home Depot recently said: “If the country is not strong economically, we can’t be strong period.”

Energy policy also must become national-security policy. Right now, 97 percent of all transportation systems in the United States can run only on petroleum-based products. That makes oil a strategic commodity, one whose price is manipulated by OPEC, a conspiracy in restraint of trade dominated by Iran and other regimes hostile to America.

If transportation fuel were more abundant and ch