OPINION 

There is a growing temptation in certain corners of American conservatism to wrap isolationism in the flag of "America First."

These voices insist that any engagement abroad, particularly in the Middle East, will inevitably drag us into endless wars, cost American lives, and serve interests other than our own.

The isolationists promised us disaster if America attacked Iran.

They warned that any military action against Iran's nuclear facilities would trigger World War III, kill American soldiers, crash the global economy, and entangle us in another endless Middle Eastern war.

They were wrong. About everything.

The surgical strike that disabled Iran's nuclear program was not the quagmire they promised. There were no American casualties. No regional conflagration. No oil crisis.

Instead, working in unprecedented coordination with Israel, the United States eliminated a threat that has loomed over American security for decades.

The operation was precise, devastating to our enemies, and protective of American interests. It was a triumph of American power and strategic wisdom, and intelligence collaboration with our allies.

The isolationists want you to believe that any Middle Eastern engagement is automatically another Iraq or Afghanistan. But this reveals how little they understand about the Middle East and the different types of military operations.

The strike on Iran was the first time in the history of the U.S.-Israel relationship in which America joined Israel in offensive military action against a common enemy.

This was not Israel dragging America into conflict.

Two allies, facing a shared existential threat, acted together with devastating effectiveness.

Iran's nuclear program, which the regime has pursued for decades in defiance of international law and American warnings, has been set back dramatically.

The state that declared its goals to be the downfall of Israel and the United States, over and over again, was dealt a serious blow.

What really happened in Iran should be a case study in how American power, when used strategically and supported by capable allies, can achieve decisive results.

Israeli intelligence identified targets with precision. Israeli pilots flew alongside American forces. Additionally, Israeli technology ensured success while minimizing risk to American personnel.

The Jewish state didn't push America into danger from the sidelines; Israeli forces bore enormous risks themselves, conducting operations that made the American strike possible.

This is what a genuine alliance looks like, and it saved American lives.

American troops stationed in the Middle East are safer today than they were before these operations began.

You would think that people who claim to put America first would celebrate this outcome.

Instead, they've doubled down, unable to admit their predictions were wrong.

What's worse, in their desperation to salvage their narrative, they've retreated to something much darker: the insinuation that America was somehow manipulated into acting against its own interests by Israel and its supporters.

But the isolationists can't acknowledge the success of the US-Israel alliance.

They've invested too heavily in their narrative that any foreign entanglement is automatically a disaster, that allies are really manipulators, and that American power projected abroad always backfires.

When reality contradicts their ideology, they don't adjust their thinking.

They question the motives.

This is the pattern of isolationism throughout history.

When reality refuses to cooperate with the prophecies of doom of isolationists, those same isolationists don't reconsider their assumptions.

They look for someone to blame. All too often, that someone is the Jews.

This is where isolationism always leads: to conspiracy theories and unwarranted suspicion. When you start from the premise that America should never act abroad, you eventually have to explain why American leaders keep acting abroad anyway.

The easiest explanation, the one that requires no actual analysis of interests or threats, is to suggest that our leaders are being controlled by foreign powers.

In the case of Israel, this accusation carries the weight of centuries of antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jews manipulating governments from behind the scenes.

The isolationists claim they're protecting America from foreign wars, but what they're really protecting is their own failed worldview.

Even as early as the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 or the Roosevelt Corollary in 1904, the U.S. recognized that to protect our interests at home, we sometimes have to get our hands dirty in international affairs to prevent potential international threats from developing into direct threats.

In both world wars, the U.S. was slow to enter the conflict and only did so once it was clear that a direct threat against the United States had developed. Imagine the U.S. had acted sooner in World War II, how many American lives would have been saved in Pearl Harbor?

Here's what we should learn from these modern-day isolationists on the conservative right: Don't trust people whose predictions don’t come true. This is, after all, the definition of a false prophet in Deuteronomy 18:22.

The isolationists have been wrong about Iran for decades.

Now, to save their own crooked worldview, rather than admit that they were wrong, they're retreating into dark insinuations about divided loyalties and foreign manipulation.

Real "America First" thinking means using American power wisely, building alliances with democracies that share our values, and confronting threats before they metastasize into existential dangers.

That's exactly what happened with Iran.

We acted with strength, strategic clarity, and effective partners.

The result was a decisive American victory that made our country safer, and there is nothing more "America First" than that.

Rabbi Steven Burg is the CEO of Aish, a global Jewish educational institute and movement. Rabbi Burg also serves on the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency. Prior to Aish, he was Eastern Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, where he oversaw the Museum of Tolerance in New York City and contributed to the center's fight against antisemitism.