STEPHEN POLLARD: Israel’s attack shows the disastrous consequences of reconciliation. The only way to ensure peace is strength

Time and time again, our leaders make the same mistakes.

History should have taught them long ago that appeasement emboldens dictators. The only way to make ourselves safe is by arming ourselves properly and responding to aggression with undaunted courage.

Iran has felt emboldened to launch this massive attack for one key reason: The West has spent years trying to appease its vile mullahs, instead of making it clear that their malign actions will have dire consequences.

In recent weeks, belatedly, President Biden has stated that Washington’s commitment to Israel is ‘ironclad’.

Fortunately, that proved to be the case in the early hours of this morning, when the US – along with the UK and, crucially, Jordan – shot down Iranian drones and missiles headed for Israel.

But if only Biden’s determination had been as ‘iron-clad’ when he entered the Oval Office three years ago.

Instead, he has spent his tenure pursuing a wrong, dangerous and hopelessly naive approach to the bearded theocrats of Iran.

If I can briefly summarize what happened: In May 2018, President Donald Trump pulled America out of the nuclear deal with Iran that his predecessor Barack Obama had negotiated in 2015 (at the time the Vice President was, of course, Joe Biden).

Under this agreement, sanctions against Tehran were lifted in the hope that the mullahs would honor their “pledge” not to pursue a nuclear weapons program.

Obama’s approach was completely foolish. The mullahs’ coffers soon swelled thanks to the lifting of sanctions, and – just as opponents of his deal had warned – Iran again enthusiastically funded and trained its bloodthirsty proxy groups, from Hezbollah in Lebanon to Hamas in Gaza.

Experts, meanwhile, warned that its supposedly “civilian” nuclear program was in fact a weapons project in disguise.

Trump rightly tore up Obama’s agreement when faced with hysterical objections from co-signatories Britain, France and Germany. But Donald’s approach worked.

Trump’s sanctions shrunk Iran’s economy by 4.8 percent in 2018 and 9.5 percent in 2019 — reducing the broader threat to the Middle East.

But after Biden was inaugurated in 2021, he resumed negotiations for a renewed deal. And while the sanctions have not been formally lifted, their enforcement has been weakened, sending an implicit message to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that the US was no longer serious about imposing them.

Iran has since vastly expanded its oil exports, largely to China – just as it has escalated its malign behavior in Gaza, Lebanon and now from its own soil.

We need to learn some lessons here. When Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement in 1938, Hitler felt empowered to invade Poland.

When Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea in 2014, the West stood back and watched – prompting him to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

And now Israel has once again been attacked on its own soil, after Biden has canceled Trump’s good work in standing up to the mad mullahs.

The world is becoming too dangerous for us to keep repeating this mistake.