At the risk of wishful extrapolating, that’s pretty much the bright-lined message we’re getting from GOP presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis. Now, certainly, as it applies to the renewal of bloody Islamic radicalism in the Middle East, but also since early summer, when he first advocated military force to stamp out drug runners crossing the southern border — making them “stone cold dead,” he said, for those requiring clarity.

Now, this sort of talk is all well and good during a campaign season, rhetorical red meat for the persuadable. For her part, Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations, expressed dismay with the lid-down Biden administration’s tepid response, including its equivocation on Iran’s likely involvement; she encouraged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “finish them (Hamas)”; and she declared the Hamas attack a “wake-up” call for America.”

But there’s talk, and there’s getting stuff done. Just now, DeSantis wields a significant advantage in the taking-action category. An incumbent governor, he’s already launched a policy initiative designed to pressure Iran’s ruling mullahs.

Citing reports by the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post that Iran was involved in the Hamas attack on Israel, Ron DeSantis declared Tuesday morning he’ll push legislation to “block Iranian business” in Florida.

DeSantis announced the plan The Shul of Bal Harbour synagogue in Surfside, adding, “We know that we have an opportunity to do something forceful, that will make a difference in terms of the substance, but I think symbolically be also important.”

DeSantis’ proposed ban would include “the financial, construction, manufacturing, textile, technology, mining, metals, shipping, shipbuilding and port sectors.” Prohibited, too, would be local governments contracting with Iran.

“These will be by far the strongest Iran sanctions that any state has enacted of all 50 states throughout this country,” the governor said.

DeSantis’ proclamation dovetails exquisitely with the hard-nosed policy he’s proposed for the southern border. As president, he says, he’d insert a bristling military presence designed to deal with the trafficking of deadly fentanyl from Mexico.

The governor reiterated and toughened his positions on X Monday: Freeze, again, funds made available to Iran; cancel foreign aid to Hamas; and shut down the border with Mexico.

One of our greatest allies, Israel, has been attacked by terrorists funded by Iran – with over 800 Israelis murdered and 2,000 injured. The scenes of brutality are hard to watch. Innocent men, women, children, and the elderly.

And we learned this morning that among these victims…

— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) October 9, 2023

Each proposal is entirely sensible, utterly supportable, and beyond debatable. (Which is why we’ll be shocked if President Biden acts to achieve any of them.) 

Erick Erickson gets it.

Donald Trump has spent more time attacking Ron DeSantis in the past few days than either Biden or Iran. He’s spent more time talking about DeSantis than Israel. Meanwhile, DeSantis is taking state action against Iran as Governor of Florida.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) October 10, 2023

Meanwhile — because there’s always a meanwhile — we note the mainstream media remains dappled with skeptics.

In the lede to its article on the governor’s announcement, the Miami Herald cited DeSantis for “adopting the disputed position” that Tehran helped plot the Hamas attack.

Then there was the (as it turns out) head-scratching  headline over the Associated Press’ rejection of the DeSantis’ force-backed border doctrine: Here’s why it could backfire.

I’ve read it three times. The probable blowback completely eludes me. Will Mexico stop trading with us? Crank up more fentanyl factories? Encourage expansion of the cartels? Reclaim the Alamo?

Here, maybe, is what the editor seized upon:

“As commander in chief, I’m going to use the U.S. military to go after the Mexican drug cartels,” said DeSantis, the Florida governor. He has promised that people suspected of smuggling drugs across the southern border would end up “stone cold dead.” That raises the prospect of border agents being authorized to shoot people on sight before any investigation into whether those people were carrying drugs.

U.S. government data undercuts the claim that people seeking asylum and other border crossers are responsible for drug trafficking. About 90% of fentanyl seizures were made at official land crossings, not between crossings where people entered illegally. At a hearing in July, James Mandryck, a CBP deputy assistant commissioner, said 73% of fentanyl seizures at the border since the previous October were smuggling attempts carried out by U.S. citizens, with the rest being done by Mexican citizens.

This is a distinction without a difference. Fentanyl is pouring across the border. Captured fentanyl isn’t the problem. Mexico is the source. Bad folks are bringing it in. Americans are dying as a result.

Backfire, schmackfire. 

Call me crazy, but in these increasingly tumultuous, threatening times, voters might look with enthusiasm upon a candidate for president who not only advocates a fool-around-and-find-out doctrine, but whose track record demonstrates the no-nonsense muscle to carry it through.