Barack Obama sent the Iranian regime pallets of Swiss francs and euros. Donald Trump sent them six 30,000-pound bunker busters.
They deserve it. We’ve been at war with Iran since 1979. Sanctions never worked. Diplomacy never worked. For nearly 20 years, the United States virtually begged Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program to avoid war. Instead, the mullahs continued to enrich uranium at levels that could only mean one thing. There’s really no debate about Iran’s goal of becoming a nuclear power. There’s a reason the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities are built deep underground without any infrastructure for civilian use. Whether Iran was two weeks or two months or two years away is irrelevant. They were never going to stop.
The policy of the American government through numerous administrations was that Iran could not have a nuclear weapon. Yet, every president before Trump allowed the mullahs to manipulate and blackmail the U.S. Worse. From taking hostages to murdering hundreds of our servicemen to funding terrorism around the world to arming proxy armies across the Middle East to hatching plots against American presidents, Iran never seemed very nervous about U.S. reprisals. For 30 years, Israel, sometimes with the help of the U.S., slowed the progress of the Islamic State.
Even after all of it, the Iranians had still been given an opportunity to make a deal with Trump. But the president saw through the charade perpetrated by Iran with the help of the Washington Blob, legacy media, Democrats, and “noninterventionists” on the Right. The notion that a nuclear agreement was right over the horizon conflicts with every shred of evidence we have over the past three decades. Even after the Israelis wiped out its top generals, launchers, and air defenses, systematically demolishing its military installations with wave after wave of precision strikes, the supreme leader of Iran would still not surrender. Yes, Iran is — or was — interested in becoming a dominant regional power. But this kind of irrationality is also driven by theological imperative.
The U.S. did not enter a “regime change” war with Iran. We unleashed a limited precision tactical hit to destroy its nuclear program, launching six 30,000-pound bunker-penetrating bombs on the Fordow facility and 30 Tomahawk missiles at the nuclear facilities in Natanz and Isfahan.
But war always comes with risks. However, the idea that the Islamic Republic has the capability to wage an effective counterattack against the U.S., after its military and proxy armies have been seriously degraded by Israel. The ballistic missiles and drones Iran fires at Israeli civilians is a deadly face-saving gasp from the mullahs. Iran has no military strategy. Isolationists scaremonger about World War III. And yet Iran has no allies, either. The last thing the Sunni Arabs wanted was a nuclear Iran. Russia, which can barely handle what’s on its warmongering plate, isn’t going to save Iran. Neither is China.
TRUMP’S IRAN STRIKES ELIMINATE AN INTOLERABLE THREAT
Again, Trump, not always his forte to say the least, chose his words carefully. “Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future,” he said in a statement two days ago, “I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.” Two days is well “within” two weeks. The disinformation campaign surely took Iran by surprise. It probably took a lot of people by surprise. “In eighteen years since I’ve been at the Pentagon,” Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin said today, “I’ve never seen such operational security. There was nobody speaking about this. … There was a complete lockdown, almost a blackout of information. … There were no leaks.”
Trump has been at his decisive best in this crisis. And by acting rather than continuing to talk, the U.S. has severely weakened the biggest cause of unrest in the Middle East and brought the region closer to peace.