Three things were said in the wake of the remarkable ‘Operation Absolute Resolve’ mounted by the US military, which resulted in the arrest in Venezuela and removal to a Brooklyn prison of dictator Nicholas Maduro and his wife in the early morning hours of Saturday, that deserve particular attention.
At the press conference that morning, after President Donald Trump announced the stunning success of the U.S. military’s actions, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “President Trump is not playing games.”
During the course of the press conference that followed, President Trump at one point stated simply but directly, “Life is a deal.”
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And on Air Force One Sunday, a reporter asked the president what would happen next, and President Trump replied, “It depends.”
These three short statements contain in a nutshell not only the ‘Donroe Doctrine’, but also the explanation for Operation Midnight Hammer, which destroyed Iran’s nuclear weapons program on June 21 and 22 last summer.
President Trump had made offers to Ayatollah Khamenei, the dictator of Iran, as well as Maduro, to work out deals that would eliminate the threats they both posed to the American people. In both cases, the dictators refused the opportunity to negotiate in good faith. In the case of Iran, the president removed the threat, and in the case of Venezuela, he removed the dictator.
(He has now again warned Khamenei not to kill the protesters flooding the streets of Iran. The world will see if the aging tyrant pays attention.)
This is all quite simple and left-wing Democratic politicians and left-wing traditional media have to work overtime to miss the obvious takeaways.
First, when President Trump makes a demand or issues a warning, recipients should take it seriously. As Secretary Rubio noted, Trump is not playing games and, as the entire world has seen in both Iran and Venezuela, the U.S. military is led by remarkable professionals. The troops commanded by the President and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth can do extraordinary things anywhere in the world.
Second, the president doesn’t ask for unreasonable things. His demands on foreign powers are that they act reasonably and not endanger the American people or interests.
The “Donroe Doctrine” seems pretty simple to me: if you kill Americans, Donald Trump will strike back and try – usually successfully – to kill you. If you threaten Americans, he will nullify the threat. ISIS in Syria, Hamas in Gaza, Iran and Venezuela all got this message in the first year of the second Trump term. That includes all the other various warring countries that Team Trump has coaxed into ceasefires or peace deals.
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What will happen abroad in the next three years? “It depends,” to quote the president. But the enemies of the United States should remember what Secretary Rubio said so simply: Donald Trump doesn’t play games.
If President Trump offers an opponent a deal backed by a threat, they must negotiate in good faith and get the best terms on the table.
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