“A big win for President Trump IF the Strait opens and stays open.”
As part of the Panel on Special Report, that was my immediate response when Bret Baier asked all five of us to review the just-announced two-week ceasefire in the fight with Iran. While Dasha Burns, Mark Penn, and Juan Williams objected one way or another, Kellyanne Conway agreed with me and elaborated, citing President Trump’s long-standing negotiating pattern that had produced at least a temporary victory.
The test of how big a win actually is will be revealed over the rest of the fortnight. The crucial question is: Can whoever in Iran who wrote the check promising to open the Strait of Hormuz actually cash it?
If so, the world’s oil supply will rise a bit and the remnants of the Iranian regime will have a chance to take stock of the destruction that has descended on their forces for five weeks.
TRUMP’S IRAN STRATEGY IS WORKING AND TEACHING OUR ENEMIES WHAT DETERRENCE MEANS
If the Strait does not reopen to unhindered traffic, or if attacks on Israel and our Gulf allies do not cease, a new round of the third Gulf War will soon begin.
The first round began with Israel’s disastrous invasion from Gaza and the massacre and kidnapping that followed on October 7, 2023. With a combination of help and obstacles, the US, under (perhaps) the leadership of President Biden, stood with our embattled ally, and Israel hit back hard against Hamas in the south, Hezbollah in the north and from the Houthis across the Arabian Peninsula. The Jewish State, with our help, absorbed Iran’s first direct attack. The reality of the threat from Iran and its allies was revealed to the world.
When President Trump returned to the Oval Office, the Israelis got their hostages back under pressure from the president and his team. A ceasefire was established and the remnants of Hamas and Hezbollah forces retreated to their tunnels and hideouts, with all their senior leaders dead.
IRAN UNVEILS A 10-POINT PLAN FOR PEACE WITH THE US – THIS IS WHAT IS INCLUDED
The next round began in June 2025 with Israel’s Operation Rising Lion and ended with America’s Operation Midnight Hammer. Iran’s nuclear program was destroyed and its air defenses shattered. The Iranian people then rose up in December to demand change and were massacred in January. The world clearly saw the madness of the Khamenei 1.0 regime. The US and Israel planned their next attack.
They struck on February 28 with devastating results with Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring Lion. At the cost of thirteen precious American lives and some twenty seriously injured American soldiers and dozens of casualties in Israel and the Gulf States, the Allies have destroyed every aspect of the terrorist regime in Tehran.
We don’t know who is controlling what in Iran, but we have more troops on the way and anywhere from a day to two weeks to assess the vast amount of intelligence from the past 96 hours, including the near-miraculous rescue of the downed American pilots and the broken, frantic and ineffective response of the handicapped IRGC to the opportunity to capture one of our priceless warriors.
The rescue efforts humiliated the Iranian regime – again – and the ongoing damage to their military industrial base continued unabated. Within hours of the incredibly complex rescue missions, the B-2s also arrived again, dropping Massive Ordinance Penetrators on two sites in Tehran, right in the middle of the rescue operation, as the IRGC’s senior leadership unwisely gathered.
The public does not know who is still alive on the IRGC side, but reports of a seriously injured Khamenei 2.0 and more removals from the IRGC chain of command are leaving the regime reeling. There is still no internet for the people of Iran. The remnant fears us, Israel and their own people.
President Trump issued his ultimatum. His never-evolving critics denounced his language, even though it reached the person who manages the bunkers in Iran. (It is absurd to read President Trump’s message as a threat to the Iranian people, when the “civilization” he was referring to was clearly the one that oppressed the “Great People of Iran,” the one the president claimed had ruled for 47 years through “extortion, corruption and death.”)
Incredibly, some on the left of Manhattan-Beltway national security tried to spin this post into the threat of the use of nuclear weapons or a slightly less insane, lesser degree of disproportionate attacks on civilians, which has never been the case. Insta-experts declared that attacks on bridges and power plants were war crimes. Online hysteria among those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome reached new heights.
Then someone within the regime blinked and the president took the big win. His online critics immediately went from “He’s a war criminal” to “TACO Tuesday.” Their collective 180 makes no sense. They make no sense. They’ve lost the thread. A mortal enemy of the West has been ravaged for nearly half a century, its leadership destroyed and its allies battered. Five weeks of fighting have shown the world that Iran cannot defend itself and only possesses missiles and drones that shoot mostly ineffectively at anyone they can reach.
Time will soon tell whether the new group of rulers atop the smoking ruins of the IRGC command map can deliver on the promise that secured the ceasefire. If not, President Trump can initiate a new round of punishment with more and updated information about what is going on within the regime.
MIKE PENCE: TRUMP AND OUR INCREDIBLE ARMY END 47 YEARS OF IRANIAN TERROR
It is far from over, but long-standing conflicts are never resolved within a month. The most relevant history to consult comes from the last decade of the First Cold War.
In the summer of 1983, President Ronald Reagan, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President Francois Mitterrand planned the deployment in Europe of the Pershing II missile and nuclear-capable cruise missiles.
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Enormous domestic and international pressure tried to get them to stop, but it didn’t work. Instead, they provided deterrence and telegraphed Western will to the Soviets. Together with Reagan’s SDI, support for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and his departure from Reykjavík, the West reversed the momentum of the Cold War, through the final acts of which President George HW Bush handily led the West, and that decades-old drama ended in the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991.
HEGSETH DECLARES ‘DECISIVE MILITARY VICTORY’ OVER IRAN
Note that this is an uninterrupted eight-year period of American presidents’ dedication to winning crucial battles along the way that preceded the strategic victory.
To bring about such massive shifts on the world stage, the West’s enemies must believe that the US and its allies (1) are strong and (2) can use that strength despite domestic political opposition and traditional media hatred on both sides of the Atlantic. Snap judgments must be made about any twist, but the first five weeks of this phase of the 47-year war with the regime were a huge success and likely made the transformation or collapse of the Iranian regime inevitable. It also revealed a terrible sclerosis among the European allies who supported us during the first Cold War. The good news is that it also revealed the enormous capabilities of our most important ally, Israel, as well as the recognition of the reality by our Gulf allies. There are fundamental things going on in the Middle East, and most of them are actually very good.
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The battles between the US, Israel and Iran of 2025 and 2026 are already turning points in world history and we are not yet close to the end of this drama. But the US has restored deterrence through President Trump’s actions here and around the world. He and Prime Minister Netanyahu not only ordered and oversaw the crushing of Iran’s nuclear program and military-industrial base in ways we can hardly know, they also ordered the destruction of four or more levels of radical and corrupt regime leaders and brought the prospect of real freedom for the Iranian people much closer.
We won’t know for years how to fully assess the past five weeks, but with the ’83-’91 example of strategic will and patience in mind, Tuesday night was a very good night for the West – if the Iranian regime reopens the Strait and ceases shooting soon. If the Iranian regime cannot control its missile and drone forces because the leadership is dead or powerless, the war will resume. But freedom for the long-suffering Iranian people and stability in the Middle East have never been closer since 1979.
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