Every American alive today has lived during wartime. Every president since December 7, 1941 has been a wartime president. All. They can and should be judged by the way they waged war, both “cold” and “hot,” against intrusive enemies and against dangerous irritants. Provided he remains steadfast, resolute and ruthless in this conflict with Iran, President Donald Trump will be the equal of any of them and far superior to most.
Since the end of World War II, there have been periods of largely non-combatant wars, periods that look a lot like the “peacetime” of the 1920s and 1930s.
For example, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to September 11 – 25 years ago this September – the illusion of ‘peace’ was ubiquitous. Because of that illusion, a ‘peace dividend’ was indeed demanded and paid for through deep cuts in defense spending.
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That illusion survived the US invasion of Panama and the first Gulf War, the US cruise missile attacks on Iraq in 1993 ordered by President Clinton, the decades-long conflict with Saddam that followed under both the first Bush and Clinton no-fly zones, Operation Infinite Reach – when Clinton ordered cruise missiles fired at al-Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Sudan – and NATO’s Operation Allied Force, the 78-day NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from March 24 to June 10, 1999.
It wasn’t until September 11 that most of America collectively came to the conclusion that the world contained very bad actors and would never leave us alone or be indifferent to the increasing threats.
After 9/11, through the debacle of our collapse in Afghanistan in 2021, no one doubted that we were in wars. There were stark memories of the tragic killings and injuries of American service members in both Afghanistan and Iraq. And there was the no-longer-to-be-ignored threat posed by China’s rise to our “pace threat,” Russia’s descent into dictatorship, and North Korea’s successful attack on a nuclear arsenal.
Both during the long period of illusory peace and during the obvious period of war from 2001 to 2023, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been at war with the United States. It has been that way since the 1979 hostage crisis, through the Marine Corps barracks bombing in 1983, the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, and the long shadowy campaign by Iranian surrogates against our military in Iraq that killed and injured thousands of our troops. The fanatics in Iran have not stopped chanting “Death to America” since 1979. They always meant it.
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Iran’s grand plan was to acquire nuclear weapons. The secondary plan was to amass a missile force so large and threatening to its neighbors (and ultimately to Europe and perhaps even to America) to ensure that the United States and Israel would never attack the nuclear weapons assembly line. With the immunity that nuclear weapons bring, the ayatollahs would have been free to pursue their agenda of destroying Israel and America.
Presidents before Trump have all vowed that Iran should not have such weapons. All since Iran started down this path. None of them performed. They did not act against Iran’s terrorist expeditionary force – the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, initially built and deployed by Qassem Soleimani – nor against Iran’s allies. Until Trump.
President Carter was paralyzed by the mullahs. President Reagan, wanting to confront the Soviets, withdrew from confrontation in the 1980s with a much smaller threat, and although President George H. W. Bush destroyed Saddam’s army in 1991, he did not advance to Baghdad, let alone beyond Iran.
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President Clinton was unable to stop North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons because he believed the costs would be too high. He wouldn’t deal with a remote threat if he couldn’t control the immediate threat. Under Clinton’s leadership, North Korea became a nuclear power.
President George W. Bush was an excellent wartime president as he combated Islamist extremism and ultimately achieved stability in Iraq. He and every other leader in the West were wrong about weapons of mass destruction, but he persevered, and the Iraqi people have a much brighter future ahead of them than under Saddam’s sadistic sons. The conclusion of Bush’s intelligence community was that Iran, scared and chastened, had given up its nuclear ambitions. That “IC” was wrong.
President Obama has been the worst of the post-war presidents because he has failed even at nothing. He did worse than nothing. He acted to legitimize Iranian ambitions, making a $1.7 billion down payment for his appeasement policy, followed by billions more dollars in sanctions relief through the futile promises of the “JCPOA” – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated with the ayatollahs in 2015.
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When Trump became president in 2017, brutal realism returned to the Oval Office. Trump tore up the JCPOA – because it had not been a treaty, but simply an Executive Agreement. It was of course his right to do so.
Trump struck Syria twice over its use of chemical weapons, restoring a “red line” that Obama had erased. (Will the new Obama library have a ‘Red Line’ room into which visitors disappear?) Trump also ordered the destruction of Russia’s “little green men” who dared to attack US troops in Syria. And when Iran wouldn’t stop trying to kill Americans in Iraq, Trump ordered the killing of Soleimani in January 2020, when the Iranian terrorist set foot in Iraq.
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Then the 2020 election and the disaster for the world that was the long regency of whoever led Joe Biden around while the sadly decaying Biden occupied the Oval. We won’t know for years who designed national security policy during those years, but we know that whoever made the decisions oversaw the debacle in Afghanistan that led to Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine — the first came under Obama — and Iran’s propensity for nuclear weapons and more and more missiles to defend that stab.
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Five months after returning to power, Trump ordered Operation Midnight Hammer and Iran’s nuclear weapons program was destroyed. At that moment, Trump gave the theocrats in Tehran a choice: abandon your ambitions or face a new round of punishment. Ayatollah Khamenei misjudged Trump. The Iranians began seeking nuclear weapons again, this time producing so many ballistic missiles that no one dared to stop them.
Trump dared to do this, together with the Israeli prime minister. The Iranian military, including their nuclear weapons facilities and their missile factories, is in ruins. The ongoing campaign is leveling the regime’s ability to rebuild others, and it could even destroy the oil infrastructure it would have to pay for to start down this path again.
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By cracking down on the mullahs, even ruthlessly and transparently, Trump has already done the world a great favor. The Alliance of Tyrants has suffered blow after blow since Trump returned, and more are likely to come as Iran shudders and communist Cuba teeters on the brink of tossing its dictators.
President Trump would love to leave a legacy of peace. But he is the kind of tough and indeed ruthless commander-in-chief the US needs to push its enemies aside, not just give them a timeout. We hope he continues this fight until Iran can no longer threaten us, Israel, the Gulf States or anyone else for a generation or three.
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