As the fourth week of the battle with Iran arrived, President Donald Trump announced an opportunity for negotiations. Who no one outside the president and his closest advisors knows anything about. The president has not halted attacks on Iran, and Israel continued to undermine its long list of military targets and the regime’s vast repressive apparatus, while the US focuses on degrading the mullahs’ military-industrial capacity. Iran is a country with a shattered defense line and no ability to use targeted force. This was achieved within three weeks. No wonder someone wants to negotiate, while others tell our left-wing media that Iran is winning.
Commentators have a lot of criticism, almost always driven by their support for or hatred of the president, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel as a whole, or some combination thereof.
There are no ‘takes’. The conflict will be assessed twice: when major combat operations are completed and a year later. There has been an unquestionable level of success in defanging the regime and beheading its senior leaders. While no civilian can know it, we can guess that chaos is raging within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (“IRGC”) as it tries to survive and at the same time sees the chain of command continue to compete for power in a post-war Iran.
PENCE SUPPORTS TRUMP’S IRAN STRIKES, SAYS PRESIDENT ‘IGNORED’ GOP ISOLATIONISTS
One of the crucial results achieved so far is clarity about the Iranian regime. It can never be trusted by anyone within striking distance of its missiles. The country knows no boundaries as to which countries it will attack and there is no concern for civilians. Like its allies in Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, the IRGC will hide among the civilian population to save their skin. Their “battle plan” is simply to spray missiles far and wide and threaten the Strait of Hormuz. That’s it. That’s what they have left.
It’s not nothing. They could cause a global recession. They have certainly encouraged the construction of alternative delivery routes for oil and natural gas. Even if the Strait is opened through combat operations and warship escorts, if the Iranian regime remains in power, it will be a priority for affected Gulf energy sellers and buyers to diversify supply and supply.
But it has been conclusively proven that the regime is weak in this area and has been thoroughly penetrated at every level. The Americans and Israelis know almost everything there is to know about the Iranian leadership, and they will have the same degree of knowledge about the C-team if any regime survives at all. The powers that remained long ago have lost the support of Iran’s citizens and now the world knows they have almost no clout left and only one card: the ability to threaten the Strait.
A regime that murdered 35,000 of its own people for protesting its many failures is living on borrowed time. The president and prime minister can escalate or accept a ceasefire, destroy the country’s power grid or simply pulverize the length of the Strait. Ultimately, the near collapse of the power facade will be as complete as that of Hamas.
TRUMP DELAYES XI MEETING AS IRAN CONFLICT LEAVES US CHINA’S OIL SUPPLY LOW ARM
By carrying out this mission, President Trump has fully restored the American deterrent lost by President Biden’s collapse in Afghanistan. Trump once again demonstrated the remarkable power of the US military and strengthened the most important relationship with America’s most important and powerful ally – Israel.
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He has also exposed the hard truth – difficult for people who remember Margaret Thatcher, Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl, among others – of the sclerosis that has gripped most of ‘old’ Europe. The frontline states – Poland, Finland and Sweden – are the new cornerstones of the ‘new Europe’ and Ukraine can be counted among their ranks. The old allies? It would be foolish to rely on them to help us in a crisis with China. They are spent.
With all that clarity comes another impossible-to-deny truth. With America locked in a battle with a terrorist regime, Democrats, in vote after vote, repeatedly chose to keep the Department of Homeland Security closed and unfunded. It is, of course, a ridiculous and completely irresponsible political stunt, as the entire party has crumbled into a hot mess of extreme left-wing positions on every issue. There is simply no confidence that Democrats can put aside their partisanship, even in a time of fierce contestation. Extraordinary and unprecedented, but unmistakable and true.
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The Pentagon has requested $200 billion in additional funding to cover the conflict with Iran. I hope that President Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, and Senate Majority Leader Thune decide to create a reconciliation process to provide that (and more if necessary), as well as funding for the Department of Homeland Security for a few years, and push it through as quickly as possible. If the Republican Party focuses on security at home and abroad, it will have a chance to hold its own in November.
Voters may not care about this or that about President Trump and the Republican Party, but the spectacle of Democrats risking America to make talking points for the MS-NOW audience should leave a lasting impression: Republicans are the party of security at home and abroad. The Democrats don’t care.
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