In just a few days, Operation Epic Fury has eliminated Iran’s leadership, degraded its ability to terrorize the West, and — for now — united the Middle East and most of the world around a vital American interest.
Of course it’s still early. But so far, President Donald Trump has achieved a strategic masterstroke. He has done this by reviving America’s oldest, simplest, and best national security policy: peace through strength.
Yet Democrats in Washington blame the president for ordering the attacks in the first place. They still cling bitterly to President Barack Obama’s delusion of pacifying the ayatollahs through diplomacy and appeasement, not just by lifting sanctions but by literally delivering pallets of cash to one of America’s most dangerous enemies. On the other side of the aisle, some principled MAGA conservatives are understandably wary of another forever war in the Middle East.
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But both critiques misunderstand this mission, this commander-in-chief, and his national security strategy.
First, the president’s Go order Friday morning was not a rejection of diplomacy. It was an admission that diplomacy with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was impossible. Eight American presidents have tried to deal with Iran since the 1979 revolution. After 47 years of theft, murder and terror, even Donald Trump was forced to acknowledge that America could not make a deal.
Diplomacy that is not ultimately stopped by force is not diplomacy. It’s weakness – the kind that invites rather than prevents wars.
Once Trump decided to act, he ensured that our troops would work hand-in-hand with the most lethal military and best intelligence services in the region, courtesy of our friends in Israel.
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Second, Donald Trump is neither a messianic crusader nor a naive nation builder. He’s been president for five years, and the closest he’s ever come to an “eternal war” was his boycott of the White House Correspondents Dinner — and even that is coming to an end. Trump has been a peaceful president and even a peacemaker. His military interventions were uniformly rapid, decisive and effective.
Peace through strength is most associated with Ronald Reagan’s approach during the Cold War. But its principles can be found in the foreign policies – however diverse the applications – of Richard Nixon, Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, and the Founding generation.
George Washington said, “Being prepared for war is one of the most effective ways to keep the peace.” That includes applying overwhelming force to quickly resolve discrete, urgent national threats that diplomacy cannot. Trump has adhered to both rules more closely than any president in a generation.
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As the Heritage Foundation documents in our new 2026 Index of Military Strength, President Trump has built his administration, our armed forces, and his global strategy around defending America’s vital interests. Remnants of the globalism and politicization of its predecessors still rattle around the federal budget and national bureaucracy. But Trump is reshaping our military faster and more comprehensively than most experts give him credit for.
It’s not luck.
Trump’s pragmatic peace-through-strength approach protects himself, our troops, and our nation from potential quagmire. Even as emotions flare this week, Trump speaks humbly about the narrow, modest goals of the war with Iran: to decapitate and dismantle the regime and then turn the country over to the Iranian people.
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No chest beating about a New World Order. No nonsense: ‘Islam means peace’. No cakewalk hubris. Just a simple reckoning with the beating heart of global terrorism and the oil-rich co-conspirator in Russian and Chinese mischief.
In a just world, Epic Fury would end the Republican establishment’s habit of labeling America First Right as “isolationist.” Conservative critics of Bush-era adventurism were never anything like that. That is why most of us today applaud Trump’s leadership in Iran.
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A focused, overwhelming military response to decades of violent aggression and years of diplomatic opposition is what peace through strength looks like. That includes the Pentagon budget reforms by President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. That includes the frank but friendly speeches by Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the last two Munich security conferences.
Operation Epic Fury, like President Trump’s previous interventions in Iran and Venezuela, does not contradict his peace brokering in Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere. These are all applications of peace through strength, the only American foreign policy that has ever really worked.
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