Credit Where Credit’s Due
Trump Made the Right Call on Striking Iran
I’ve been a harsh critic of Donald Trump and the Trump administration, especially in the past few months. At times, it seems this newsletter could be primarily defined by criticism of Trump, MAGA, post-liberalism, populism, nationalism, and various movements on the right (if the post-liberals count as part of the right).
But while I’ve never voted for Donald Trump, I don’t consider myself to be “Never Trump.” I think many of Trump’s critics exaggerate his flaws and the threat he poses to American constitutionalism (a threat I believe exists, but one which is much less serious than Bill Kristol or David French or Robert Kagan think). And I’ve always held that I will give him credit when he makes decisions I support.
Saturday’s action against Iran was one such decision. Indeed, it is one of Trump’s best decisions in his entire political career (along with appointing Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court). Ever since the Israelis launched the first strikes in a bold move to terminate the Iranian nuclear program, analysts have been saying that Israel lacks the weaponry capable of taking out Fordow nuclear facility. Only the United States possessed the B2 bombers and 30,000lb Massive Ordinance Penetrators capable of doing so.
On Saturday, the president announced that exactly such strikes had been successfully completed. While (as of this writing) it is unclear whether Fordow has been completely destroyed, it is safe to say that Natanz and Isfahan likely were. And Fordow probably was rendered inoperable.1
There are critics who have suggested that this will only accelerate Iran’s path to a bomb, as the regime pours even more resources into obtaining a nuke. Or, perhaps, Russia or China will give them one (unlikely). But even if Iran does pour resources into the program, this was a major setback for the regime. They spent five-hundred billion dollars on this program and our combined efforts with the Israelis wiped out two decades of work. They don’t have the resources to keep putting hundreds of billions of dollars in, only to have the U.S. and Israel smack them down again. The Islamic Republic has been humiliated and weakened. They may not be able to recover their previous stature on the world stage.
And the strike was a powerful signal to the world. Every so often, you have to demonstrate that you are willing to go all the way, so that people know that you mean what you say. Trump Always Chickens Out will have to be modified to Trump Sometimes Chickens Out,2 which doesn’t have quite the same ring. This may not deter China from going after Taiwan. But it should send a message to our allies and our enemies that American power is not ebbing.
Adam Kinzinger said it best. Like him, I’m not on team Trump. But I am “on Team America.” And these strikes were good for America. There are those who worry about a wider war, but that seems unlikely. The strikes had limited aim. That aim was achieved. The Iranian regime is too weak to strike back conventionally (although I still worry about major terrorist attacks in Israel or here in the United States, especially after Ukraine and Israel have demonstrated what can be done with inexpensive drones hidden deep inside a foreign nation’s territory). And even if they did, Trump has rightly warned them that Israel and the United States will not hesitate to go after the political leadership (so far, Israel has pulled its punches while making it clear they could have killed the President Pezeshkian or even Ayatollah Khamenei).
Let us be clear. There is no government of any nation state on Earth with more American blood on its hands from the last twenty years than Iran (except possibly the Taliban government in Kabul). Iran has been at war with us since 1979. All we are doing is acknowledging that fact. It seems we can have the best of both worlds – a weak and nuclear-free Iran unable to credibly threaten us, all without massive deployments of troops to the Middle East. Iran has been the source of instability in the Middle East for a long time. Especially with Assad and Saddam gone.
Even many critics of Israel are willing to admit that the regime had it coming. There is no love lost on the part of the Iranian people towards the military leaders and intelligence officers Israel assassinated. One anonymous Iranian woman said, “We don’t want war. But tonight, knowing that the men who’ve held us hostage for forty-six years, who’ve ransacked our country, raped and killed our daughters and executed our men for asking for their basic human rights, are finally getting what they deserve—that brings me peace.”
David Frum has praised the attack while also suggesting that this is the “wrong team” – that the current administration is incompetent and reactive and they could still manage to screw this up. I largely agree. I’m no fan of Pete Hegseth or Donald Trump.
But it appears Tulsi Gabbard has been sidelined in all this (which may be the reason for her hysterical video about Hiroshima). And that is always something to celebrate. Perhaps she will soon exit the administration.
Meanwhile, MAGA world is tearing itself apart. Tucker Carlson has come out hard against Trump and Mark Levin has accused him of being paid by Qatar.3 Carlson humiliated Ted Cruz, a man who deserved humiliation even if I think that Carlson’s position is illogical at best and immoral at worst and that Cruz is on the right side this time. Meanwhile, Dave Smith and Darryl Cooper and the rest of the Jew-haters (in the case of Cooper) and idiots (in the case of Smith)4 are joining Tucker. But the MAGA base is mostly with Trump.
If we get a crippled Islamic Republic and a weakened Tucker Carlson out of this one, that’s a victory in my book.
I’ll give the last word to Garry Kasparov:
“I think you can guess at this point that I happen to agree with President Trump’s decision to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. I understand the urge to invoke Iraq 2003, but different operations, different countries, and different presidents, are, well, different. And there are other historical analogies that will carry us to different conclusions. Israel has twice destroyed the nascent nuclear weapons infrastructure of its enemies—Iraq, in 1981, and Syria, in 2007. Those sorties didn’t kick off long wars—they averted potentially catastrophic conflicts. The Syrian Civil War was bloody enough when the dictator had poison gas and barrel bombs in his arsenal—imagine if Assad had been able to dangle a nuke over his people’s heads. At this stage, I don’t see a protracted fight between the US and the Islamic Republic. Knocking out Iran’s main nuclear sites may well bring things to a swift conclusion.”
President Trump has insisted that all three sites were “completely and totally obliterated.” I’m inclined to think he’s right. But we will wait and see. There have been conflicting reports about whether there is still enriched uranium on the loose. In my view, we should let the Israelis go after it, or threaten the mullahs directly if they refuse to hand it over to the IAEA.
I hope he keeps chickening out on tariffs.
As do I.
I may be being charitable to Smith.