Trump Learned the Lessons of Iraq

With the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz, the U.S. made the world a safer place in the long run. But the attack, and subsequent ceasefire between Israel and Iran, also represents a reset of American foreign policy. The president rejected both the naivety of neoconservatism and the shortsightedness of isolationism.

For one thing, Trump, to the dismay of "non-interventionists," came to terms with the serious limitations of diplomacy with Islamists. Iran was given decades to strike an agreement. It was more interested in a nuclear weapon.

Even after Israel had severely degraded its military capabilities and nuclear program, seizing supremacy of the air, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wouldn't surrender his program. The idea that diplomats were on the cusp of forging a deal with Iran is dubious.

Trump also realized that diplomacy is useless without enforced red lines. For decades, the Iranian leadership, hard-liners and "moderates" alike, ignored its commitments without any repercussions.

Simply because we were misled about the extent of Iraq's WMD program doesn't mean that no other country is pursuing them. Iran didn't make much of a secret about its intent, after all.

Also, let's not forget that the Islamic Republic has been assailing Americans for 45 years.

Some of us are old enough to remember hostages being paraded by revolutionaries, the bloody Beirut bombing, and servicemen being killed and maimed by Iranian IEDs. All of this should have been unacceptable. Yet, every president since Bill Clinton has been made a fool of by the Iranians on the nuclear issue.

Trump accepted that Iran was not Iraq. Few argue that our experiment of imposing a democratic government on Islamic nations failed. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq evolved into anything resembling a free nation. Iran, though, was never going to be another social engineering project.

The Trump administration's goal was to deny the regime nuclear weapons. There could not have been a clearer objective. Our long-standing ally did the heavy lifting, severely degrading Iran's military capabilities. We, hopefully, finished the job without a single American casualty.

Yet, the failures of a foreign technocratic nation-building project have turned many Americans into cynics and panic-mongers.

There was a lot of panic after Trump posted that though it wasn't "politically correct" to use the term regime change, "if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a regime change??? MIGA!!!"

Attempting to divine the president's heavily punctuated thinking is a precarious undertaking. Still, it's extraordinarily unlikely Trump ever meant the U.S. was mulling a way to install a new Iranian government by force. The president was likely attempting to frighten the mullahs into a ceasefire. An invasion of that nation would have taken a major buildup of troops and movement of military assets. There was never any sign that such a plan was in motion. Nor has anyone suggested such an undertaking. Nor is there any popular will to do it.

Yes, the Israelis also talked up "regime change." Stirring up paranoia and anxiety is a psychological component of warfare. Israel, moreover, is fighting an enemy that's incessantly threatening its existence. It, quite rationally, wants to destroy its foe.

It's also quite rational for the U.S. to desire a less fundamentalist and bellicose government in Iran. Simply because Iraqis rejected our ideas doesn't mean those ideas aren't worthwhile or that we shouldn't help those who organically embrace them.

Our primary concern is American interests. But engaging in a foreign policy wholly stripped of any idealism also leads to ugly places. There have been five uprisings in Iran over the past decade. If the Iranian people had the means and ability to overthrow an autocratic regime and cobble together a less destabilizing government, which is unlikely, we certainly shouldn't stand in their way.

Perhaps most importantly, Trump understands that a superpower doesn't act terrified when threatened. Others should be terrified of us.

The U.S. seems to have forgotten our own strength after the failures of the Iraq War, which convinced a generation that even limited conflicts would spiral us into World War III. The last Iranian "attack" on a U.S. base in Qatar had all the earmarks of a face-saving symbolic maneuver designed for a domestic audience. The truth is that we humiliated our enemy and denied them a chance at a nuke.

We have no clue how all this ends in the long run. What we do know is that the U.S. is no longer paralyzed by the past.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
• 05/30/25: We Have No Constitutional or Moral Duty to Subsidize Harvard
• 05/30/25: Welcome to the Intifada, America
• 05/16/25: Scapegoating Biden Isn't Going to Solve the Dems' Problems
• 05/09/25: The Pulitzer Prizes Have Become a Sad Joke
• 05/05/25: How Do You Do, Fellow White People? Tim Walz Says Hello!
• 04/25/25: Ketanji Brown Jackson Makes a Powerful Argument for School Choice
• 04/18/25: If Everyone Is an Expert, No One Is
• 03/31/25: The Left's Imaginary COVID 'Reckoning'
• 03/21/25: Sorry, Conspiracy Theorists -- Lee Harvey Oswald Acted Alone
• 03/03/25: Mitch McConnell: A GOP Hall of Famer?
• 02/21/25: RFK's Dangerous Autism Lie
• 02/14/25: It's Time to End the EV Racket
• 02/07/25: If You Really Support Immigration, Stop Excusing Chaos
• 02/03/25: Trump's Gaza Proposal Makes Complete Sense
• 01/24/25: How Biden's Pardons Normalize Abuse of Power
• 01/17/25: Israel Makes a Deal With the Actual Devil
• 01/13/25: Why Javier Milei Matters
• 12/20/24: The Obama Doctrine Is Dead
• 12/13/24: It's time for a national conversation about left-wing violence
• 12/09/24: It's time for a national conversation about left-wing violence
• 11/08/24: Don't Trash the Constitution to Dunk on the Libs
• 11/08/24: This 'liberation' will NOT be reported
• 11/01/24: HARRIS Is the Bigger Threat to the Constitutional Order
• 09/20/24: Fact checked! Harris Is the Extremist
• 07/13/24: Explain Yourself, Kamala Harris!
• 07/05/24: How Biden's Mental Decline Went From 'Misinformation' to Fact in a Week
• 04/12/24: Biden Is Now Chasing the 'Death to America' Voter
• 03/15/24: Turns Out Biden Lied About Hur, Beau, And Why He Pilfered Classified Docs
• 02/09/24: Why Biden Is Threatening to Veto Aid to Israel
• 02/09/23: Electric Cars Are a Scam
• 06/30/23: Americans Have Never Been Less Threatened by 'Extreme Weather'
• 03/03/23: Questioning Biden's Ukraine Policy Doesn't Make You an 'Isolationist'
• 01/20/23: No ribbons? Don't hide behind religion!
• 01/13/23: On Classified Documents, Joe Biden Is Out of Excuses
• 04/29/22: Biden's Ministry of Truth
• 04/08/22: The Most Radical Abortion Law in the Nation
• 04/01/22: Recuse Yourself, Joe Biden
• 03/25/22: No, School Boards Are Not 'Banning Books'
• 03/11/22: Let Them Drive Teslas
• 01/28/22: It's Not Government's Job to 'Root Out' Misinformation
• 01/14/22: Biden's Big Elections Lie
• 01/07/22: Schumer's Ugly 'Voting Rights' Gamble
• 12/24/21:AOC's Grasp on American Governance Is a 'Farce'
• 12/17/21: Dems Pivot from Build Back Better to Useless Extremism
• 11/19/21: Reckoning' Over Steele Dossier?
• 10/15/21: The Biden White House Will Pay for Playing Inflation Games
• 09/24/21: The most demonstrable political scandal still ignored
• 09/17/21: Sorry, AOC, The Rich Already Pay Their Fair Share
• 09/02/21: Why Isn't Biden to Blame for COVID-19 Deaths?
• 08/06/21: Biden's Unprecedented Attack on the Constitution
• 07/30/21: Jan. 6 Was Deplorable. It Was NOT a Coup
• 06/21/21: The Myth of Republican Obstructionism
• 05/21/21: What Does Putin Have on Biden?
• 04/16/21: Kristen Clarke Is Unfit to Be in Government
• 03/26/21: No to DC Statehood is far from GOP being reflexive
• 03/22/21: Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due Process Rights The Hypocrisy of the Filibuster Busters
• 03/12/21: Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due Process Rights
• 03/05/21: AOC's Terrible Minimum Wage Argument
• 02/12/21: The Dem Party Is Radicalizing against the Constitution
• 02/05/21: What NOT to Do with Marjorie Taylor Greene
• 01/15/21: Free Speech Is a Value Not Just a Right
• 12/31/20: It Can't Get Any Worse Than 2020. Here's a 2021 Political Wish List
• 10/26/20: Wanted: An Honest Debate about the Death Penalty
• 10/26/20: These are the questions 'Big Guy' Biden must be forced to answer about Hunter's emails
• 09/11/20: The Dems' Dangerous Delegitimization of the Election
• 08/28/20: Biden Is Underperforming Hillary in Battleground States
• 08/14/20: Kamala Harris, Imaginary Centrist
• 07/24/20: Who you calling a fascist?
• 07/17/20: Speech Police have finally gone too far
• 07/03/20: 'But Gorsuch' Is Still Trump's Best Argument
• 06/22/20: Welcome to America's Cultural Revolution
• 06/12/20: The color of my skin is not an indictment of my morality, nor does it strip me of my agency
• 06/05/20: What this son of immigrants knows about bulding bussinesses --- and the dismay of destruction
• 05/28/20: The Folly of Twitter's Fact-Check
• 05/22/20: Dems Warning Trump Will Reject Election Results Should Look in the Mirror
• 05/15/20: Obamagate Is NOT a Conspiracy Theory
• 05/08/20: Really, Joe --- due process is the opposite of justice?