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The best way to ensure that the clerics of Iran never get their blood-soaked hands on a nuclear weapon is to end their tyranny — preferably via precision-guided missiles.
Only a month ago, President Donald Trump promised millions of courageous Iranians protesting the mullahs’ rule that “help was on the way,” not that he would hand the autocratic clerics another chance to again solidify power by dragging out another round of negotiations and agreeing to a deal they have no intention of honoring.
It’s encouraging that the president has deployed aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln to the Gulf of Oman, along with an “armada” that’s “willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary.” It’s considerably less encouraging to see, at least publicly, that Trump isn’t demanding the mullahs abdicate but rather offering them another chance to salvage their tyranny.
“Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS – one that is good for all parties,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Time is running out, it is truly of the essence! As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again.”
Perhaps the president’s declarations are merely a diversion while we set all the military pieces in place to decimate the enemy. Because allowing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or any other “supreme leader” to continue to rule Iran would be a tragic mistake.
Trump’s first inclination is to negotiate deals. It’s certainly the best choice when dealing with rational actors or leaders concerned with the best interests of their people. But if the clerics are willing to subject their citizens to decades of destitution in a crusade to develop nuclear weapons, what makes anyone believe they’ll suddenly come to the table and sign a good-faith, long-term agreement with Trump, or anyone else? Even if they did, what historic precedent exists that could convince anyone they will follow through on their promises?
The apocalyptic Shia Twelvers who’ve ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution see foreign policy as a civilizational battle fought over centuries. The length of an American administration is nothing to them. These people aren’t real estate developers or even oil sheiks. They’ll outwait Trump. Clerics aren’t going to simply stand down — they must be knocked down.
You might recall that former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama also warned the mullahs of Iran that “time was running out.” The Obama administration was obsessed with elevating Iran as a regional power to counterbalance Israel. In the process, the United States subjugated itself to placate a nation that, even as it negotiated, continued undercutting our interests, killing our service members, kidnapping our citizens (a practice that has never ended), attacking our allies, and funding terrorism around the world. We then entered into an agreement with Iran in which we offered it extensive concessions, lots of pallets, while it merely had to uphold preexisting obligations as a signatory of the nonproliferation pact.
Iran still broke every promise.
Moreover, Trump explicitly warned the Iranian tyrants that there would be a price to pay for massacring protesters. Last week, the president claimed he was told on “good authority” that the “killing in Iran is stopping.” Due to the media and internet blackout by the regime, it’s impossible to know exactly how many civilians have been murdered by Islamist militias, but virtually every reputable oversight organization disagrees that the massacre ended. The number of dead is surely in the many thousands and perhaps in the tens of thousands. This doesn’t even consider the mass arrests of peaceful prisoners, torture, summary executions of the already wounded and jailed, and repression.
Even the European Union, which generally meets Iranian aggression with tepid criticism, recently joined the U.S. in declaring the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization.
During the brutal crackdown on the 2009 Green Movement uprising, Obama couldn’t even muster a condemnation of the mullahs, much less offer them any help. Years later, the former president conceded that he regretted what he claimed was a strategic silence, not to give the regime an excuse for repression, as if they wouldn’t blame the U.S. and “Zionists” anyway. It was clear in almost every interaction with Iran that Obama didn’t want to risk the prospects of an agreement.
Trump was forced to clean up Obama’s mess with the summer strikes that temporarily debilitated Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Under the shield of a new deal, the mullahs, as they have done for decades, will merely get back to covertly moving toward the nuclear threshold, while rearming themselves and extremist proxies across the world. With a deal in place, even the Israelis would largely be handcuffed from acting decisively against a regime, as they often were during the Obama years.
After the nation-building debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s little appetite among the U.S. to compel regime change. That is understandable. The failed Iraq War shouldn’t paralyze us from pursuing our interests and helping possible peaceful allies, either. There is a big difference between short-term assistance for an organic uprising against one of our enemies and compelling foreigners to embrace “democracy” through force and occupation. Fortunately, thus far, the president has rejected both the naivety of neoconservatism and the shortsightedness of isolationism.
CHINA IS OUR ENEMY. IT’S TIME WE ACT LIKE IT
You’ll often hear people argue that “things could be worse” once a regime is overthrown. And, indeed, Iran, like most nations in the region, is teeming with ethnic, religious, and ideological factions. Making foreign policy predictions is perilous business, but an Iran freed from the grip of clerics might well end up being the most pro-American nation in the Islamic world. It would be in our best interests for the Iranian people to retake their nation. We’re not the world’s policeman, it is true, but, despite the protestations of isolationists and some “realists,” we have always imbued our foreign policy with a measure of idealism. Americans believe that people have an inherent right to fight against tyrants.
In this case, a regime change would also be in our best interests. Why save the mullahs at their weakest moment?
