“Ceasefire!” Some people worried that President Trump was taking to the air waves tonight in order to declare a ceasefire with Iran. That, clearly, was what Masoud Pezeshkian, the President of Iran hoped for in his careful, lengthy and mendacious “Letter to the American People” today. Pezeshkian said that “portraying Iran as a threat is neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts.” Tell that to the hundreds of American victims of Iranian aggression. Tell it to the thousands of victims of Iran’s proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas.
President Trump was having none of it. Operation Epic Fury, he said, was all about targeting the world’s leading sponsor of state terror and preventing it from acquiring nuclear weapons. This has been a leitmotif of President Trump’s thinking going back to the 1980s.
A few takeaways from President Trump’s brief White House speech:
- He hinted at his threat to pull out of NATO. The US pays for it. But what do receive back from our so-called allies?
- As the world’s largest producer of oil and gas, we do not need oil from the Middle East. Those countries that do need it must henceforth get it themselves. ‘The hard part is done,’ POTUS said. We will help, but the task is basically theirs
- President Trump reiterated his preference for negotiations, not war. But negotiation only works with partners who are what David Hume called ‘candid reasoners.’ Iran has notoriously been uncandid, indeed mendacious
- The military part of Operation Epic Fury is essentially over: ‘nearing completion’ was the President’s phrase. Additional targets will be identified and destroyed, but all that is waiting for an official end of the war is Iran’s capitulation. The Strait of Hormuz was more or less open today, but it must be an open, unchallenged thoroughfare for oil and other goods
- Perhaps the most important point President Trump made was his promise to ‘finish the job.’ He did not specify how that would be done, but he did say that if serious negotiations with Iran were not forthcoming the country’s electrical grid and oil refineries could be next
- Regime change, he said, was not the goal of Operation Epic Fury. Nonetheless, regime change has in fact occurred. The coming couple of weeks – or, POTUS said, it will only be a couple of days – will decide what sort of government will follow the rule of the mullahs
Operation Epic Fury has lasted 32 days so far. You wouldn’t know it from the legacy media, but it is perhaps the most astonishing military success in history. It is also the quickest. Donald Trump ran on and was elected in part because he promised to be a “peace president.” It is not odd or paradoxical that this lover and bringer of peace should also be prepared to wage furious war to guarantee peace. It was always thus. Unfortunately, some recent American presidents have been more interest in the rhetoric than the reality of peace. Thus Barack Obama sent Iran $1.7 billion in cash. Donald Trump sent them B-2s, F-35s and Tomahawk cruise missiles. Which contributed more to peace?
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