The dirty little international secret about President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear program is that most world leaders are happy he did it. United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer, no fan of Trump, said Sunday, “Iran’s nuclear program is a grave threat to international security. Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, and the U.S. has taken action to alleviate that threat.”
After praising Trump’s bold action, Starmer went on to “call on Iran to return to the negotiating table and reach a diplomatic solution to end this crisis.” Vice President JD Vance echoed that sentiment Sunday morning.
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“We did not attack the nation of Iran,” Vance explained. “We did not attack any civilian targets. We didn’t even attack military targets outside of the three nuclear weapons facilities. We don’t want to achieve regime change. We want to achieve the end of the Iranian nuclear program. The Iranians are clearly not very good at war. Perhaps they should follow President Trump’s lead and give peace a chance.”
The bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan is in no way an end to the conflict between the Iranian regime and the U.S. government, a conflict that has been ongoing for more than 40 years. Iran will respond militarily to Trump’s air strike. They must do so in order to retain a semblance of legitimacy in the region. Tehran fired over a dozen missiles at two military bases hosting U.S. troops in Iraq after Trump killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps General Qasem Soleimani in 2020. Over a hundred servicemen were injured, none were killed, and the escalation ended there. Hopefully, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will pursue such a measured response this time as well.
Some elements of both the right and left in the United States want to label Trump’s air strikes as the beginning of a new war with Iran. But this is a myopic understanding of recent history. Since the storming of the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979, the Iranian regime has engaged in unceasing hostilities against American forces and allies in the region. Iranian proxies were behind the 1983 bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut, the attack on the Marine barracks that same year, the 1985 TWA hijacking, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, attacks on U.S. forces throughout the second Iraq war, the planned assassination of U.S. officials in Washington, D.C., in 2011, the 2019 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, the attack on U.S. shipping vessels in the Red Sea starting in 2023, and the attacks on U.S. forces Iraq and Syria. This is not a pattern of peaceful behavior.
Most importantly, the Sept. 11 Commission concluded in its final report that, “There is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers.” This is relevant because the 2001 authorization for the use of military force passed by Congress authorizes the president to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the U.S. by such nations, organizations or persons.” The Iranian regime clearly falls into this category.
TRUMP’S DEVASTATING IRAN STRIKES ELIMINATE AN INTOLERABLE THREAT
Our Israeli allies deserve much credit for making Trump’s strike on Iran’s nuclear program possible. For weeks now, Israel has degraded Iran’s air defense capabilities to the point that Israel now controls the skies over Iran. Tehran still has the capability of launching ground-based missiles at both Israeli and American targets, but its ability to fuel and launch those rockets has been significantly diminished. Their ability to strike back at both the U.S. and Israel has never been lower.
Now is the time for Iran to change course and embrace peace. Trump would love nothing more than to sign a peace deal with Iran that assured the nation’s economic stability in exchange for the assurance that they could never pursue nuclear weapons again. The ball is in Tehran’s court.