The Keys to Trump's Middle East Triumph

Victor Joecks on Jul 1, 2025

If you blinked, you just missed World War III.

On Monday, President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. That came two days after Trump sent B-2 stealth bombers to drop 14 bunker-buster bombs on the Fordow nuclear enrichment plant. Only the United States had the capability to obliterate the deeply buried site. U.S. submarines also launched 30 Tomahawk missiles against two other Iranian nuclear sites in Natanz and Esfahan. Despite some initial attempts to test its boundaries, the agreement has held up as of this writing.

According to some of the loudest voices on the left and right, it wasn't supposed to end this way.

Shortly after it happened, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared that Trump's decision to bomb Iran was "disastrous."

"He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations," she wrote on X. "It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment."

For months, Tucker Carlson has railed attacking Iran.

"It's worth pointing out that a strike on the Iranian nuclear sites will almost certainly result in thousands of American deaths at bases throughout the Middle East," he wrote on X in March. He continued, "A bombing campaign against Iran will set off a war."

AOC and Carlson may not agree on much, but they now have this in common. They were both spectacularly wrong. It's worth looking at what Trump understood, which they didn't.

First, he rejected the false dichotomy of doing nothing or a regime-change war. This tactic is common in politics. It involves claiming that someone either supports your position or endorses an extremely unpopular position. In complicated policy issues, there are usually many options.

Those opposed to Trump attacking Iran rushed out this line of attack.

After the United States bombed Iran, Geraldo Rivera wrote on X that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "suckered Trump (and the USA!) into another forever war with Iran."

On Monday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., posted on X, "Only 6 months in and we are back into foreign wars, regime change, and world war 3."

As Trump showed, there was another option. He destroyed Iran's ability to make nuclear weapons and left the fate of the Iranian regime to the Iranian people.

Next, Trump exhibited moral clarity. There are many on the left and some on the right who are vocally anti-Israel. They attacked Israel as it fought Hamas after the October 7 massacre. They attacked Israel for Operation Grim Beeper, which neutralized thousands of Hezbollah fighters. They attacked Israel for bombing Iran.

But here's the key point Trump understands. Some violent acts are morally good. In Michigan recently, a church member spotted a would-be mass shooter and ran into him with his pickup. An armed security guard then killed the gunman. Intentionally ramming someone with a car or shooting someone else is a violent act. In this circumstance, it was morally justified.

Similarly, Israel acts violently to kill terrorists and foreign officials who plot to murder its civilians. That's not morally equivalent to Iran and its terrorist proxies targeting Israeli civilians. Trump made that distinction.

Finally, Trump showed courage. It isn't enough to have the world's strongest military in theory. The country needs a leader with the internal fortitude to exercise that power. Just look at former President Joe Biden's surrender in Afghanistan.

Since Bill Clinton, every U.S. president has said that Iran can't be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. At the opportune moment, Trump had the guts to ensure it won't any time soon.

Unless the Iranian people overthrow it, the Iranian regime will remain America's enemy. But by depriving it of access to nuclear weapons, Trump has made it a much less threatening one. Bravo.

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Victor Joecks is a columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and host of the Sharpening Arrows podcast. Email him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or follow @victorjoecks on X. To find out more about Victor Joecks and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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