VICTOR JOECKS: The keys to Trump’s Middle East triumph

On Monday, President Donald Trump announced a cease-fire between Israel and Iran. That came two days after Trump sent B-2 stealth bombers to drop 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. Despite some initial attempts to test its boundaries, the cessation of hostilities had held up as of Friday.

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

Shortly after the Iranian bombing, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared that Trump’s decision 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 against 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 have this in common: They were both spectacularly wrong. It’s worth looking at what Trump understood that 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, if someone doesn’t support your position, they endorse 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 crippled Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons and left the fate of the 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 Oct. 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. But 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.

Contact Victor Joecks at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.