The moment Donald Trump announced strikes on Iran aimed at removing the Supreme Leader and his murderous regime, leftists far and wide instantly, predictably, and reflexively denounced the president’s actions. But now some prominent voices on the right are also taking issue with the president’s prosecution of the 14-day-old conflict, and while they represent a minority view among conservatives, the chorus will only raise its voice as the war carries into its third week and perhaps beyond.
Most problematic for Trump is pointed criticism from Joe Rogan, widely considered the nation’s most prominent podcaster, who endorsed Trump before the 2024 election. He argues that the president is effectively pulling a bait-and-switch on his voters by violating his pledge to avoid new foreign wars. In the Wall Street Journal, reliably conservative author Jason Riley called for the president to “reconsider your failing strategy” of intentional ambiguity about the operation in Iran, saying it will not serve him well in the upcoming midterm elections. Another top conservative podcaster, the outspoken Megyn Kelly, who has had a love-hate relationship with Trump over the years, added her dissenting voice along with some on the conspiratorial, anti-Israeli fringe, most notably Tucker Carlson.
A Trio of Arguments
There are three major items on the left/right laundry list of grievances they have expressed publicly about the Commander-in-Chief in the midst of war. First, Trump did not inform or seek the approval of Congress in advance. In doing so, they are dismissing the effectiveness of a daytime strike that incinerated the Ayatollah and his top brass that would not have succeeded without complete secrecy. Then there’s the fact that Congress has not officially sanctioned a war since 1942. Yet Democrats keep repeating the obsolete mantra about congressional approval in order to pile on Trump for any reason or no reason.
Next is the claim that Trump did not explain the need for the war. Rogan pulled no punches: “I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right? He ran on ‘no more wars, end these stupid, senseless wars,’ and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it … It just doesn’t make any sense to me, unless we’re acting on someone else’s interests, like particularly Israel’s interests.” Rogan and his fellow critics simply gloss over the Iranians’ thinly veiled nuclear ambitions, the murder and terror they have unleashed across the entire region, and against Americans and their own people. They are effectively calling all of that insufficient evidence of the need to liberate tens of millions of enslaved people in a long-powerful country begging for a return to civilization. Trump commanded Operation Midnight Hammer against Iran’s nuclear facilities and was then nothing if not crystal clear about the reason, describing in detail the pure evil driving the Islamist regime and the need for it to be driven from power.
The third prong of the opposition mantra is that Trump “has no plan.” And yet, they hardly know enough to make that claim because war strategy obviously remains secret. But at the same time, the president has regularly provided a broad overview of his intentions, stating that the operation will be completed when they have effectively removed the ability of the regime to threaten international peace. But like most stridency among leftists, they are making a claim designed only to generate a political problem for Trump, not to be proven or disproven. Like when they demand that the rich pay their “fair share” without defining what that is, or call Trump a racist, or label the proposed SAVE Act “Jim Crow 2.0,” they are engaging in pure demagoguery designed to scare the public about a president who is running circles around them.
What was once said about a boxing match also holds true in war: everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face - and then all bets are off. The consequences of a full-on assault of a powerful country by sea and air cannot possibly be divined in advance. Only those who know nothing of war would demand a deadline for Trump to withdraw from the conflict.
The Regime in Iran Is Evil, But …
Opponents of the war have had to grudgingly admit the Iranian regime is an atrocity, a clear and present danger to the civilized world. But then they sweep all that aside and assert that this is an unjust “war of choice,” as if Trump is cavalierly putting Americans in harm’s way when there is no imminent threat to the homeland. The evident implication is that we should have waited to take action until Iran does in fact pose a threat in a matter of days instead of months or years. The folly of such a strategy is self-evident.
The president has goals for this mission, not an hour-by-hour timetable. Like any leader, he will not cease operations until he is satisfied that it has achieved all of its objectives. Plus, if Trump had even provided such a plan, his enemies would have said it was either too much, too little, too early, too late, or otherwise wrong. But the president likely expected a bit of a longer leash from the right, especially given his unquestioned bona fides as a peacemaker able to reconcile differences brewing for decades between enemies across the world.
If you were to administer truth serum to every leader in the Middle East to reveal their true beliefs, they would undoubtedly and universally favor, or even pray for, the downfall of the Islamist regime in Tehran. In 1996, President Bill Clinton had a chance to take out Osama bin Laden. He understood the profound threat OBL represented to the homeland. And yet, both he and his successor, George W. Bush, took no action, and the result was 9/11.
Is it acceptable to have a powerful country ruled by a death cult armed with offensive ballistic missiles that they have not been hesitant to employ, and a nuclear program on its way to possessing the ultimate weapon? When the mullahs call for death to America, should we take this as merely an idle threat?
Understandable Trepidation
It is totally legitimate for Americans struggling to make ends meet to be trepidatious about the war and argue that the president is spending too much time on foreign adventures and not enough on the economy, on reducing the cost of living. But for a president who famously multi-tasks to a degree never before displayed in the Oval Office, we can set aside the idea that he no longer cares about the economy. In fact, he is convinced, with good reason, that once Iran has been sufficiently cleansed of the Islamist regime, its oil industry will prosper as it has in Venezuela, reducing energy prices and stimulating the broader economy.
Even Trump’s fiercest enemies begrudgingly admit that Operation Epic Fury has been an overwhelming success. But again, they dismiss that with a “yes, but …” determined to reach a pre-scripted conclusion and then backfill the reasons for it. Critics also argue that we will face another quagmire as we did in Iraq and Libya by engineering another regime change in a volatile Middle Eastern country. But Trump has made clear that he is not interested in anointing a successor to the Islamists. His goal is to empower Iranians to make that choice on their own.
More importantly, as we have pointed out in this space before, with the country stripped of its capacity to wreak havoc beyond its borders, even the worst successor government in Iran will not be able to threaten international order. So then it becomes only a matter of the relationship between various factions vying to gain power once the final remnants of the regime’s leadership have come to heel or been eliminated.
Yes, Americans have been killed - ten to date - but there has never been a war free of casualties. Part of the reason the 47th president undertook this operation, knowing he would face widespread criticism, was that he believed the broad center of the American public trusts him on matters of war and peace. After all, he negotiated multiple ceasefires and peace deals between bitter enemies around the globe and created the Board of Peace that will change the face of the Middle East. But he has also commanded three incredibly daring and overwhelmingly successful military operations in Iran and Venezuela. His credentials in matters of both war and peace have been well established over more than five years in the White House.
This is not “Trump’s War.” It is not a war of choice so much as a war of necessity. Seven presidents, dating back to 1980, were fully aware of the threat posed by fanatical clerics with heavy weapons but chose not to act. Were they right, or ultimately unwilling to gamble on attacks that could metastasize into a regional or world war? The difference in the here and now is that, after building the most dominant military force in the Middle East outside of Israel, the regime is now crumbling under the weight of its own oppression. It took 47 years for the long-suffering people of Iran, the Middle East, and the world to finally reach the brink of achieving their long-held objective. By finishing the job and ridding the world of the murderous tyrants terrorizing all around them, President Trump, famously undaunted by snarling enemies both foreign and domestic, is in the midst of providing the golden opportunity for peace they have sought for lo these many years.
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