While mainstream media try to sell Americans on the fear that the U.S. attack will lead to a “widening of Middle East hostilities,” most hostile forces there are manifestly weakened.
James Sinkinson
(JNS)
Before President Donald Trump launched strikes against Iran, joining Israel’s campaign to destroy the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons program, political commentator and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson urged him not to intervene in the conflict. He wrote in his newsletter, “No funding, no American weapons, no troops on the ground. It is not in our national interest,” adding that the United States should “drop Israel.”
Legacy media, U.S. lawmakers and pundits like Carlson accused Israel of trying to drag the United States into war with Iran. They also accused Trump of breaking his promise to put “America First” and keep the United States out of foreign wars. Ultimately, the president made the right choice to finish what Israel started, helping to destroy Iran’s nuclear program once and for all.
Iran isn’t just Israel’s problem. It’s a global threat to hundreds of millions of people. No wonder German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said eliminating Iran’s nuclear program “is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us.”
Furthermore, Israel didn’t seduce the United States into war, but rather requested that the United States come in as a “closer,” using special military equipment that it owns exclusively, to finish the job.
When Trump promised to put “America First,” he didn’t promise to avoid war at all costs. He certainly didn’t promise to appease aggressors as previous administrations have.
What Trump did promise was that he would use his considerable negotiating talents to end the conflict with Iran. Though he did his best, he couldn’t convince the ayatollahs to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions. Not surprising: Iran’s regime is composed of religious fanatics who don’t see global politics as a process of rational transactions, as does Trump, but rather they are governed by a supremacist Islamist ideology whose goal is world domination.
Trump chose the right path, confronting Iran with strength rather than offering concession after concession. He refused to further indulge Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s quest to destroy Israel, the United States and Western civilization.
While mainstream media try to sell Americans the fear that the U.S. attack will lead to a “widening of Middle East hostilities,” most hostile forces in the region are today manifestly weakened, and if anything, the level of danger has been dramatically reduced.
Iran endangers the world, not just Israel. The Islamic Republic is the leading state sponsor of global terrorism and is responsible for savagely killing, not just Israelis, but also thousands of Americans and citizens of other countries. Indeed, during the Oct. 7 massacre alone, Iran-backed Hamas murdered and kidnapped people of more than 40 nationalities.
Iran has been developing missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, some of which can reach NATO members in Europe. Imagine a nuclear Iran shooting ballistic missiles at civilian centers and providing this technology to its regional terror proxies.
Israel all but won the war, but needed U.S. help to finish the job efficiently. Israel was able to achieve most of its war goals alone, which is why it didn’t ask the United States to join in when it began the campaign. But the Israel Defense Forces hadn’t yet destroyed the biggest target—the Fordow enrichment site, which was critical to producing Iran’s weapons-grade uranium.
The IDF doesn’t have the munitions that were required to destroy the Fordow facility, specifically, Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs), otherwise known as “bunker buster” bombs, which only the United States possesses. It also lacks the aircraft required to deliver these munitions, namely the American B-2 stealth bomber. Fortunately, Trump made the right choice and ordered B-2 bombers equipped with MOPs to attack the Fordow facility, which is now, in his words, “completely and totally obliterated.”
Without American intervention, Israel might still have been able to destroy Fordow, but with much greater difficulty and no guarantee of success. It would have involved weeks of additional airstrikes and possibly would have required commando forces to enter the facility, where they would likely have faced mines, booby-traps and soldiers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s most elite military unit. “I would not want to have to send forces down there,” a Trump administration Iran expert told The Free Press. “It could be a medieval battle.”
“America first” doesn’t mean appeasing tyrants. Israel attacked Iran thanks to years of failed appeasement. Both the Obama and Biden administrations gave Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief, hoping that in exchange the ayatollahs would abandon their pursuit of nuclear weapons. This policy failed miserably. Iran not only continued pursuing a nuclear bomb but also used the billions in sanctions relief to fund their terrorist proxies and develop their missile arsenal. Isolationism, like Carlson advocates for, amounts to similar appeasement of an avowed enemy.
Iran chose war. Trump did his best to avoid war with Iran, offering to negotiate with its regime, despite objections from domestic sources and Israel. Indeed, Israel only attacked Iran after Trump’s efforts to negotiate with the Islamist regime failed.
The president discovered what Israel learned long ago: Negotiating with religious fanatics is not only difficult but usually fruitless. Iran refuses any deal that prevents it from fulfilling its objectives: destroying Israel, the United States and the West in favor of a global Islamist caliphate. Sacrificing its nuclear weapons program would severely impede Iran’s ability to achieve these objectives, and thus, it is unlikely to acquiesce.
Trump did his best to avoid war, as he promised to do. But he also promised that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.” Clearly, fulfilling this promise required an American military force. Israel didn’t need, nor did it ask for, a long-term war pact or American boots on the ground. It simply needed one extra push from the United States to finish the job and to destroy Iran’s nuclear program once and for all.
As for media fearmongering that the United States will be dragged into a “forever war,” let’s remember that Iran has, with its terrorist proxies, waged just such a war, killing thousands of Americans—over 46 long years since the Iranian Revolution. The recent disarmament of Iran and its regional allies by Israel and the United States reduces, rather than increases, this threat.
Beyond any doubt, Trump’s decision to lend Israel’s imminent victory its knockout punch superbly fulfilled some of America’s top priorities.
Originally published by Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME).
Image: U.S. Airmen assigned to the 509th Logistics Readiness Squadron and 393rd Bomber Generation Squadron conduct hot-pit refueling for a B-2 Spirit at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on May 28, 2025. Credit: U.S. Air Force Photo by Staff Sgt. Joshua Hastings.
