My column has never been shy about denouncing either Trump or Netanyahu. It won’t be shy to criticize them in the future. But on Saturday this much-maligned duo did the free world a courageous and historic favor. It will be remembered long after the petulant criticism dies down.
They have rid the world of an odious tyrant, and of several layers of his equally odious deputies. It’s odd that the same people who fault Trump for divorcing U.S. foreign policy from its democratic values now fault him for going to war for the sake of advancing democratic values. Still, millions of ordinary people around the world — not just in Tel Aviv or Tehran or Tehrangeles but also, perhaps, in Taipei and Tallinn — will notice that the United States, for its many warts, still stands for freedom.
One country where the United States and Israel are garnering broad support is the same country that’s being bombed.
“Everyone is joyful, it is one of the best days of probably 95 percent of Iranians’ lives,” one Iranian resident of the city of Karaj told The Wall Street Journal about Khamenei’s death.
It is also true that scores of civilians have been killed, and there was public mourning for Khamenei. But those mourners didn’t have to emerge under the threat of the regime’s guns.
There was a time when American hearts could be moved by moments like these — when free nations, having endured years of provocations and attacks from tyrants, band together to administer justice and supply hope. We’re a different country now, less naïve but considerably more pessimistic and cynical, and thus likelier to ask: What’s in it for us?
First, it’s a mistake to say that Trump got America into war on Saturday. What he did was respond to a war that Iran has been waging against the United States since 1979.
It waged war when it seized our Embassy in 1979, murdered (via proxy) hundreds of our service members in Beirut in 1983 and supplied the I.E.D.s that killed or maimed over 1,000 of our troops during the war in Iraq. It waged war when it sought to assassinate former senior U.S. officials, including John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and, according to a 2024 report in Politico, Trump himself. One reason Iran behaved as it did is because it drew the lesson that it would pay no great price. No more.
Second, Iran does not exist in a geopolitical vacuum: With Moscow and Beijing, it is a core member of the axis of autocracies that threaten the democratic world broadly.
The same liberals who fault Trump for not vigorously opposing Vladimir Putin should at least consider that it’s Tehran that has given Russia the drones and drone technology that have destroyed so much of Ukraine. And the same conservatives who fault Trump for diverting military resources away from the Pacific for the war in Iran should also note that Iran covertly supplies China with much of its oil as part of a promised 25-year, $400 billion strategic partnership. If Tehran falls out of the axis, our remaining adversaries can only be weaker.
Third, it is impossible to imagine anything like Mideast peace without the end of this regime.
It isn’t simply that Iran has been the principal backer of the so-called axis of resistance that includes every terrorist group that sought to wipe Israel off the map. It’s also that no Israeli government will ever agree to a Palestinian state that could fall into Iran’s orbit. Paradoxically, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will face a much tougher time fending off international pressure for Palestinian statehood if the Tehran regime falls and Saudi Arabia offers peace with Israel.
Fourth, even if the United States and Israel don’t force regime change in Iran, they can achieve strategically significant goals.
The United States is stronger when anti-American dictators have solid reasons to fear our wrath: It restores deterrence and, in doing so, makes diplomacy more effective.
Finally, the United States and Israel have taken considerable military and political risks to do the right thing. And that’s no small thing.
It’s odd that the same people who fault Trump for divorcing U.S. foreign policy from its democratic values now fault him for going to war for the sake of advancing democratic values.
Except we all know that’s not why he’s doing it. He doesn’t care about democratic values. He’s made that very clear in his constant attacks on America’s democratic institutions. This is strongman bullshit, wannabe dictator bullshit, another distraction from the Epstein files, take your fucking pick. Just don’t pretend it has anything to do with what the propaganda would have us believe.
