With Iran strike, Trump broke the spell of Iraq — and reset US foreign policy

New York Post

2 days ago

President Donald Trump has finally moved the United States past the traumas of the Iraq War.
With the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz, the United States made the world a safer place in the long run.
But the attack and subsequent cease-fire between Israel and Iran also represents a reset of American foreign policy.
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The president rejected both the naivety of neoconservatism and the shortsightedness of isolationism.
For one thing, Trump, to the dismay of 'non-interventionists,' came to terms with the serious limitations of diplomacy with Islamists.
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Iran was given decades to strike an agreement. It was more interested in a nuclear weapon.
Even after Israel had severely degraded its military capabilities and nuclear facilities, seizing supremacy of the air, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wouldn't surrender his program.
Stay up to date on the latest developments in the US airstrike on Iran
The idea that diplomats were on the cusp of forging a deal with Iran is dubious.
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Trump also realized that diplomacy is useless without enforced red lines.
For decades, the Iranian leadership, hard-liners and 'moderates' alike, ignored its commitments without any repercussions.
Simply because we were misled about the extent of Iraq's WMD program doesn't mean that no other country is pursuing them. Iran didn't make much of a secret about its intent, after all.
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Also, let's not forget that the Islamic Republic has been assailing Americans for 45 years.
Some of us are old enough to remember hostages being paraded by revolutionaries, the bloody Beirut bombing and servicemen being killed and maimed by Iranian IEDs.
All of this should have been unacceptable. But every president since Bill Clinton has been made a fool of by the Iranians on the nuclear issue.
Trump, though, accepted that Iran was not Iraq.
Few argue that our experiment of imposing a democratic government on Islamic nations failed. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq evolved into anything resembling a free nation.
US drops $500M bombs on Iran
Tam Nguyen / NYPost Design The US military dropped 14 'bunker buster' bombs on Iran's Fordow nuclear enrichment plant Saturday night and on two other key sites.
Prior to the airstrikes, Israel initiated extensive attacks on Iran's nuclear infrastructure and military.
Satellite images show how part of the mountain protecting the facility was completely obliterated.
This marks the first time that the US used the 15-ton GBU-57 bunker buster bombs in anger.
'Each and every member of the UN must be alarmed over this extremely dangerous, lawless and criminal behavior,' Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said following the attack.
Iran, though, was never going to be another social engineering project.
The Trump administration's goal was to deny the regime nuclear weapons. There could not have been a clearer objective.
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Our long-standing ally did the heavy lifting, severely degrading Iran's military capabilities. We, hopefully, finished the job without a single American casualty.
Yet the failures of a foreign technocratic nation-building project have turned many Americans into cynics and panic-mongers.
There was hysteria after Trump posted that though it wasn't 'politically correct' to use the term regime change, 'if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a regime change??? MIGA!!!'
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Attempting to divine the president's heavily punctuated thinking is a precarious undertaking.
Still, it's extraordinarily unlikely Trump ever meant the United States was mulling a way to install a new Iranian government by force. The president was likely attempting to frighten the mullahs into a cease-fire.
An invasion of that nation would have taken a major buildup of troops and movement of military assets. There was never any sign that such a plan was in motion.
Nor has anyone suggested such an undertaking. Nor is there any popular will to do it.
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Yes, the Israelis also talked up 'regime change.' Stirring up paranoia and anxiety in an opponent is a psychological component of warfare.
Israel, moreover, is fighting an enemy that's incessantly threatening its existence. It, quite rationally, wants to destroy its foe.
It's also quite rational for the United States to desire a less fundamentalist and bellicose government in Iran.
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Simply because Iraqis rejected our ideas doesn't mean those ideas aren't worthwhile — or that we shouldn't help those who organically embrace them.
Our primary concern is American interests. But engaging in a foreign policy wholly stripped of any idealism also leads to ugly places.
There have been five uprisings in Iran over the past decade. If the Iranian people have the means and ability to overthrow an autocratic regime and cobble together a less destabilizing government, however unlikely, we certainly shouldn't stand in their way.
Perhaps most importantly, Trump understands that a superpower doesn't act terrified when threatened.
Others should be terrified of us.
The United States seems to have forgotten its own strength after the failures of the Iraq War, which convinced an entire generation that even limited conflicts would spiral us into World War III.
This week's Iranian 'attack' on a US base in Qatar had all the earmarks of a face-saving, symbolic maneuver designed for a domestic audience.
The truth is that we humiliated our enemy and denied them a chance at a nuke.
We have no clue how all this ends.
What we do know is this: The United States is no longer paralyzed by the past.
David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner.