Watch This Victory
Big Picture
Once again it is the United States and allied militaries that will salvage the future from the brink of disaster. Not the UN, a make-believe “rules-based” order, hippies, or the preening European conference-attenders, but an American president who sees threats clearly and our faithful military.
We fight an evil regime that has the blood of thousands of Americans on its hands, that sought to impose murderous Islamist tyranny on the Middle East, and which has corrupted the worship of God to advance its most rancid human ambitions.
With the Iranian regime destabilized or replaced, the better world Trump envisions will take a giant leap toward reality. The most consequential part of the world will be an arc of innovation, accountable government, and prosperity that runs from America through Northeast Asia to the Middle East.
Trump has created a crucible in which vulnerable political-cultural models falter and stronger ones endure. Sorry Europe!
He has accelerated trends long in motion and foreseen by the New Right. It is an inflection point in the true sense: the trajectory itself has changed. We are witnessing a phase transition in the world, not a momentary disruption.
Political Warfare Boosts Military
Trump’s speech at the onset of war was remarkable and may be his most consequential.
Never has a president led so clearly with a political outcome (Iranians toppling the regime) at the beginning of a conflict. As far as instruments of political warfare, one would have to go back to the Emancipation Proclamation and Declaration of Independence in our history to find similar examples of using stated political goals to motivate a military outcome. (In World War II, the U.S.-U.K. demand for unconditional surrender was not declared until the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, and not really accepted by the U.S.S.R. until a conference later that year held in Tehran, ironically enough.)
Trump’s approach is daring but reasonable. Vice President Vance deprecated the possibility of an invasion or prolonged ground conflict. It is difficult (not impossible) to win wars or effect political revolution with air and naval power alone. Trump is leading a hybrid method of conflict in which the people of Iran, who hate the unelected Islamist regime that represses them, can complete the mission.
This strategy is particularly cunning, especially given the United States has a Secretary of War with delusions of adequacy and an intelligence bureaucracy that only does political warfare against Republican presidents. It is a testament to Trump and likely Secretary of State Marco Rubio as well.
Trump is right to prepare the American public for additional casualties among those who defend us. They do so not for an abstract principle but to defend us from an evil, American-killing cabal of deviants who have made it crystal clear that war is the only choice.
Allies That Count
The nations that matter most to the future are with us.
Israel is fighting with us. Our Arab Gulf allies, especially the UAE and Saudi Arabia are unified and with us, although understandably worried about their own people. They are fighting Iranian attacks themselves, and deserve our energetic support—including shifting all U.S. military resources wasted on the Ukraine sideshow. Japan will forego the mealy-mouthed nonsense coming out of Europe and has condemned Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. Of course, China and Russia will condemn us, but they will take note of American capabilities and determination. Quietly, they also know that the world will be better off without the Islamic Republic.
The Disloyal Opposition
Rep. Ilhan Mullah Omar (D-Minnesota) decried the “illegal and unjustified war.” Her brother-husband was apparently unavailable for comment.
Democrat leader and spirit animal Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (R-New Yorkistan) criticized the President’s decision as “unlawful,” “unnecessary,” and likely to be “catastrophic.”
Among other Democrat organizations, back at the New York Times, “reporter” David Sanger bemoaned “Trump’s War of Choice With Iran.” He should consider the political future of those who called World War II “Mr. Roosevelt’s war.” They didn’t have one.
The hermaphroditical Tim Kaine, senator for Fairfax County and Hillary Clinton’s former running mate, called allied actions a “colossal mistake.” Channeling the blame-America-first expert class, he added: “Has President Trump learned nothing from decades of U.S. meddling in Iran and forever wars in the Middle East?”
Answer: Clearly Trump has. There is no pretense of a prolonged ground invasion of Iran. There is no expectation of nation-building unless the Iranian people or others wish to undertake it. And unlike both presidents Bush, who sought “authorization” from Congress to take military action, Trump knows that such a move is a pointless exercise of indulging fools who invariably cover their butts and oppose the U.S. military just as soon as they believe it is politically opportune to do so.
War Powers
The failed Congress is debating a so-called war powers resolution that purports to limit the President’s constitutional power to command the armed forces and obligation to defend the United States.
The War Powers Act of 1973 that purports to give Congress this power is unconstitutional. It was passed over the veto of President Richard Nixon after he was weakened by Watergate. It directly contravenes the obvious text of the Constitution and the explanations of the Founding Fathers, including Alexander Hamilton, who wrote in Federal No. 74 that: “Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand.”
The Founders knew that war cannot be run by a committee of pointless lemmings whom everyone hates. The public knows it. Everybody but the failed Congress knows it.
Congress has two roles in war, one of which is obsolete. When requested by a president, it can declare a state of war. This has not been done since 1941, and hasn’t been truly relevant since the 19th century. President George Washington didn’t bother with a congressional permission slip to order military action during the Whiskey Rebellion. President Harry Truman didn’t bother in 1950 when communists started the Korean War. Congress’s other role is to appropriate funds, which they will do and like it.
Democrats should shut up and root for our men and women in uniform. There should be no doubt that today’s woke Democrats are unfit to govern. Iran grew dramatically stronger under Barack Obama and dotard Joe Biden. Democrat presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, and John Kennedy would be ashamed of today’s Democrats.
Trump should use Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution to prorogue Congress. It allows him to do so if the houses disagree on adjournment. The Senate has brought exactly such a situation about with its use of “pro forma” sessions to never recess in order to deny the President his constitutional power to make recess appointments. If Congress is going to do nothing—something the Senate uniparty has ensured with its love of the unconstitutional filibuster—it should be sent home until after elections.
Europe is Also Useless
Referencing the Oompa Loompas who govern Europe for a little while longer, The New York Post headline said it all: “Leaders Call for More Talks.”
Have at it “leaders”!
More enjoyable news came from the lesser paper of New Yorkistan. Providing “analysis” (i.e., not news) from Gay Paree, the capital of America’s only permanent enemy, a New York Times writer opined that “…America’s [European] allies are discovering, to their chagrin, that it’s Mr. Trump’s world and they’re just living in it.” This will come as a surprise to White House staff and U.S. diplomats who arrange foreign leader visits with the President at perhaps the highest frequency in U.S. history.
Also in that story, the prick former British ambassador (but I repeat myself), said: “I don’t suppose it ever crossed [Trump’s] mind that he should consult the Europeans. It shows that America First mainly means America Alone.”
Yes, “mainly,” especially if one is a former employee of a British government that would have to improve its performance significantly just to be useless to America. Britain’s outgoing prime minister opened European commentary on the war in its early hours by assuring the public that Britain was not involved. Britain has refused U.S. access to our bases for the purpose of taking the fight to Iran, including the Indian Ocean base of Diego Garcia, which Trump should annex to the United States.
The British government can then focus on what it does best, such as pleasing Muslim extremists by extolling the virtues of marrying one’s first cousin, stopping legislation to prevent cousin marriage, and censoring American companies and those with normal views.
Turning to those other Europeans, the U.K. Karens of the southern hemisphere in Australia, Penny Wong, the foreign minister, stressed that Australia “didn’t participate in these strikes and… wouldn’t anticipate participating in the future.”
Penny Wong is wong, but doing nothing is their prerogative. Why not also go back to masking up and closing down for another three-year stretch? We can hopefully start to drop the pretense that Karen-run Australia is relevant to U.S. security.
In Conclusion
War is always a gamble, no matter how well one is prepared. But Trump—effectively our first third-term president since Roosevelt—has more experience and wisdom with the application of force than any modern president except Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. He is ushering in a new world that is better for everyone and safer for America.
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Your description of Pete Hegseth as a “Secretary of War with delusions of adequacy” is misguided. It betrays your bias in favor of the Inside the Beltway mindset. Hegseth brings a very different and refreshing perspective to the job that has been lacking for the past several decades.