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The critics of Operation Epic Fury condemn President Trump for launching “a war of choice.” But it was the only choice, in fact, that would prevent the Iranian regime from finalizing its enrichment of enough uranium to build at least ten nuclear bombs – uranium which its own negotiators admitted that it possessed.

Leon Panetta, former Defense Secretary and Director of the CIA during the Obama administration, complained that the joint U.S.-Israeli military action did not bring down the Iranian regime right away and predicted that “we are in another endless war in the Middle East.” To Leon Panetta and Operation Epic Fury’s other impatient critics, a war that has so far lasted only several weeks has the makings of an “endless war.”

But even Mr. Panetta conceded that intelligence had shown prior to the June 2025 bombing of three of Iran’s nuclear facilities that the Iranian regime was “within a few weeks… of being able to put a nuclear weapon together.” Mr. Panetta agreed that this rapid-fire bombing campaign, Operation Midnight Hammer, “did set them back.”

However, beneath the rubble underground it is estimated that there remains about 900 pounds of up to 60 percent enriched uranium, a short step from being further enriched to a level that could produce nuclear bombs. The job of preventing the world’s number one sponsor of terrorism from ever having a nuclear weapon to wield like the sword of Damocles, something which President Trump has long vowed he would not allow, was not yet completed.

Negotiations with the Iranian regime led by President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and real estate developer Steve Witkoff, who had successfully negotiated a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the remaining hostages from there, did not achieve the president’s objective. President Trump wisely decided to use military force to compel the Iranian regime to end its uranium enrichment program and to have the regime’s existing enriched uranium stockpile removed from Iran.

Yes, remnants of the Islamist Iranian dictatorship remain in place. It is ridiculous to expect an entrenched maniacal regime, which has proven its willingness to massacre tens of thousands of its own unarmed citizens who were peacefully protesting their horrid living conditions, to topple overnight. However, contrary to Mr. Panetta’s absurd claim that “we have a regime that’s stronger than what it was,” the regime’s military capacity and infrastructure have been largely destroyed. The regime’s communications systems have met the same fate. And top tiers of the regime’s leadership, including of the fanatical Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s brutal Police Command (known as Basij), have been eliminated.

While former presidents of both parties have repeatedly vowed that Iran must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, none of them had the courage to fulfill that vow. The Obama administration’s loophole-ridden 2015 nuclear deal with Iran only kicked the can down the road, confronting a future president with the potential reality of a nuclear-armed Iran.

President Trump decided that the buck had to finally stop with him. He calculated that the only way to truly have a chance of ridding the world of this existential threat was to force the fanatical leaders of Iran to submit to America’s will or risk their very survival.

Former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, the lead negotiator of the Obama administration’s disastrous nuclear deal with Iran, is openly criticizing President Trump’s negotiating strategy of maximum leverage backed up by military force. She and her fellow appeasers do not understand the stark truth of what the great military theorist Carl von Clausewitz wrote nearly two centuries ago: “War is the continuation of policy with other means.” Along with intense economic pressure, the use of military force against a recalcitrant enemy is sometimes necessary to advance an acceptable diplomatic resolution forward.

Ms. Sherman called President Trump’s choice of Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to lead the initial negotiations with the Iranian regime before the launch of Operation Epic Fury “the B team.” Ms. Sherman said that “neither man holds any particular expertise on Iran (or a real government position).”

Wendy Sherman and the deep state diplomatic corps she represents have had a poor record to show for their efforts. Here is a brief review of how Ms. Sherman helped lead two F teams in the nuclear negotiations with both the North Korean and Iranian regimes.

In 1994, during the Clinton administration, Wendy Sherman played an instrumental role in pushing forward an agreement with North Korea that would commit the Communist regime to freeze and subsequently dismantle its nuclear program. The parties entered an “Agreed Framework” in October 1994. Ms. Sherman’s F team gave away the store to Kim Jong-il, the father of North Korea’s current dictator Kim Jong-un, without establishing an ironclad anytime-anywhere inspection mechanism to verify North Korea’s full compliance with the Agreed Framework’s terms. As a result, the North Korea regime moved inexorably toward its goal of  achieving a nuclear weapons capability. Within six years, during the tail end of the Clinton administration, the CIA determined that North Korea had processed enough plutonium for at least one nuclear weapon, perhaps two. By April 2003, a North Korean official was boasting that North Korea already had nuclear weapons. In October 2006, North Korea conducted its first nuclear weapons test.

President Clinton should have taken out North Korea’s nuclear facilities when he had a chance.

Wendy Sherman managed to fail upwards to become the Obama State Department’s No. 3 official and its lead negotiator with the Iranian regime to reach a nuclear deal, which culminated in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Her boss, John Kerry, was heavily involved in the negotiations as well. Another F team, as it turned out.

The JCPOA worked well for the Iranian regime, allowing it to buy time while reaping the benefits of sanctions relief and cash infusions upfront in return for temporary loophole-ridden “commitments.“ At best, all this fundamentally flawed deal did was to create a pathway for Iran’s eventual attainment of nuclear weapons after the sunset provisions expired. And prohibiting the development and production of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons was not included as part of the JCPOA’s mandatory provisions. One of the elements of the Iranian regime’s ongoing research work involved the technology for integrating nuclear warheads on nose cones of ballistic missiles. Wendy Sherman’s F team of appeasers effectively gave the Iranian regime a green light to work on developing ballistic missile technology, including the perfection of technology to integrate nuclear warheads on missiles.

Iran claimed that it had the absolute right to deny access by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to any of its military sites, even where suspected nuclear-related activity may have been taking place. The IAEA backed off asking to inspect such sites in the face of implacable Iranian resistance.

President Trump had wisely withdrawn the United States from the disastrous JCPOA during his first term and applied maximum economic pressure on the Iranian regime that significantly depleted its resources. During Joe Biden’s presidency, however, appeasement of the Iranian regime made a comeback. Once again, Wendy Sherman failed upwards to become the deputy secretary of state in the Biden administration.

Sleepy Joe repeatedly ordered the suspension of Iran sanctions and allowed the regime to access more than $15 billion in frozen assets, all in an effort to restore the failed JCPOA. Once again, appeasement turned out to be a spectacular failure. Iran began enriching its uranium to 60 percent in April 2021 during the Biden administration. The regime also marched ahead with its ballistic missile and drone programs.

When President Trump returned to office in 2025, he was faced with an Iranian regime that possessed enough highly enriched uranium to quickly enhance to a nuclear weapons-grade level. It also possessed thousands of drones and ballistic missiles that it could use to overwhelm American, Israeli, and Gulf nation defenses against an Iranian counterattack if the U.S. and/or Israel chose to strike its nuclear facilities. The June 2025 12-day war, during which Iran suffered major blows to its nuclear facilities and ballistic missile arsenal, was not enough to convince the regime to give up its obsessive nuclear weapons ambition.

So, after negotiations failed to achieve President Trump’s objective of eliminating Iran’s nuclear threat, the president pulled the trigger. A continuing U.S. navy blockade of any vessels traveling to or from Iranian ports has been layered on top of the temporarily paused intense bombing campaign. In addition to the Iranian regime’s devastating losses to its military assets, production facilities, communications systems, and top leadership, the Iranian economy is in a chokehold. But so far, the fanatical Islamist regime still refuses to give up its nuclear weaponization program and has reinstituted its own closure of the Strait of Hormuz in violation of President Trump’s conditions for agreeing to the ceasefire.

Whatever struggles for power are now taking place inside Iran, it appears that the hardline IRGC is in control for now. IRGC control would make a successful outcome of further negotiations from President Trump’s perspective that much harder to achieve. Even so, as of the writing of this article, Vice President Vance, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner were reported to be going to Pakistan to give it a try. But all bets are off if those who are calling the shots in Iran do not agree to President Trump’s key demands. That means abandoning its nuclear enrichment activities, having its current stockpiles of highly enriched uranium removed from the country, accepting an airtight, independent verification and inspection mechanism, and no interference with freedom of passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it,” President Trump posted on April 19th. Otherwise, “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!…if they don’t take the DEAL, it will be my Honor to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other Presidents, for the last 47 years.” Dual use infrastructure and facilities such as Iran’s bridges used to transport military equipment and personnel, and power plants used to support Iran’s military-industrial complex, are legitimate military targets under international law.

By now, the Iranian regime should have learned that President Trump means business and intends to stick to his guns literally until he is satisfied that he has eliminated Iran’s nuclear threat.