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Last Saturday, Israel’s operation to eliminate the existential threat of a nuclear armed, genocidal regime reached a spectacular culmination with President Trump’s massive strike against three of Iran’s most important nuclear weapons facilities. The strikes settled the debate over whether Trump would, or should continue to pursue a diplomatic resolution to 46 years of the mullahs’ aggression and the West’s serial appeasement. Trump settled the debate with powerful, decisive action of a sort that our country has avoided for nearly five decades of “diplomatic engagement” and “preemptive cringing” that rationalized our failure of nerve.

But the existential danger of the Iranian theocrats’ nuclear ambitions has never been in question. That didn’t matter to a few Republican “no foreign entanglements” and “endless neocon wars” Congressmen and advisors, who have rejected the existence of the threat, mainly by saying Iran is not capable of, nor interested in possessing nuclear weapons. But that claim has been preposterously false. Just recently, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported, “Iran carried out multiple implosion tests, a key military skill necessary for developing the atomic bomb. Implosion tests do not have civilian nuclear uses.”

Additionally, according to The Straits Times, “At least until Israel’s attacks, Iran was enriching uranium up to 69 percent purity and had enough material at that level for nine weapons if enriched further, according to the IAEA yardstick. That means Iran’s so-called ‘breakout time’––the time it would need to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb––was close to zero, likely a matter of days or little more than a week, analysts say.”

Another argument from some Republicans of an isolationist bent deployed the neocon strawman of “forever wars” that do not directly serve our national interests and security, are poorly managed, and needlessly cost American lives and resources. But the conflicts these critics have in mind––the Afghanistan War, the second Gulf War against Iraq, the Russo-Ukrainian War, and the Obama-Clinton NATO adventurism in Libya––are false analogies with Israel’s campaign to eliminate the threat of an apocalyptic, messianic genocidal regime that is the world’s most lethal state sponsor of terrorism, now on the brink of possessing nuclear weapons.

The fact is, large scale military operations deploying thousands of troops and a lengthy occupation are not needed to end Iran’s nuclear threat––Trump’s strike took a few days. Most of the other preparatory work has already been done by the Israelis over the last few years. What was needed to finish the job was materiel only the U.S. has––the 30,000-pound, precision-guided bombs, and the B2’s to deliver them––capable of penetrating Iran’s underground, hardened nuclear production facilities.

As for Iran retaliating against our forces deployed around the region, we already have the assets in situ to handle any attacks, particularly because Israel has already degraded much of Iran’s offensive firepower. And don’t forget the bad habit of appeasers to exaggerate the enemies’ prowess, as France and England did in 1938, when they allowed Adolf Hitler to bluff them into World War II. Remember, too, the apocalypse the foreign policy mavens predicted would follow Donald Trump’s first-term moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the Republican Guards honcho? All we got in response was a fireworks show of cruise missiles in Iraq.

Yes, going forward we must stay vigilant and proactive at ferreting out the terrorists Iran most certainly has planted in this country during Joe Biden’s open-door policy on our borders, which allowed unvetted operatives into the country. Abroad, our military bases, especially in the Middle East, need to be given more antimissile weapons and intelligence gathering assets.

Next, the “rules-based international order” cultists of magical “diplomatic engagement,” have also been, and no doubt will keep on sounding the alarms against Trump’s operation against Iran. Yet these strikes are the best thing for our deterrence powers that in turn give our diplomacy credibility. As Secretary of State George Shultz once remarked, “Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.” The last decade of feckless diplomacy and retreat proves the truth of Shultz’s observation–– and the efficacy of Donald Trump’s masterful diplomatic misdirection, and its credibility dramatically empowered by overwhelming force.

Yet despite that astonishing success, don’t expect the foreign policy establishment to learn the lesson.  A few days before the strikes, the Dems’ favorite news-reader, the New York Times, wrote, “If [the president] decides to go ahead, the United States will become a direct participant in a new conflict in the Middle East, taking on Iran in exactly the kind of war Mr. Trump has sworn, in two campaigns, he would avoid. Iranian officials have already warned that U.S. participation in an attack on its facilities will imperil any remaining chance of the nuclear disarmament deal that Mr. Trump insists he is still interested in pursuing.”

The phrase “exactly the kind of war Mr. Trump has sworn” to avoid is a big fat begged question. As we’ve just seen, that sort of war was not necessary for ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which was Trump’s prime reason for getting involved. More important, the “kind of war” that many Americans oppose comprises conflicts that don’t clearly advance our national interests and security, but rather take on idealistic Wilsonian nation-building projects to remake countries with radically different political orders, cultural norms, religious beliefs, and social mores into replicas of Western nations.

And the warning that Trump will “imperil any remaining chance of the nuclear disarmament deal” bespeaks the reflexive fetishizing of “diplomatic engagement” ––the most feckless being Obama’s “Iran nuclear deal” ––which after 10 years of abject failure has finally collapsed along with Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Finally, for 46 years, the mullahs have bathed their hands in American blood at little or no cost, which had convinced the regime that we are a power in decline, a people who live for the pleasures of today, spiritually bankrupt and hedonistic. Moreover, our foreign policy of wishful thinking and magical diplomacy have serially confirmed and strengthened that judgement. And don’t forget, Obama’s “Iran nuclear deal,” did not aim to keep nukes out of regime’s hands, and instead was a boon for the mullahs. For a decade, they have received billions in funds from the U.S., which they used to keep spinning their centrifuges, manufacturing missiles, funding their jihadist adventurism throughout the region, and financing proxy forces to attack our interests in the region.

We couldn’t afford to continue this theater of diplomacy, in which Iran has lied and cheated with impunity, inciting their arrogant contempt. The result has been a Munich-class appeasement that took Iran to the brink of fulfilling its dream of a second Holocaust of the Jews, and possibly nuclear devastation for America. Donald Trump understood this threat. The only sane option was to destroy the nuclear facilities that, to our shame, we financed, thanks to the Obama and Biden administrations.

President Trump put an end to this lethal charade. Instead of indulging empty threats and finger-wagging scolding, he drew a red line, written with indelible ink, that Iran must not cross, and gave the mullahs several opportunities to comply, only to be meet with arrogant contempt. So, he enforced it with a massive display of American power and a willingness to help our friends and punish our enemies––the key to sustaining our deterrent power and global leadership.

Donald Trump has torn off the “kick me” sign that the globalist, “rules based international order” has for decades pinned on our back. For that alone, our country and its allies owe Donald Trump, and Israel, our thanks.