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OPINION:
The uranium enrichment plant at Fordow was known as the jewel in the crown of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. It would have been more accurate to call it the dagger in the ayatollah’s cloak, or maybe the bomb in the terrorist’s backpack.
It was one ingredient in a decades-old strategic cocktail: Cook up terrorist proxies to kill and die for you and your goals, place them in a “ring of fire” around Israel, obtain a nuclear weapons capability, stir or shake vigorously.
All this and more grew out of the 1979 revolution in Iran. Its objective was not to make Iran great again but to restore Islamic power and preeminence in the Middle East and far beyond.
For more than 1,000 years, Islamic caliphates dominated much of the world. The last of them was based in Istanbul, once called Constantinople. It was a great Christian capital until 1453, when Sultan Mehmed II, leading an Ottoman army, conquered it.
Centuries later, the Ottoman Empire and Caliphate chose the wrong side in World War I. By 1922, it had all collapsed.
From the ashes arose Turkey, a nation-state straddling the West and the Middle East. For more than 20 years, Turkey has been ruled by Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Once seen as moderate and pro-Western, he is today neo-Ottoman and Islamist.
Six years after the fall of the Ottomans, Hassan al-Banna, an Egyptian scholar, founded the Muslim Brotherhood. Its mission: to reestablish a new and mightier caliphate.
As a young man, Mr. Khamenei studied the Muslim Brotherhood. He even translated the writings of Sayyid Qutb, a leading thinker of the Egyptian branch and an advocate of revolution and jihad against the West.
Enough history. Let’s talk about the fast-moving events right now.
Last week, President Trump demonstrated vision and courage. It has been said that he deceived Mr. Khamenei by telling the truth, the last thing the 86-year-old jihadi expected.
Mr. Trump gave him 60 days to agree to a diplomatic solution. On the 61st day, Israel began striking military targets in Iran.
As expected, missiles were soon fired and drones launched from Iran at military and civilian targets in Israel. The Israelis knew this was the price they would have to pay.
Israel’s advanced air defense systems, augmented by significant American support, prevented most, but by no means all, Iranian drones and ballistic missiles from reaching their intended victims.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump said he would decide “within two weeks whether to go or not to go.” On Saturday, he went.
He used B-2 stealth bombers to drop Massive Ordnance Penetrators on Fordow.
Only the U.S. has such sophisticated planes and the 30,000-pound steel-encased MOPs, which dig deep into the ground before exploding.
Why did Mr. Trump make this tough and fateful decision, which many people predicted he wouldn’t because TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out)?
As far back as his first administration, Mr. Trump recognized the danger in letting the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism — a regime that for 46 years has vowed “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” — acquire the world’s most destructive weapons.
Other presidents vowed that Iran’s rulers would not be permitted to have nuclear weapons, but other presidents took no serious steps to stop them.
Indeed, President Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action gave the mullahs a smooth path to the doors of the nuclear weapons club. The deal left a vast nuclear infrastructure in place and imposed only temporary restrictions, most of which would lift over time.
One of the JCPOA’s “sunset clauses,” set to soon expire, would have allowed Iran to use advanced centrifuges capable of enriching uranium to weapons grade in a matter of weeks. The regime would even have been permitted to continue developing nuclear warheads and delivery systems.
Of course, coherent arguments were made against Mr. Trump going kinetic. For example, it is plausible that agents of Tehran entered the U.S. during the Biden open-border years and have set up sleeper cells that are preparing to carry out terrorist attacks.
It was also possible that the MOPs would fail to function as designed. Though, wouldn’t we want to know that?
Although the B-2s had little chance of being shot down — they’re not called stealth bombers for nothing, and the Israelis destroyed most if not all of Tehran’s air defenses — wars are always uncertain.
Against these arguments, Mr. Trump may have contemplated the risks of inaction. What would be required, over the decades ahead, to contain a nuclear-armed regime committed to jihad and increasingly allied with the anti-American dictators in Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang?
Viewed in this light, defanging Mr. Khamenei is unmistakably an “America First” and Make America Great Again policy.
Had Mr. Trump decided not to act, I’m convinced the Israelis had a plan to at least degrade Fordow. Such a plan would likely have been high risk, and it probably wouldn’t have set back Tehran’s nuclear program for very long.
On Monday night, Mr. Trump announced a ceasefire. Maybe it will hold, maybe not. Even if it does, expect Mr. Khamenei to attempt to — you should excuse the expression — build back better.
If so, the U.S. and Israel have the means to bomb back better. Their leaders have demonstrated that they also have the will.
It is useful, from time to time, to remind one’s enemies of that.
• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a columnist for The Washington Times and host of the “Foreign Podicy” podcast.
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