OPINION:
President Trump is at a crossroads with Iran.
When he was reelected in November 2024, the president made clear that he would not tolerate Iran’s nuclear weapons program. During his campaign, Mr. Trump insisted that Iran’s hegemonic behavior in sponsoring terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis must cease. Hezbollah’s demise occurred in the months before Mr. Trump’s administration took office.
In 2025, when Iran launched missile and drone assaults on Israel in an effort to support Hamas, Mr. Trump used U.S. forces to assist the Israelis in neutralizing the Iranian attack. He employed U.S. naval forces to punish Yemen’s Houthi terrorist regime when they too attacked Israel with missiles while harassing international shipping in the Red Sea.
If it wasn’t already clear to Mr. Trump a year ago that Iran’s nuclear threat had to be dealt with, then subsequent U.S. and Israeli intelligence revelations that Tehran’s terrorist mullahs were very close to achieving weapons-grade uranium removed all doubt. In a bold move in June, the president ordered Operation Midnight Hammer, a flawless attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and related military targets and an operation aided by Israel’s support in destroying Iranian air defenses.
In the weeks afterward, Iran appeared to be reeling. Its terrorist proxies had been significantly weakened as Tehran was compelled by Israeli battlefield successes to withdraw support. In rapid succession, its terrorist operations, air defenses and nuclear program were left in shambles. Many wondered aloud whether the end of the regime was at hand.
They are wondering even more loudly today.
The U.S.-Israel collaboration against Iran this summer, coupled with long-standing economic sanctions, has crushed the Iranian economy, with the inflation rate rising to an astonishing 49%. Widespread protests and strikes by merchants in Iran’s Bazari class erupted in December.
The Bazaris represent a significant part of the country’s social and economic fabric, including small businesses firmly rooted in the Islamic culture of the bazaar. They played an essential role in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Known for their traditionalist attitude, including family and cultural ties with the Shiite ulama, Iran’s religious leaders, the Bazaris are fundamental to the regime’s support base. That has eroded as Iran’s situation has deteriorated.
The recent protests in Iran have been met with brutal repression by the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. These thugs are mowing down protesters, including ordinary citizens, at the behest of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. To date, more than 6,800 Iranians have been killed and more than 42,000 arrested.
Iran has now declared that it will rebuild its nuclear capabilities, as evidenced by recent U.S. intelligence.
Mr. Trump faces a significant decision.
In his campaign for reelection, candidate Trump made clear his desire to resist U.S. involvement in foreign military interventions, but on entering office a year ago, he was confronted with reality. America couldn’t stand idly by as Iran continued to destabilize the Middle East while engaging in nuclear proliferation, a direct threat to the civilized world.
Indeed, in the year since then, Iran’s dictatorial regime has never been in more peril because of U.S. action. A simple push could finish it off. Mr. Trump is signaling that unless Iran relinquishes its nuclear program and ends the slaughter of its people in the streets, the U.S. will provide that final shove. It needs to happen.
In 2009, during the populist Green Revolution in Iran, President Obama did nothing. Seventeen years later, this abject failure must not be repeated.
However, if Mr. Trump acts militarily, he will be seen as doing that which he pledged not to do: specifically, engage America in a broader conflict encompassing regime change in Iran. The so-called noninterventionists will howl. Nonetheless, this time, America must act.
First, beyond renewing attacks on any effort to rebuild its nuclear program, Iran’s ballistic missile development must also be upended, including production capabilities and delivery systems. Second, a comprehensive effort must be made to decapitate the IRGC across the entire nation. No outpost should be spared.
Third and most important, America must make clear that it desires only to assist Iran, not to occupy it. The U.S. intervention in Venezuela exemplifies a nation placed on a path of liberation without occupation.
In shaping peace in the world, it is often the case that how you do a thing is more consequential than the thing you do. That’s true in this situation. Ending Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear capabilities must be precise and certain. Liberating Iran does not require a long-term U.S. occupation, as witnessed in Afghanistan and Iraq during years of counterinsurgency operations.
It does require surgical strikes to destroy Iran’s threats and tormentors. In destroying these bad actors, America must send a clear message that its goal is Iranian liberation, not intervention.
• L. Scott Lingamfelter is a retired U.S. Army colonel and combat veteran (1973-2001) and former member of the Virginia House of Delegates (2002-2018). He is the author of “Desert Redleg: Artillery Warfare in the First Gulf War” (University Press of Kentucky, 2020) and “Yanks in Blue Berets: American UN Peacekeepers in the Middle East” (UPK, 2023). He is authoring a new book on the future of warfare.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.