President Trump’s Iran promise
Benjamin Franklin, in 1740, wisely advised, “Promises may get thee friends, but non-performance will turn them into enemies.”
President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” promise will go down in history as one of the most effective political slogans. As enthusiastic supporters, we proudly wore the red MAGA hats that were the icon of his successful 2016 and 2024 campaigns.
Right along with “Happy days are here again” and “I like Ike,” MAGA has earned high honors in the pantheon of transformative campaign themes. But unlike Franklin Roosevelt’s sunny declaration distancing America from a gritty past and Dwight Eisenhower’s supporter’s avuncular affection, Trump’s slogan proffers an aspirational vision for America’s return –again– to sovereign safety and greatness. However, we are optimistic but will have to wait to see if DJT’s performance fulfills the MAGA promise.
President Donald Trump’s many campaign commitments ranged from lower egg prices to fairer tariffs to secure borders. But the centerpiece of Trump’s vision was an overarching rebound to American greatness. In his first one-hundred days, many of his commitments are underway to be met. But this “greatness” promise will only occur if he successfully navigates the good ship America across what are very roiled geopolitical seas.
His legacy will be judged on how he handles adversaries like Russia’s Putin, China’s Xi, and Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He does not want surrenders, like Vietnam or Afghanistan, to stain his presidency. He certainly doesn’t want to be the president on whose watch Iran acquired nuclear weapons capability. He wants American “winning” to be his legacy.
Many experts see Donald Trump’s challenge to eliminate the Iranian nuclear weapons program as his second term’s main event. Yes, Ukraine versus Russia is a gnarly problem but it would seem to be a conventionally fought bout on the undercard. With China versus America, it is more a battle of equals with mutually assured economic or kinetic destruction likely to force détente.
The looming negotiations and possible conflict with Tehran are asymmetric with America’s far more powerful military and greater economic clout. America can shape the outcome with her overwhelming firepower, albeit its usage places soldiers in harm’s way and it is fraught with unintended ramifications. America should not allow Iran’s rogue behaviors and PR bravado to mask the fact that they are a far weaker opponent.
President Trump faces an Iran led by fanatical believers in apocalyptic Twelver Shia religious dogma. Iran is capable of clever brinksmanship and obsessively driven to achieve their stated goal to destroy both America and Israel. Iran is also part of a malign axis with China, Russia and North Korea. Iran is like the crazy guy in the subway with a machete.
Let’s also not forget that Americans have for some time bled at the hands of Iran. The Military Times reported, “The Pentagon is upping the official estimate on the number of U.S. troops in Iraq who were killed by Iranian-backed militias, now putting that number at least 603.” Consider the heightened peril from a network of Iranian terror proxies emboldened by a nuclear armed puppet master.
But President Trump has only two rational choices. He can either support or participate directly with ally Israel to demolish the Iranian nuclear weapons infrastructure. Israel has set the table by wrecking Iran’s air defenses, and American power can be deployed. He could also conclude tough, uncompromising negotiations forcing Tehran, like the Libyan model, to entirely dismantle their many nuclear sites. If America settles for halfway measures with Iran retaining many of their centrifuges, weaponization assets, ballistic missile factories, and any significant portion of enriched uranium, a disaster for the world waits on the horizon.
President Trump’s own words when he dressed down Ukraine President Zelensky regarding peace negotiations were, “You don’t have the cards.” Iran, too, is in a weak position and Trump must know that to be bluffed with his “lock hand” would be humiliating on a grand scale.
President Trump has had a lifetime of success with his “art of the deal” tactics. It reflects his agility, charisma and sheer personal energy. He can duck and weave with the best of them. He has, to date, bettered business or political peers. Now is time for President Trump to stand strong against a nascent nuclear Iran and not to go wobbly like British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s advised former President George Bush.
The stakes are high with Iran at the eleventh hour of their decades-long quest for weapons that can fulfill their religiously fueled “death to America and Israel” objectives. President Trump cannot allow his visionary proclamations to be deemed just hollow bluster. His constituency will recognize that if he opts for an Obama 2.0 Iran nuclear deal that leaves Iran with the tools to eventually craft warheads and delivery systems, he has failed. Other presidents have kicked this nuclear can down the road and contrasting Trump’s resolve to Kamala Harris’s is now irrelevant. Now is the time for President Trump to act.
His New York City skyline, unique branding, and entertainment viewership will just be history’s ironic footnotes if he is conned by the Iranians. He cannot allow his old friend and real estate dealmaker Steve Witkoff, now the envoy to Iran and America’s lead negotiator, to be snookered in a high-tech Iranian bazaar. Already we see Tehran’s machinations protracting any outcome and maneuvering America towards convenient capitulation.
America cannot really be GREAT AGAIN if Iran’s nuclear threat is not eliminated. Will Trump be remembered as a courageous and decisive Churchillian president facing down today’s pure evil or will he be a Neville Chamberlain capitulating to his generation’s menace?
If President Trump allows his countrymen, allies and the Western World to be imperiled by an Iranian nuclear sword of Damocles, he will justifiably earn the “loser” epithet that he has bestowed on others
