President Donald Trump announced on X Monday that he is pausing attacks on Iran’s power plants and energy infrastructure as they are in the middle of the first encouraging discussions with Iran that could bring an end to the current war.
“I AM PLEASE TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST.”
At the same time, the U.S. is sending additional troops to the region, including reports that the 82nd Airborne Infantry Division is expected to be part of that deployment. That adds to the thousands of Marines heading to the region, as Trump turned a 48-hour ultimatum before striking Iran’s energy infrastructure into a five-day pause to give talks a chance to move toward resolution.
“I think we’re going to end it. I can’t tell you for sure. You know, I don’t like to say this, this war has been won. The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news,” Trump said in the Oval Office Tuesday after the swearing in of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
Friday night, Trump sent out a message on Truth Social that the U.S. role in the conflict is coming to an end. He said Europe should tend to the Strait of Hormuz, but if asked, the U.S. would help. Over the weekend, 20 nations signed a statement committing to a “readiness to contribute” to the effort of opening up the Strait of Hormuz despite Iran’s threats to ships that intend to move through the passageway.
That same weekend, Iran demonstrated that they have intermediate-range ballistic missiles that can reach Diego Garcia, the island in the Pacific where the U.S. and United Kingdom share a military base. That also showed how vulnerable many of the capital cities of Europe are, with or without nuclear weapons. And it also showed once again, not to trust anything Iran tells you.
What was the reason for the timing of Operation Epic Fury, the joint attack by Israel and the U.S. on Iran, now almost four weeks old? Was it an imminent threat by Iran to attack the U.S. and/or Israel? Was it that they were days or weeks away from finally being able to build nuclear weapons married to ICBMs that could carry them to the U.S. and Europe?
Was it to end the 47-year war started when Iran was hijacked by a brutal and theocratic revolution? Was it that Israel was about to attack Iran, so instead of the U.S. being hit in the aftermath of Israel’s attack, Trump decided that the U.S. should go ahead and strike first? Or was it that this was Israel’s war of choice that they somehow dragged Donald Trump into agreeing to take part?
Had Iran proceeded to resume their quest for nuclear weapons, along with their buildup of ballistic missiles, following last June’s Operation Midnight Hammer that in the words of President Trump, “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear weapons program?
Putting aside the various and sometimes contradictory statements coming from Trump – who, as the saying goes, his opponents take literally while his supporters take him seriously – how about a little of “all of the above,” or much of the above, but in reality, this is a war that should have been handled more than 40 years ago.
In fact, one of the founding members of the Citizens Commission on National Security was involved in preparing plans to remove the Iranian regime decades ago. Admiral James “Ace” Lyons held many high-level positions, including during the Reagan administration, when he served as the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations from 1983 to 1985, and he was principal advisor on all Joint Chiefs of Staff matters. He also served as Senior U.S. Military Representative to the United Nations, and as Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, with over 250,000 sailors and marines under his command.
Following the suicide bombings by the Iranian regime and its proxies at the Marine barracks and the U.S. Embassy in 1983, Ace was called by CIA Director William Casey and asked to draw up plans to take out the regime. Ace drew up the plans and always regretted not having gotten the green light to carry out his plan, blaming then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger for stopping him.
Here was Ace talking about that at a rally in Times Square, midtown Manhattan, where many of us had gathered to try to defeat Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, the JCPOA.
Many Democrat senators and their media allies are saying now that the JCPOA had put a stop to Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. If only Trump hadn’t pulled us out of it during his first term. But that is a lie.
As I wrote at the time, the JCPOA was a “catastrophic hoax,” and here is why. The two sides could not reach an agreement on terms that they could both take to their country for approval. In July 2015, they got up from the table and claimed they had a deal. But it was only months later, after prodding by then Rep. Mike Pompeo of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that the Obama administration was forced to admit the truth.
In this November 19, 2015 letter from Julia Frifield, Assistant Secretary of Legislative Affairs of the State Department, she said the following: “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document. It reflects political commitments…” and “its success will not depend on whether it is legally binding or signed, but rather on the extensive verification measures we have put in place…”
And remember what those verification measures included. If the U.S. suspected something and wanted to inspect, they had to give 21-days’ notice to the Iranians. What could go wrong? And all military bases were off limits, even with 21-days’ notice. In other words, trust, but you can’t verify.
After forcing this admission out of the Obama administration, Pompeo put out this press release, in which he said the following:
“For the State Department to try to defend the unsigned and non-binding Iran nuclear agreement by calling it a ‘political commitment’ is about as absurd as the terms of the deal itself,” said Pompeo.
“Instead of forging an agreement with Iran that will protect Americans and prevent the world’s largest state sponsor of terror from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the Obama administration caved to Iranian bullies and serial nuclear cheaters. Unsigned, this agreement is nothing more than a press release and just about as enforceable. Further, it fails to address to whom Americans should look to uphold this agreement once the Ayatollah dies, or to whom the Iranians must turn once President Obama passes from the stage. Placing our trust in the ability of these nuclear weapon-driven, radical extremists will not ease tensions, but will only get Americans killed.”
That is the deal that Trump pulled us out of, for which Iran was enriched by at least $56 billion in terms of sanctions relief in the first year, not to mention the pallets of cash totaling close to another $2 billion in cash. It is also the deal that President Joe Biden begged to get back in. In the process, he stopped enforcing sanctions on Iran’s ability to sell its oil, enriching the country by an estimated $100 billion dollars. That in turn was used to sponsor Iran’s seven-front war, mainly against Israel and the U.S., whether ships fired on by the Houthis in Yemen, or by drone attacks straight out of Iran.
That seven-front war includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, who fired first on Israel after Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran on February 28 of this year. It also includes the Houthis in Yemen, which has frequently fired on ships in the region. It includes of course Hamas, and its outrageous terrorist attack in Israel on October 7, 2023. It also includes proxies that operate in the West Bank, Syria and Iraq, as well as Iran itself.
The historian, Victor Davis Hanson, took on the media’s complaint that there was no “imminent attack,” nuclear or otherwise, coming from Iran.
Hanson said Thursday night on Fox News, “And when people say, well, we didn’t have an imminent threat. We didn’t have an imminent threat when they took our hostages.” [He is, of course, referring to the 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days, supposedly protesting the fact that the U.S. had allowed the deposed Shah of Iran into the U.S. for medical treatment]
“When they blew up our barracks,” Hanson continued. “Nobody said we better attack Iran because we need an imminent threat when they blew up our embassy. They always acted spontaneously with surprises. And we never knew what they were going to do. So the idea you have to have a telegraphed imminent threat, it’s not the nature of that regime. It’s lying, disguise, and dissimulation, and that’s their pattern for the last 47 years.”
Here is a timeline of more than three dozen Iranian acts of terrorism or war against the U.S. over the nearly half century of terrorism, war and chaos, most recently, in January, killing more than 30,000 of its own citizens who rose up in protest of the horrible conditions Iran’s people are forced to live under. Add to that the conviction this month by a jury in Brooklyn, New York, of a man, sent by Iran, who planned to assassinate the president of the United States.
The bottom line is that no one really knows how this will turn out, except that it almost certainly won’t be a 10-year, five-year or even one-year battle with a major troop commitment by the U.S. Whether it turns out that the U.S. and Israel declare victory and leave, or cut a deal with someone from the ever-decreasing in size Iranian government, at least this round of the decades long war will almost certainly end before summer.
The remnants of the theocracy, backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) could survive in some form. Let’s hope not. The other sure thing is that there won’t be a major footprint of American troops in Iran. The end result, I believe, will be a defeated, declawed, evil regime that is finally facing a measure of justice.
As Trump pointed out Tuesday, we have already seen this result in regime change. The hope is that the regime change is complete, and not just the specific leaders who have perished, and that Iran becomes a thriving democracy in a stable and prosperous new Middle East.
As of Wednesday morning, Iran has reportedly rejected President Trump’s 15-point plan and delivered some demands of its own.
The views expressed in CCNS member articles are not necessarily the views or positions of the entire CCNS. They are the views of the authors, who are members of the CCNS.
