The Locked-In Presidency: Debunking 5 Myths About the Iran Strike

Don't fall for the myths that Iran is "dividing MAGA" or "another Iraq." We're seeing an unprecedented level of competence that rejects both Obama-era capitulation and Bush-era nation building.

Even before the President attacked Iran in a coordinated strike with the Israelis that killed the Ayatollah Khomeini, the world’s erstwhile largest state-sponsor of terrorism, there were naysayers on the Left and the Right saying Trump better not do it. Those voices have of course grown stronger in the wake of Saturdays’ attack.

On the Left, you have the terror-adjacent anti-Western voices braying about “illegal” strikes. Striking Iran represents “a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression,” per New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Progressives were joined by the vast majority of mainstream Democrats, who truly believe that only Democratic presidents have Article II powers. “The corrupt and repressive Iranian regime must never have nuclear weapons. The leadership of Iran must go. But that does not justify the President of the United States engaging in an illegal, dangerous war,” tweeted California Governor Gavin Newsom. Per Newsom, of course Iran shouldn’t have a nuclear weapon—but that doesn’t mean you can prevent them from getting one!

But it wasn’t just the Left. On the isolationist Right, you had people like Tucker Carlson insist that attacking a genocidal regime trying to get a nuclear weapon so it could take supremacy over the West is somehow “evil,” and only an administration in thrall to evil Jews would contemplate such a thing.

Both the Left and the Isolationist Right are wrong.

The President has rejected both the Obama-era credulous capitulation to terrorists and the Bush era boots-on-the-ground bomb everyone for regime change model of foreign policy. Instead, Trump is charting a new way to a new globe, sacrificing no American lives or American troops while picking off our enemies one by one.

Let’s go through some of the myths and debunk them:

MYTH 1: The President Broke His Campaign Promise of No New Wars

One of the myths circulating on the Left is that the President broke his campaign promise of no new wars. This was indeed a central campaign promise. The American people are sick of counterproductive, endless wars of regime change, and the President promised he would be a President of Peace.

But the problem with those failed endeavors wasn’t that regimes changed. The problem was the counterproductive endless war part.

The Left and the Isolationist Right act like any regime change is bad, even one that sacrifices no lives, as we accomplished in Venezuela. They act like an anti-American, anti-Western regime changing to a pro-America, pro-Western regime would be a bad thing inherently. That’s not an accident: It’s because they are anti-West!

But for the vast majority of Americans, the world is a safer place when we have more allies and fewer enemies. The problem is the cost of that—and the success rate.

It’s too soon to tell whether the cost/benefit analysis of this strike will ultimately be in the U.S.’s favor. But we have the Venezuela example to look to at least to understand how the President sees these conflicts. And there, it was 100% successful.

But it’s important to note that there hasn’t exactly been a regime change in Venezuela. Instead, the President, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio have brought a care and maturity to their thinking, keeping much of the Maduro regime in place to prevent chaos and bloodshed while insisting on a more pro-America positioning.

They want something similar in Iran. As Michael Doran writes, “The goal now is regime transformation: decapitate the leadership and break the regime’s coercive apparatus while empowering internal forces to reshape what remains—without George W. Bush-style occupation, boots on the ground, massive refugee flows, or prolonged American responsibility for a fractured state.” Trump wants what he pulled off in Venezuela: “If the regime's coercive core breaks but the state does not collapse, the result could be decisive and durable: a post-theocratic Iran, freer at home and less menacing abroad.”

MYTH 2: It’s Another Iraq

You’re hearing a lot of people on the Left and the Right saying the strike on Iran is another Iraq—a protracted attack that cost the U.S. trillions of dollars and thousands upon thousands of precious souls.

But ask yourself honestly: Do you truly believe President Trump is likely to put boots on the ground in Iran?

That seems insane to me. There is zero evidence that the President has any appetite to deploy troops. And absent the deployment of troops and the endless quest for regime change, how is this actually like Iraq at all?

MYTH 3: MAGA Is Fractured Over Iran

This is going to be an especially widespread myth in the coming days. You’re already seeing it now, with the Daily Mail declaring, “Tucker Carlson torches Trump's 'disgusting and evil' attack on Iran as MAGA base fractures.” Expect a lot more along these lines from the usual suspects on CNN, in the New York Times and Washington Post and Politico.

It’s true, Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene are very angry that the President attacked Iran. But three podcasters and a former Congresswoman does not a “fracture” make. It’s five people vs. the entire MAGA coalition which is roaring its assent.

The same stupid, wish-casting narrative took hold in the liberal media after the last attack on Iran in June. “MAGA Divide Over Iran!” we were told again and again. But then, too, it was provable nonsense: Over 90% of Republicans supported the President’s strike, and we’re likely to see a similar number this time around. Already 54% of Americans support the strike. What percent of those Americans do you think are Democrats?!

That number will shrink if God forbid there are mass American casualties, but it will rise if there are not.

MYTH 4: The President Struck Iran at Israel’s Behest

On the Left and the Isolationist Right, it’s common to claim that the President is a puppet of the Israelis, that he would never engage with Iran militarily if not for pressure from Bibi Netanyahu.

This is also just total nonsense. Anyone who thinks Trump bows to Netanyahu has no understanding the President. He’s been talking about eliminating the threat of a nuclear Iran for half a century. Moreover, reporting from the Washington Post—no pro-Trump outlet!—suggests that while the Saudis were publicly pushing the President not to strike Iran, behind the scenes, they were privately pushing Trump to strike, according to four people familiar with the matter:

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made multiple private phone calls to Trump over the past month advocating a U.S. attack, despite his public support for a diplomatic solution, the four people said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, continued his long-running public campaign for U.S. strikes against what he views as an existential enemy of his country.

The combined effort helped lead Trump to order a massive aerial campaign against Iran’s leadership and military, which in its initial hour led to the death of Khamenei and several other senior Iranian officials.

This doesn’t just dispel the myth of Israeli control of our foreign policy. It gives you a window into the President’s thinking. The Saudis pushing privately suggests that the President viewed this as beneficial to the entire region—ultimately a way to secure stability rather than sacrifice it.

MYTH 5: The Strike Has No Benefit to the United States

This myth is perhaps the most scurrilous of all. What do the people saying this think Iran would do with a nuclear weapon? Become friendlier to the West?

But it goes so much beyond Iran.

There is a new anti-Western axis made up of China, Russia, Iran, and their proxies. Venezuela was a lynchpin that provided oil and training grounds. And President Trump is simply going through them one by one, undermining their leverage, separating them off from each other and from their sources of power and wealth.

China got 20% of its oil from Venezuela and Iran combined. Consider how hobbled it now is, especially if you think about what it would take for China to capture Taiwan.

So hurt by the President’s foreign policy is China that some analysts are calling Japan the clear winner of the strike on Iran. Here’s Zineb Riboua:

Nothing about Operation Epic Fury occurred within a thousand miles of Tokyo. Yet no capital in the world stands to gain more from the wreckage of Khamenei’s regime than the one sitting across the East China Sea from Shanghai.

Japan is China's principal strategic rival in the Western Pacific: the two compete for military dominance in the East and South China Seas, for economic influence across Southeast Asia, for secure energy supply chains, and for the allegiance of every mid-sized Pacific power now deciding whether its future runs through Washington or Beijing.

The gains Operation Epic Fury delivered to Tokyo are structural and extend across every dimension of that rivalry.

Consider that no one has come to Iran’s defense—not China and not Russia. The opposite; we’re seeing a possible Russian capitulation on its own front. The Sunday Times has reporting that the Kremlin is now considering accepting security guarantees for the Ukrainians. “The agreement has not yet been confirmed by the Kremlin, but it could signal the biggest breakthrough in ceasefire negotiations since the start of the full-scale invasion four years ago,” per the Sunday Times.

In short, Trump looked at all the chatter about a multi-polar world and said, Yeah—no.

Again, it’s too soon to tell, but it seems like the President recognized a world-reordering strike could occur with minimal harm to the U.S. and he grabbed it.

Of course, we would all love to see the Iranians free from the Regime’s stronghold. But the President’s ultimate goal is to put the American people first, and if you zoom out just a bit, you can see how he’s pulling it off.

My full remarks on NewsNation here: