Trump Enforces His Red Line on Iran
His war aims suggest a long campaign that could topple the regime.
By
The U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran that began Saturday morning is a necessary act of deterrence against a regime that is the world’s foremost promoter of terrorism. It carries risks as all wars do, but it also has the potential to reshape the Middle East for the better and lead to a safer world.
In his eight-minute video in the wee hours Saturday, President Trump laid out war aims that suggest a campaign of several days or weeks. He said he wants to “raze their missile industry to the ground” and “annihilate their navy.” He will destroy what’s left of Iran’s nuclear program and “ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces.”
Crucially, he called on the people of Iran to rise up and depose the theocratic regime that has terrorized and murdered them for 47 years. “When we are finished” bombing, Mr. Trump said, “take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations.”
***
These war aims mean that Mr. Trump is enforcing the red lines he drew when the regime slaughtered its people as they protested in January. He said he’d come to their aid, and now he has. He also gave Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ample chance to strike a deal on nuclear weapons and its missile force, but the ayatollah refused and now he is reportedly dead.
Mr. Trump has unduly criticized his predecessors for “forever wars” in the Middle East, but he understands deterrence. In Yemen, Iran in June, Venezuela and now in Iran again, he has taken action against manifest threats in his second term that Barack Obama and Joe Biden refused to take. U.S. deterrence collapsed, and the world’s rogues took advantage.
The scale of the military action means that the campaign can succeed even if the regime survives. Destroying Iran’s missiles and navy will make the region safer. The nuclear program will be difficult and expensive to rebuild, especially if the U.S. also continues to block Iran’s oil exports, its main revenue source.
The larger gamble is regime change, and no one knows if this will happen. Air campaigns alone rarely topple a dictatorship. But if the U.S. and Israel take long enough to kill enough regime leaders, basij militia and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the chance for an internal coup or popular revolt might open up. Even if the result is that less radical members of the IRGC take over, they are likely to be better than the ayatollahs. Let’s hope the Mossad and CIA are on the ground trying to help the opposition.
The biggest challenge to the military campaign may be at home more than in Iran. Critics in the U.S. are already out in force, and they will exploit any American casualties.
One cliche is that this is a “war of choice” and there was no urgent threat to address. But the regime and its proxies are weaker now than they have been since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Would the critics prefer to wait until Iran has rebuilt its air defenses and missile stockpiles with the help of Russia and China? Then more Americans would probably die.
Critics also claim the war is “illegal” because Congress hasn’t voted for it. But the Constitution gives Presidents ample room to use military force against threats to U.S. security. Members of Congress may demand a vote on a War Powers Resolution that could block military action after 60 days. We think the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. But by all means let’s see who in Congress wants to side with Iran given all the Americans its forces have killed over the decades.
Another common alarm is that toppling the regime could lead to civil war in Iran and new conflicts among other powers in the region, such as Turkey and the Saudis. Events are impossible to predict, but it’s hard to imagine instability greater than what the revolutionary regime has promoted for nearly five decades.
The most glib criticism is that the President who claims to be a peacemaker has contradicted himself by using force against adversaries four times in 13 months. But Mr. Trump inherited a world in which an axis of U.S. adversaries had formed and was on the march. He is pressuring that axis at its weakest links—in Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba. In doing so he is sending a message to China and Russia that the costs of testing Mr. Trump militarily are considerable.
***
Our main concern is that Mr. Trump may stop too soon. He will face political pressure from the Tucker Carlson right and perhaps Mr. Carlson’s allies in the Vice President’s circle, as well as from Democrats and most of the press. This is especially true if there are U.S. casualties, which at some point there are likely to be. Mr. Trump was wise to warn about this in his video remarks, but he will have to keep making the case for his war aims and that achieving them takes time.
Mr. Trump didn’t begin a war on Saturday. He is fighting back against an Iranian regime that has been waging war against the U.S., Israel and the West for decades. The threat is the regime itself, and let’s hope it falls.
Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
The Editorial Board speaks for free markets and free people, the principles, if you will, marked in the watershed year of 1776 by Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith's “Wealth of Nations.” So over the past century and into the next, the Journal stands for free trade and sound money; against confiscatory taxation and the ukases of kings and other collectivists; and for individual autonomy against dictators, bullies and even the tempers of momentary majorities.
Comments
Post a Comment