Waiting 10 years means betting your future on a regime that chants "Death to America" today. Smash the lab now—or meet Frankenstein armed with nukes.
Let me say it plain. Waiting 10 years for Iran’s regime
to grow stronger is not strategy. It is surrender with better manners. If you
see smoke in the basement, you do not hold a seminar. You grab a hose.
President Donald Trump is grabbing the hose. And I support it.
Critics say he is inconsistent. They shout that he once
mocked wars in the Middle East. True. He did. He blasted so-called “neocons”
for chasing regime change like it was a hobby. He tore up the 2015 nuclear deal
negotiated under President Barack Obama. He promised better. He did not get it.
That is the record.
But here is the part his critics do not want to face:
Iran is not Denmark with bad manners. It is a regime that has funded and armed
proxies across the region for decades. Hezbollah in Lebanon. Militias in Iraq.
The Houthis in Yemen. Hamas in Gaza. After October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed
about 1,200 people in Israel and took around 240 hostages, the mask slipped
again. Iran’s fingerprints were all over the wider firestorm that followed. You
can call that “regional complexity.” I call it blood on the floor.
The Defence Intelligence Agency reportedly assessed that
intercontinental ballistic missiles were about 10 years away if Iran chose to
build them. Critics cling to that number like it is a comfort blanket. “We have
time,” they say. Time for what? Time for centrifuges to spin? Time for
engineers to perfect enrichment? Time for hardliners to learn from North
Korea’s playbook?
Look at North Korea. In 1994, the Agreed Framework was
supposed to freeze its nuclear program. By 2006, Pyongyang tested its first
nuclear device. By 2017, it was launching ICBMs capable of reaching the
continental United States. Diplomacy bought time, yes. But it also bought the
regime time. Feed the cub long enough and one day you meet the tiger. I
see Iran the same way. The regime has enriched uranium to levels that the
International Atomic Energy Agency has warned are far beyond civilian needs. It
has installed advanced centrifuges. It has restricted inspectors. You do not
move that chessboard unless you are thinking about checkmate. Waiting 10 years
for a theoretical missile timeline is like arguing about the size of the match
while the gasoline tank is already open.
Critics also mock Trump for fearing a nuclear program he
once said he “obliterated.” Fair shot. Politicians exaggerate. He is not the
first. He will not be the last. But degrading a program is not the same as
deleting it from existence. Ask any engineer. You can bomb facilities. You can
set them back 1 year, 3 years, maybe more. But knowledge does not vaporize.
Scientists survive. Blueprints survive. That is why the question is not whether
Iran can rebuild. The question is whether you make rebuilding too costly to
try.
History is not kind to those who wait politely for
threats to mature. In the 1930s, Europe watched Adolf Hitler rearm Germany in
open violation of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1938, the Munich Agreement
handed him the Sudetenland in exchange for “peace.” By 1939, Poland was
invaded. By 1945, about 60 million people were dead worldwide. I am not saying
Iran is Nazi Germany. I am saying this: appeasement has a track record, and it
is ugly.
Now let me address the charge that Trump is acting
because Iran is weak. Yes. That is precisely why this moment matters. Since
October 7, Israel has battered Iran’s proxies. Hezbollah has taken hits. Hamas
has been decimated. Iranian air defenses have reportedly been degraded by
Israeli and American strikes. This is not 2019. This is a regime under
pressure.
When your adversary is off balance, you push. You do not
offer him a chair. Trump seems to understand that. I can almost hear the street
logic in it: “You want to wait until he gets his wind back?” That is not
bravado. That is cold math.
Critics argue he abandoned Obama’s deal recklessly. Let’s
examine that deal. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action placed limits on
enrichment levels and centrifuges, but many of its core restrictions were set
to expire after 10 to 15 years. Sunset clauses. After that, Iran could legally
expand parts of its program. In other words, the clock was ticking from day
one. If you believe the regime’s long-term intent is hostile, then the deal was
a pause button, not a cure.
I am not naïve. War is messy. American interventions in
Iraq and Afghanistan cost trillions of dollars. Brown University’s Costs of War
project has estimated over $8 trillion in spending tied to post-9/11 wars.
Thousands of American service members were killed. Hundreds of thousands of
civilians died in conflict zones. I do not forget that. I carry that weight. But
here is the moral knot: sometimes avoiding short-term pain guarantees long-term
disaster. If Iran were to cross the nuclear threshold, the Middle East would
not stay calm. Saudi Arabia would rethink its options. Turkey would rethink its
options. Proliferation would spread like a virus. One nuclear state in a
volatile region is dangerous. Several is a nightmare.
And do not forget oil. The 1979 Iranian Revolution helped
trigger a global oil shock. Prices spiked. Inflation soared. The U.S. economy
bled. Trump’s worldview was shaped in that era. He saw 52 Americans held
hostage for 444 days in Tehran. That humiliation burned into American memory.
When he talks about strength, it is not abstract. It is personal, historical,
economic.
I hear critics say, “He is flouting international law.”
Maybe. International law is often invoked by the same global bodies that failed
to stop Syria’s civil war, failed to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, failed
to stop mass slaughter in plain sight. Law without enforcement is theater. A
badge without a gun is just jewelry.
Trump’s style is chaotic. I admit that. He speaks off the
cuff. He contradicts himself. He muses about “taking over the whole thing.”
That unsettles allies. It unsettles markets. But style is not substance. The
substance is this: deal with a regime that chants “Death to America” while it
is cornered, not crowned.
The alternative is to gamble that 10 years from now Iran
will be softer, friendlier, more reasonable, even as it accumulates technical
know-how and possibly long-range missile capability. That is a bet on goodwill
from a government that has shown little of it. I do not take that bet.
I know the risks. Airstrikes can escalate. Proxies can
retaliate. Oil prices can spike. American forces can be drawn deeper into
conflict. Nothing about this is clean. But I would rather confront a weakened
adversary today than a nuclear-armed, missile-equipped Frankenstein tomorrow.
History rarely rewards the timid. It punishes the
complacent. If Trump succeeds in permanently crippling Iran’s nuclear
ambitions, critics will say they disliked the process. Fine. Process does not
stop centrifuges. Power does.
So I take the hard view. I would rather smash the lab
before the monster wakes up. Because once it does, you are no longer debating
policy. You are bargaining for survival.
If you’re looking for
something different to read, some of the titles in my “Brief Book Series”
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