Trump plays his cards right, and the Middle East exhales
Donald TrumpAP
President Trump got it exactly right Wednesday morning: “Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world.”
Trump was serious, firm — but, above all, cool.
In response to Tehran’s wet-firecracker missile attacks of late Tuesday, he’s simply tossing a few more sanctions on the regime, while again expressing his hope for a new agreement that curbs Iran’s meddling.
He’s already made it plain he’s not aiming at regime change, as former national security adviser John Bolton and others want. But the drone strike that took out the country’s terrorist-in-chief, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, last Friday is a clear sign this president won’t abide Iranian aggression, either.
Iran’s overnight missile launch caused not a single casualty, though the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps told state-run media that the strikes had killed 80 Americans and wounded many more.
The fact that they’re pretending they did a lot of damage suggests they have no plans to do any actual damage (at least for now). Another sign: Its foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted: “Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense.”
Iran’s overnight missile launch caused not a single casualty, though the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps told state-run media that the strikes had killed 80 Americans and wounded many more.
The fact that they’re pretending they did a lot of damage suggests they have no plans to do any actual damage (at least for now). Another sign: Its foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted: “Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense.”
In short, the regime knows it doesn’t dare escalate. It’s probably looking for new ways to harm US interests and/or kill Americans without inviting retaliation — but that was its long-term strategy long before Soleimani met his well-deserved fate.
All the hand-wringing over Trump somehow bumbling into all-out war has proven false, as we expected. America always had the stronger hand, if it was willing to play its cards rationally, and that’s what the president has done.
He wasn’t wrong to note that President Barack Obama’s naïve nuclear deal gave Tehran the economic ability to purchase the missiles it launched Tuesday night. That deal was the culmination of decades of US appeasement of a regime that made its name with the kidnapping of 52 Americans in 1979.
Iran, as the president noted Wednesday, has been provoking the United States — and getting away with it — for 40 years. “Those days are over,” Trump declared. About time.
Iran’s overnight missile launch caused not a single casualty, though the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps told state-run media that the strikes had killed 80 Americans and wounded many more.
The fact that they’re pretending they did a lot of damage suggests they have no plans to do any actual damage (at least for now). Another sign: Its foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted: “Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense.”
In short, the regime knows it doesn’t dare escalate. It’s probably looking for new ways to harm US interests and/or kill Americans without inviting retaliation — but that was its long-term strategy long before Soleimani met his well-deserved fate.
All the hand-wringing over Trump somehow bumbling into all-out war has proven false, as we expected. America always had the stronger hand, if it was willing to play its cards rationally, and that’s what the president has done.
He wasn’t wrong to note that President Barack Obama’s naïve nuclear deal gave Tehran the economic ability to purchase the missiles it launched Tuesday night. That deal was the culmination of decades of US appeasement of a regime that made its name with the kidnapping of 52 Americans in 1979.
Iran, as the president noted Wednesday, has been provoking the United States — and getting away with it — for 40 years. “Those days are over,” Trump declared. About time.
Pieces of missiles at the rural area of Al-Baghdadi town after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq.
