When the bombs started falling on Iran, Americans on the hard right and hard left melted down quicker than the plastic slip covers on Ayatollah Khamenei’s couch: Israel had led America down this path. This is “Israel first!” There was no “imminent threat” to America. How does this improve Americans’ lives? In Congress, the opposition thundered that it was an “illegal” act of war.
They’re wrong on all counts.
First, the politicians. The Constitution gives only Congress the right to declare war but is silent on the commander-in-chief’s right to take military action. In fact, war has been declared very few times in our 250-year history, and never since 1941. The 1973 War Powers Resolution doesn’t supersede the Constitution. Constitutionally, the only say Congress has is the ability, through legislation, to refuse to fund the forces necessary to wage the conflict. President Trump has been building a military force in the Gulf region for weeks and not hiding it. Congress could have preemptively defunded the operation beforehand. It didn’t.
As for the activist left, which very much includes the legacy media, they’ve never met a U.S. military action they didn’t hate. No news of jubilation from inside and outside Iran can convince them that the Trump administration has done the right and just thing, even though a month ago the regime killed at least 30,000 (low estimate) demonstrators and tortured and imprisoned many more and has been killing Americans for the past 47 years. The most ardent feminists and gay rights advocates look the other way on the regime’s daily oppression and even murder of those who transgress Sharia law.
Nor will they accept (unless as a precursor to excusing it) that Iran has been at war with the U.S. far longer than most of them have been alive. They don’t care that Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. You can mention the 1979 U.S. embassy storming and the 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days. You can mention the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia or the Iranian plans to assassinate the President in 2024. Iran funded Shiite militias and provided roadside bombs to kill hundreds of American warriors in Iraq and wound thousands more. It helped plan and finance the October 7th massacre that killed 46 Americans and took 12 American hostages, in addition to the hundreds of innocent Israelis killed.
Unfortunately, some on the right share this indifference to facts. They echo President Trump from the 2016 campaign calling for an end to “forever wars.” But a week or so in, nobody can responsibly say this is a forever war. And anyone with a sense of history should see Epic Fury as an attempt to end the real forever war described above, which Iran has been waging against America for nearly half a century. And that very much is America First.
To argue that Iran is Israel’s problem, not America’s, assumes the mullahs who’ve sworn to destroy “the Great Satan” would be content to lob rockets from time to time at the “Little Satan.”
Iran refused to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons, even after Operation Midnight Hammer last summer dealt it a crippling blow. In the talks leading up to Epic Fury, Iran did not negotiate in good faith. The U.S. government offered Iran all the peaceful nuclear power it needed. Iran was not interested in peaceful nuclear power. The Iranians were developing intercontinental missiles that could potentially reach the U.S., possibly within a decade. Whether or not there are nuclear warheads attached, the prospect is dangerous and destabilizing. Kicking the can down the road until that happens is the opposite of America First.
According to the administration, the U.S. acted when it knew that the Iranians were planning to attack U.S. interests no matter what. The media can and will judge and Monday morning QB this operation. The political opposition will impotently call it illegal; the extreme right will continue to grumble about “fighting for Israel” and the anti-American left will march and scream like they always do. But they cannot say the president ignored a threat to Americans and American interests. This is squarely, America First.
Recently, Secretary of War Hegseth posted a quote on X which perfectly sums up this operation and the America First policy objectives of the administration. He said, “If you kill or threaten Americans anywhere in the world — as Iran has — then we will hunt you down, and we will kill you.”
With that quote in mind, a lot of evil men who have threatened and killed Americans for years are now dead, their war machine is being obliterated, and a lot of long-suffering people are celebrating around the world. We can’t know what will follow Epic Fury, but it looks like the Islamic Republic of Iran won’t be a part of it.
James Fitzpatrick is a U.S. Army veteran, a former appointee in the Trump 45 administration, and Director of the Center to Advance Security in America.