Trump’s strategic judgment and leadership in action have suddenly flipped the global script and fundamentally changed the world for the better.
For the last 43 years, through five different presidents, the United States has had ineffective responses to the radical Shia Islamic regime in Iran, which declared “death to America” irregular war on the United States. Major incidents include:
- In April 1983, Iran-backed operatives bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63.
- In October 1983, Iran-backed Hezbollah bombed the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Marine service members.
- In June 1996, Iran-backed Saudi Hezbollah bombed a U.S. Air Force housing complex, killing 19 U.S. airmen and wounding hundreds.
- During the 2003-2011 Iraq War, the total U.S. casualties from Iran-linked forces exceeded 1,200. But the loss of American lives inflicted by the radical Iranian regime was much higher. Iran’s improvised explosive devices (IEDs) took many more American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan — totaling more than 4,200, which was about 46 percent of all U.S. war zone deaths between 2006 and 2019. In addition, estimates for the IED-wounded, often resulting in ugly facial disfiguration and loss of limbs, took an even higher toll, with one official source putting the number at more than 30,000 U.S. service members across both wars.
There is no shortage of experts who have different views on the deployment of U.S. military force. But what has characterized American war policy for the last 70 years, from the Korean War through the Biden presidency, was that wars were fought to achieve negotiated compromise outcomes rather than to achieve victory.
One can hope that some military historians and strategists will look back on this period and have constructive answers to the fundamental question of "What took America so long to deal with Iran?"
It turns out that it took a tough “outsider” president who had the courage and conviction that evil is powerless when the good have the determination to effectively deploy U.S. military power to win decisively.
What is also remarkable is that even Trump’s opponents, of which there are many both at home and abroad, could not figure out what he was going to do. Trump did not say what his intentions were in Venezuela, as the U.S. amassed naval vessels and troops, including the Gerald R. Ford carrier group, off the coast of Venezuela. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro had no idea what was happening until U.S. special forces were in his bedroom to take him alive.
After getting elected on the America First policy agenda, with an attendant pledge of no new wars, Trump took an enormous political risk in going to war with Iran. After so many failed attempts at regime change in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and other nations by prior administrations, Trump could not say that his intention was regime change.
But with the targeted death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameinei, along with dozens of top security, political, and Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) leaders on the very first day of kinetic engagement, it was clear that regime change was a key U.S. objective.
In the first five weeks of the war on the Iranian regime, the United States decimated a supposedly unconquerable nation:
- Destroying Iran’s air force and all its air defense network
- Sinking Iran’s navy
- Incapacitating Iran’s ground forces, both the IRGC and the regular army
- Destroying Iran’s nuclear bomb capability, most of its missile force, and all its weapons manufacturing industrial base
The last card the Tehran regime possessed was its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian regime lost its only remaining card when the U.S. decided to blockade the Iranian blockade and take control of the Strait of Hormuz, effectively seizing control of the Iranian economy and its oil trade with China. Prior to regime change in Venezuela and forthcoming regime change in Iran, China purchased more than 50 percent of Venezuela’s oil exports and 80-90 percent of Iran’s oil exports. Not only is all that oil revenue in jeopardy now, but the United States is going to pick up much of that and additional oil business going forward.
President Trump did not waste any time playing a new card to secure one of the world’s busiest chokepoints, the Straits of Malacca (between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, Indonesia). The Major Defense Cooperation Partnership (MDCP), a bilateral defense framework agreement between the United States and Indonesia, was just formalized on April 13, 2026.
More important than the Strait of Hormuz, the Straits of Malacca are the route for approximately 80 percent of China's imported crude oil. Already acknowledging their strategic vulnerability, the Chinese were caught off guard when Trump took action that could disrupt or control navigation through the Straits of Malacca, even calling it their “Malacca Dilemma.”
The total military defeat of Iran in the Middle East combined with what the U.S. has accomplished in the Western hemisphere—wresting control of Panama and its canal from China, taking on the Latin American narco-terrorists, taking control of Venezuelan resources and cutting off oil sales to China, and the collapse of Cuba will deliver a multifaceted strategic and economic blow to China and the CCP, while driving more global traffic and oil sales to the United States. For the first time in many decades, the geopolitical tectonic plates are now shifting away from tyrannies in favor of the United States and the cause of freedom.
While there will be some twists and turns to come to final terms with Iran, President Trump has all the cards and deserves the credit for this remarkable American renaissance. It turns out that evil is rendered powerless when the good have the courage to fight to achieve real victory.
Scott S. Powell is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a member of the Committee on the Present Danger-China. His timeless book, "Rediscovering America," was a #1 Amazon New Release in the history genre for eight weeks. Reach him at scottp@discovery.org.
Editor's Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
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