Rarely is one’s choice between two alternatives, one entirely good and the other totally bad. But while virtually all options have shades of gray, there is often clarity in choosing the lesser evil when deciding how to proceed.
Such is the case in evaluating Operation Epic Fury.
As necessary as it was to initiate military action against Iran, and as difficult as its follow-up may be, its righteous inception and requisite sequel should be clear to anyone not afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
That said, it’s not surprising that progressive soothsayers predicted catastrophe from the campaign’s onset and continue to do so with shortsighted criticism shrouded in foolhardy certainty. And that is ever more obvious with an Iranian peace treaty ever more likely.
From the beginning, condemnation of Epic Fury included claims that its rationale was ambiguous, that it would never deliver on Trump’s strategic justification, and that, despite verifiable evidence to the contrary, Iran’s nuclear ambitions posed no imminent threat to the United States or anywhere else.
And if those criticisms weren’t enough, the Constitutional card was played, arguing that only Congress can declare war and that Trump’s actions would pull us into an unauthorized “mission-creep” quagmire.
Like the insipidly written, ultra-repetitive lyrics of B-side songs on classic 45 RPM records, progressive critics of Epic Fury compete with one another by echoing doomsaying predictions, each more prophetically worded than the last.
Not surprisingly, a small sampling of heavy hitters on the left issued presumptuous pronouncements predicting Epic Fury’s disaster. Leading the way, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer claimed the operation was launched “without a strategy,” and Kamala Harris called the conflict a “dangerous and unnecessary gamble with American lives.”
House Budget Committee Democrats said the war “ballooned costs at the grocery store and the gas pump.”
Progressives criticized rising Pentagon spending for sacrificing domestic programs. And Bernie Sanders accused Trump of “playing with matches in a room full of gasoline.”
And ever the “gloom and doom” prophet, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries forecast that our military action against Iran lacked a clear exit strategy and that it was “not going to end well.”
But focusing on Epic Fury’s uncertain outcomes, inflationary pressures, and predictions of failure or worse, none of those criticisms offer any new proposals that haven’t previously failed to offset the catastrophe of excusing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Moreover, by couching talking points in terms of the conflict’s real, imagined, or exaggerated challenges, such as economic impact, budgetary expenditures, and loss of American lives, progressives fail to recognize its undeniably positive results and lesser-evil outcomes.
Representing a sharp break from Biden’s do-nothing paralysis and Obama’s bribery-focused drift, Iran has, for the first time in decades, learned that there are real consequences for funding terrorists killing Americans.
And acting as a superpower again, the U.S. has prevented Iran from ever again choking the world’s economy by claiming the international waters of the Strait of Hormuz as its own oil-exporting waterway.
But far more importantly, by degrading Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure, Epic Fury has bought years of security without putting a single American boot on Iranian soil. Yet criticism persists, directed as much at that operation as at its author.
So, fairness demands that if someone other than Trump were president, would anyone seriously doubt that developing weapons of mass destruction in Tehran would likely ignite a potentially catastrophic nuclear arms race in the Middle East?
Would anyone seriously believe that Iran’s uranium enrichment program is for purely peaceful purposes when America has made it unnecessary by agreeing to provide Tehran with all the uranium needed for peaceful power reactor use?
And if a Democrat were president, would anyone truthfully trust Iran to enrich uranium to weapon-grade levels for “peaceful purposes” after murdering thousands of its own people, supporting terrorists killing and maiming thousands of Americans, voicing support for the destruction of Israel, and calling the U.S. “The Great Satan?” Undoubtedly not.
That being so, Trump should be applauded for confronting the impending threat of a nuclearized Iran rather than kicking that explosive can down the road.
With midterm elections months away, other presidents might have protected their razor-thin congressional majorities by cultivating a booming economy rather than risking that advantage by addressing the threat of a nuclearized Iran.
However, despite what TDS-infected Democrats believe, and despite whatever economic, political, and humanitarian negatives are associated with Epic Fury, those issues pale in comparison to the calamity of doing nothing to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
And yet, after temporarily accepting higher inflation, plunging poll numbers, and possible midterm losses as the costs of protecting our nation, anyone still believing the president has ignored that calculus is, even now, blind to the fact that such lesser-evil expenses buy greater-good security for us all.
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