Miranda Devine: Trump's ‘spectacular' Iran strike could carve his place in history as most courageous leader since Ronald Reagan
What an impressive sight it was Sunday, when the futuristic B-2 stealth bombers sliced through the powder-blue Missouri sky on their triumphant return to home base in the American heartland after dropping their Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs on Iran's underground nuclear sites.
The strikes were 'a spectacular military success,' President Trump told the world Saturday night, after emerging from the Situation Room.
'Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace,' he said.
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While Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan 'Razing' Caine said Sunday it was 'way too early' to know the full extent of damage at Iran's Fordow uranium-enrichment complex, satellite images show several large holes and a layer of gray-blue ash where all 14 massive 'bunker buster' bombs, each weighing 30,000 pounds, hit their target Saturday night in Operation Midnight Hammer.
The strikes were also a spectacular political calculation by the president who ran on no new wars, and managed to keep a poker face all week as he was given advice by all and sundry.
'Unconventional'
He made the right decision, and it appears to have been executed flawlessly. A limited strike, in and out. Iran's nuclear capability has been eliminated or at least severely degraded. No regime change.
If the nuclear threat from Iran is indeed neutralized, leading to the extension of the Abraham Accords and peace in the Middle East, Trump will have achieved what countless predecessors failed to do.
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If he pulls it off, without embroiling us in a larger war, he will have carved his role in history as the most courageous and consequential leader since Ronald Reagan. The man who rose from the stage in Butler, blood pouring down his face, raised his fist in the air and said, 'Fight, Fight Fight,' is exactly who you want as commander in chief at a time like this, especially as it's not his first rodeo.
Photographs released by the White House show a serious-faced Trump inside the Situation Room Saturday night, wearing his trademark suit and red tie, not cosplaying a flyboy as his more casually-attired predecessors liked to do.
His only bow to informality was a red MAGA hat with '45-47' on the side, representing his bifurcated presidential terms and the relentless grit it took to come back from the political dead.
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So much for 'TACO Don.' He outfoxed everyone.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, just after emerging from the Situation Room last week where he watched the president deal with the complexities of the Iran-Israel war, likened Trump to Winston Churchill.
'He has a strategy and it's not a conventional strategy, but what conventional person has ever done great things?' said Bessent, in an interview for my new podcast Pod Force One. 'Does anybody think that Winston Churchill was conventional?
'[Trump is] also so flexible in terms of the way he looks at things,' Bessent said. 'We've just spent basically the past 24 hours in the Situation Room over the Iran-Israel conflict, and I can tell you that the American people should know, and the American troops should know, that Donald Trump is doing an incredible job looking after their interests in what could turn, without someone like him, could turn into a widespread conflict that US soldiers and interests could get sucked into.'
New team
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In one fell swoop, Trump also restored the prestige of the US military, which had plummeted under Joe Biden.
Most welcome was the upgrade from Gen. Mark 'Thoroughly Modern' Milley of 'white rage' fame, whom Biden had to give a preemptive pardon on his way out the door, presumably for his Trump-deranged outbursts to the Chinese.
In Milley's place we now have 'Razing Caine,' once a daring F-16 pilot, and as cool and contained a general as you could find.
'This mission demonstrates the unmatched reach, coordination, and capability of the United States military,' he told reporters in a Sunday news conference alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, another veteran whose rapport with 'war fighters' has helped revive recruitment to record levels.
'In just a matter of weeks, this went from strategic planning to global execution,' said Caine. 'As the president clearly said last night, no other military in the world could have done this.'
Every week, Post columnist Miranda Devine sits down for exclusive and candid conversations with the most influential disruptors in Washington. Subscribe here!
What a contrast to the previous administration.
Under Biden, our military was humiliated. Preposterous wokery and weak leadership led to a breakdown in discipline embodied in online displays of perverts in uniform dolled up in kinky dog masks and bondage gear.
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Under Biden, incompetence was the order of the day, from the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, leaving behind $7 billion of equipment, to the failure to bring our astronauts home from the International Space Station, to the $230 million Gaza pier debacle which resulted in the death of one young soldier and dozens of troops injured while delivering minimal aid. The morale and reputation of our armed forces was severely depleted, making a mockery of Biden's frequent refrain' God bless our troops.'
Under Biden, Obama's benighted Iran deal that Trump axed in his first term was reanimated. Trump 1.0 left Iran on its knees, unable to fund its proxies to attack Israel. Biden, in his wisdom, empowered and enriched Iran, reappointing Robert Malley, Antony Blinken's childhood friend from their prestigious Parisienne école, as Iran envoy.
Malley was then suspended without pay pending an FBI investigation into an Iranian influence ring and his 'mishandling' of classified information. Naturally, the Ivy League came to his rescue, giving him gigs at Yale and Princeton. That is Biden's legacy.
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But instead of thanking Trump for saving the world from a nuclear Iran, Democrats are pretending that he did something unconstitutional, and are whining because he didn't inform Democrat leaders in Congress before the top-secret operation.
They only have themselves to blame for proving to be so unreliable with secrets in the past. Hello, Schifty Schiff.
Dems were fine with Obama bombing Libya, Syria and Pakistan an estimated 13,000 times, killing thousands of people, without asking Congress for permission.
Remember then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cackling over Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy's gruesome end when he was sodomized and brutalized to death on camera as she watched lasciviously from afar: 'We came, we saw, he died,' she said.
Strong stance
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Democrats should sit this one out. Despite their threats to impeach him, Trump has seized the moral authority and no doubt his already buoyant approval ratings will soar. That's the political dividend of strong leadership.
What GOP senator could refuse to pass Trump's beloved Big Beautiful Bill now?
And as with everything Trump does, the visuals were impeccable.
The icing on the cake was his brand new 100-foot flagpole out the front of the White House, with Old Glory waving languidly in the night breeze as the B-2s worked their magic half a world away.
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You're paying for radical Zoh
New York, we have a problem. How could a candidate as toxic and radical as Zohran Mamdani be so close to victory in Tuesday's Democratic mayoral primary?
An antisemitic socialist who is running to defund the police and raise more taxes for illegal migrants should be a political impossibility, yet he has surged to second place behind Andrew Cuomo in the polls.
Attorney Denise Cohen, who writes a substack as 'Rational New Yorker,' has figured out this dangerous man 'could attain the highest office in NYC using public money that most of us didn't approve through a slush fund that we unwittingly paid for.'
Mamdani has the highest social media engagement of all mayoral candidates with almost 6 million likes on TikTok, and has created the false appearance of a vibrant grassroots campaign with tens of thousands of small dollar donors, she writes.
But he didn't amass a $8.4 million war chest from grassroots donations.
Eighty percent of it came from taxpayers thanks to a New York campaign finance law in which the New York City Campaign Finance Board matches small donations by $8 for every $1 raised.
If Mamdani wins, you and I probably paid for his campaign.
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CNBC
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an hour ago
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Trump lashed out at Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's government, saying: 'NATO is going to have to deal with Spain. Spain's been a very low payer.' He also criticized Canada as 'a low payer.' Spain was the lowest spender in the alliance last year, directing less than 2% of its GDP on defense expenditure, while Canada was spending 1.45%, according to NATO figures. Then Trump ordered the bombing of nuclear installations in Iran. In 2003, the U.S.-led war on Iraq deeply divided NATO, as France and Germany led opposition to the attack, while Britain and Spain joined the coalition. European allies and Canada also want Ukraine to be at the top of the summit agenda, but they are wary that Trump might not want President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to steal the limelight. The two-day summit in The Hague involves an informal dinner Tuesday and one working session Wednesday morning. A very short summit statement has been drafted to ensure the meeting is not derailed by fights over details and wording. Indeed, much about this NATO summit is brief, even though ripples could be felt for years. Founded in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed by 12 nations to counter the threat to security in Europe posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, notably via a strong U.S. presence on the continent. Dealing with Moscow is in its DNA. Keeping the peace outside the Euro-Atlantic area is not. NATO's ranks have grown to 32 countries since the Washington Treaty was signed 75 years ago. Sweden joined last year, worried by an increasingly aggressive Russia. NATO's collective security guarantee — Article 5 of the treaty — underpins its credibility. It's a political commitment by all countries to come to the aid of any member whose sovereignty or territory might be under attack. Trump has suggested he is committed to that pledge, but he has also sowed doubt about his intentions. He has said the U.S. intends to remain a member of the alliance. The United States is NATO's most powerful member. It spends much more on defense than any other ally and far outweighs its partners in terms of military muscle. Washington has traditionally driven the agenda but has stepped back under Trump. The U.S. nuclear arsenal provides strategic deterrence against would-be adversaries. NATO's day-to-day work is led by Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister. As its top civilian official, he chairs almost weekly meetings of ambassadors in the North Atlantic Council at its Brussels headquarters. He chairs other 'NACs' at ministerial and leader levels. Rutte runs NATO headquarters, trying to foster consensus and to speak on behalf of all members. NATO's military headquarters is based nearby in Mons, Belgium. It is always run by a top U.S. officer. With Trump demanding greater defense spending, it's unclear what role Ukraine will play at the summit. Zelenskyy has been invited, but it's unclear whether he will have a seat at NATO's table, although he may take part in Tuesday's dinner. Russia's war in Ukraine usually dominates such meetings. More broadly, NATO itself is not arming Ukraine. As an organization, it possesses no weapons of any kind. Collectively, it provides only non-lethal support — fuel, combat rations, medical supplies, body armor, and equipment to counter drones or mines. But individually, members do send arms. European allies provided 60% of the military support that Ukraine received in 2024. NATO coordinates those weapons deliveries via a hub on the Polish border and helps organize training for Ukrainian troops. A key part of the commitment for allies to defend one another is to deter Russia, or any other adversary, from attacking in the first place. Finland and Sweden joined NATO recently because of this concern. Under NATO's new military plans, 300,000 military personnel would be deployed within 30 days to counter any attack, whether it be on land, at sea, by air or in cyberspace. But experts doubt whether the allies could muster the troop numbers. It's not just about troop and equipment numbers. An adversary would be less likely to challenge NATO if it thought the allies would use the forces it controls. Trump's threats against U.S. allies — including imposing tariffs on them — has weakened that deterrence. Due to high U.S. defense spending over many years, the American armed forces have more personnel and superior weapons but also significant transportation and logistics assets. Other allies are starting to spend more, though. After years of cuts, NATO members committed to ramp up their national defense budgets in 2014 when Russia illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the NATO allies agreed to make 2% of GDP the minimum spending level. Last year, 22 countries were expected to hit that target, up from only three a decade ago. In The Hague, the allies were expected to up the ante to 3.5%, plus a further 1.5% for things like improving roads, bridges, ports and airfields or preparing societies to deal with future conflicts. Whether they will now remains an open question.
