President Trump spoke to the nation last night on the status of our conflict with Iran. I have posted the video below. RealClearPolitics has posted the text of his remarks.
He invoked his own consistency on the problem of the Iranian regime:
From the very first day I announced my campaign for president in 2015, I vowed I would never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. This fanatical regime has been chanting “Death to America, death to Israel” for 47 years.
Their proxies were behind the murder of 241 Americans in the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, the slaughter of hundreds of our service members with roadside bombs. They were involved in the attack on the USS Cole, and they carried out countless other heinous acts, including the horrible, bloody atrocities of October 7 in Israel—something that most people have never seen anything like.
He reviewed our varying efforts at diplomacy with Iran with a biting look back at the Obama interlude: “I terminated Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal—a disaster. Obama gave them $1.7 billion in cash—green, green cash. Took it out of banks from Virginia, D.C., and Maryland—all the cash they had—and flew it by airplanes in an attempt to buy their respect and loyalty. But it didn’t work.”
He didn’t attribute a desire for Iran to have nuclear weapons to Obama, but he might have. It’s a reasonable inference from the deal he wrought. Michael Oren’s memoir Ally is helpful on this point.
Why Epic Fury after Midnight Fury? Trump briefly argued:
The regime then sought to rebuild their nuclear program at a totally different location, making clear they had no intention of abandoning their pursuit of nuclear weapons.
They were also rapidly building a vast stockpile of conventional ballistic missiles and would soon have had missiles that could reach the American homeland, Europe, and virtually any other place on Earth.
Iran’s strategy was so obvious. They wanted to produce as many missiles as possible, and they did—with the longest range possible. And they had some weapons that nobody believed they had. We just learned that.
We took them out. We took them all out.
Trump’s review of Epic Fury was consistent with what we have learned over the past month from reliable sources. I didn’t hear anything new. There is more to comen, but not much more. “Iran is essentially decimated.”
The Strait of Hormuz remains an open issue — it needs to be opened, but we apparently are not the ones to do it. On this point Trump says it’s not our problem. We have plenty of oil: “The United States imports almost no oil through the Strait of Hormuz and won’t be taking any in the future. We won’t need it. We haven’t needed it, and we don’t need it.” It’s others who depend on oil that passes through the Strait. It’s their problem:
[T]he countries of the world that do receive oil through the Strait of Hormuz must take care of that passage. They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it. They can do it easily. We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on.
However, the price of oil is a world price. It won’t come down until the Strait is opened or other routes are developed for transport. That is a problem for us. Trump, argued, however, that the problem will take care of itself:
[W]hen this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It will just open up naturally. They are going to want to be able to sell oil because that’s all they have to try and rebuild. It will resume flowing, and gasoline prices will rapidly come back down.
Long story short: “We have all the cards. They have none.”
Trump ended with a view of the big picture and the optimistic prospect:
Tonight, every American can look forward to a day when we’re finally free from the wickedness of Iranian aggression and the specter of nuclear blackmail. Because of the actions that we’ve taken, we’re on the cusp of ending Iran’s sinister threat to America and the world. And I tell you, the world is watching.
We support Epic Fury. For reasons that Trump sketched out, it was overdue. However, we’re not the target audience of this speech.
