“This wasn’t a Pentagon operation. This was a Donald Trump operation. He came up with the PR. He chose the plans. He chose the day.”
That’s a quote from news site Axios of a reportedly senior administration official about President Donald Trump’s role in conducting the operation to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities on Sunday.
Lost in debates about what American policy should be toward Iran, Israel, and the Middle East was a reminder about the need for executive leadership in handling foreign policy crises. It’s a demonstration of the danger the previous White House put the country in by not having a commander in chief with his wits about him.
Not only was this episode a demonstration of Trump’s individual abilities as a president, but it’s also a lesson in the difference between a presidency directed by individual initiative and accountability versus a presidency by committee.
While plenty of commentators on the Left and seemingly as much on the Right were critical of Trump’s decisions from moment to moment, what seemed clear is that Trump had a larger strategic plan and executed on it.
Trump has been, even before his political career began, consistent about his belief that Iran should not get a nuclear weapon. A document released in February practically telegraphed his position of applying “maximum pressure” on the government of Iran to get it to abandon its nuclear ambitions and stop supporting terrorism.
He then went on a major “commerce, not chaos” campaign in the Middle East to ensure friendly, cooperative relations with Iran’s neighbors. Trump gave Iran a 60-day window to change its ways. When that didn’t happen, he was happy to let a regional ally strike the country while at the last minute of a short and decisive campaign, the U.S. military dropped some very big bombs on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Now, despite a few initial hiccups, it appears we have a ceasefire and hopefully the end of Iran’s nuclear program for a while.
There were a lot of ways this timeline could have gone very badly. But Trump not only managed the difficult diplomacy of the strikes, he also staved off many concerns about the possibility of another American “forever war” in the Middle East that the American people have rightfully become deeply weary with and wary of.
Not to mention, after some drastic changes at the Pentagon in the first days of his second term, he trusted the U.S. military to get a limited but challenging job done.
Whatever one can say about the wisdom of striking Iran or of the president’s larger foreign policy strategy, it’s hard to say this is anything other than a success.
Trump’s style of leadership couldn’t be more different from Joe Biden’s, well, “leadership.”
The contrast between Trump’s “12-day war” and the previous administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan is a good place to start.
Both Trump and Biden had publicly expressed the desire to leave Afghanistan for years leading up to the withdrawal. America’s continual presence in that country two decades after 9/11 had become deeply unpopular.
Biden set a final day for departure long in advance to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11, telegraphing to any enemies in Afghanistan the moment they should strike.
But as the operation took shape, it became apparent that the Taliban had a better plan for our departure than we did. As the catastrophe unfolded, Biden was seemingly missing in action. Unlike Trump, who was constantly taking to social media and media to explain his position and actions on Iran, Biden was silent as Afghanistan plunged into chaos and U.S. service members were being killed.
As the catastrophe unfolded in Afghanistan, members of the Biden administration focused more on optics than the operation. On both ends, they failed.
When Biden finally did appear from the shadows, he made a speech saying that “the buck stops with me,” then proceeded to blame everyone else, including Trump.
It was a disaster. Even if the withdrawal was the correct call in general, its horrendous execution almost certainly emboldened America’s enemies abroad. Were our enemies intimidated by an America that couldn’t handle its business; had an exhausted, uncreative, and witless commander in chief; and was being guided by a directionless foreign policy blob?
No.
Biden’s feeble threats weren’t scaring anyone.
So, that failed Afghanistan operation was followed up by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel.
In neither of those conflicts did Biden project leadership nor give the American people clear-cut goals of how these crises would be resolved. The operations carried on with obviously a lot of U.S. involvement but without an explanation about how they would serve American interests or what the end game would be.
And even if they did have a clear plan, Biden was simply unable to communicate it to the American people.
Biden was a human gaffe machine whose obvious physical and mental decline only revealed the emptiness of his presidency. But he was carefully managed by staff and given cover by most of the media to avoid the “Big Lie” about his health and his personal life. This eventually blew up in their faces when a catastrophic debate revealed that the president was barely an empty suit.
No wonder our enemies were on the march.
Clearly, decisions were made by a kind of behind-the-scenes politburo. It’s funny now given the emergence of the boomer liberal “No Kings” protests against Trump. Biden very much behaved like an out-of-touch Old World king at the end of the age of monarchy. He took naps and ate ice cream while his advisers went wild and acted more imperiously than Lord North. On the other hand, Trump has acted like a chief executive.
Executive branch by committee under the Biden administration put the country at extreme risk. It felt as if the U.S. was sleepwalking into a large-scale conflict without any plan other than a vague commitment to the “liberal international order.”
America has presidential leadership now, and we can never afford another autopen presidency.
