Stop Projecting Your Beliefs onto Donald Trump – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

“We didn’t vote for this!” some Trump supporters are shouting.  “We don’t want America striking Iran!”

Well, they may not want it, but they should stop projecting their preferences on President Trump.  For he made his position on Iran very clear when running for president.

“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Very simple. They cannot have a nuclear weapon.” Trump made that statement at a rally in Freeland, Michigan on May 1, 2024.

Yesterday, @RapidResponse47 posted no fewer than 33 other video clips of Trump expressing the same exact sentiment.  Twenty-three of them come from the campaign trail.  What exactly did isolationist voters think when Trump said Iran can’t have nuclear weapons? That he would sit around doing nothing while it built them?

I don’t use the word “isolationist” pejoratively.  In many ways, I’m an isolationist, and I personally do not support sending American troops to Iran or orchestrating a regime change there. I agree with conservatives like Charlie Kirk that the U.S. doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to regime change operations.  I also agree with them that the Iraq War was largely a disaster.

But journalist Aaron Sibarium made a wise remark on X yesterday when he addressed the anti-war wing of the Republican Party.  He wrote: “If you think we overlearned the lesson of Neville Chamberlain and WWII, you should be open to the possibility that we also overlearned the lesson of George Bush and Iraq.”

The Iraq War lasted eight years. A million and a half U.S. troops stepped on Iraqi soil.  We destroyed Iraq’s government and tried to rebuild it in our image.  America First hawks like Trump have no intention of repeating Bush’s mistake.  They want the U.S. to drop a few bunker busters on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities and get out.  That’s it.

They don’t want war.  They don’t want troops on the ground.  And although they might wish for a regime change, they don’t seek to impose one.  They want a one-time strike.  Just like the one-time strike against Syria in 2017, just like the one-time strike against Iran General Qasem Soleimani in 2020, and just like the very short-term bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen earlier this year.

Anti-war voices are correct when they say Iran poses no immediate threat to the U.S.  It’s also true that even with nuclear weapons, Iran doesn’t pose an existential threat to the U.S. like it does to Israel (since the U.S. is 450 times bigger in size).  But do we really want to live in a world in which a radical Muslim regime has nuclear weapons?  Our border is secure today.  But will it be under future presidents?  Can we guarantee that a Muslim suicide bomber won’t slip across the Mexico-U.S. border with a dirty bomb in his suitcase?

“Iran would never do that!”  Are we sure?  How would we even prove Iran was involved?  Nuclear bombs have a tendency to erase evidence of the people near them.

But even if Iran never targeted the U.S., surely it could target London, or Paris, or Madrid — if not directly, then through its proxies.  Does anyone think the U.S. would stay out of the war that would erupt in the wake of such an attack?

“These are all hypotheticals,” people might say.  “What ifs.”  I agree.  And if the price of attacking Iran were high, I would say forget it.  But thanks to the work Israel has done to decimate Iranian defenses, the price is exceedingly low, it seems to me.  We’re talking about a couple of U.S. planes dropping a few bombs.  That’s it.

Conservatives like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene oppose U.S. involvement in Iran despite the low cost involved.  Fine.  They’re entitled to their opinion.  But they should stop projecting that opinion on President Trump.  He was very clear in his opposition to Iran’s nuclear ambitions during the campaign.  Only the deaf can claim, “This isn’t what we voted for!”

READ MORE:

Ending the Ayatollah’s Nuclear Threat: No Better Time Than Now

Israeli Air Strikes and Iranian Missile Barrages Are Far From Over

Elliot Resnick, PhD, is the former chief editor of The Jewish Press, a podcast host, and the author and/or editor of 10 books, including “Nuggets of Gold: Donald Trump on Marriage, War, Plastic Straws, and 330 Other Topics.” Follow him on X at @ResnickElliot.