A defining moment: Trump must choose the path of Reagan, not Obama’s failure

One door is marked “Truman/Reagan” and the other door is marked “Carter/Obama/Biden.”

President Donald Trump has to choose one. Again. And this time, the election will determine Trump’s place in history.

The 45th and 47th President of the United States were first through the door on three separate occasions.

Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force Commander General Qasem Soleimani on January 3, 2020.

EXPERTS WARN THAT IRAN PRESENTS A MUCH MORE DANGEROUS MILITARY TEST FOR THE USA THAN VENEZUELA

Trump followed this with a second-term order to conduct Operation Midnight Resolve against Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities in June of last year, and Operation Absolute Resolve to kidnap Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro in January of this year.

Three times President Trump took bold action and three times achieved major victories for the United States, restoring America’s deterrence.

Trump had to restore America’s deterrent in 2020 because the Iranian regime had worked extensively on former President Barack Obama with his infamous 2015 “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” which gave Iran billions of dollars in cash, hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief, and a guaranteed path to nuclear weapons. This was the handing over of the Middle East to the mullahs under the guise of dense language and absurd timelines. But Iranian theocrats knew they had won.

FORMER POLITICAL PRISONER SAYS TRUMP’S LEADERSHIP HAS CREATED A ‘RARE OPPORTUNITY’ FOR CHANGE IN IRAN

President Trump has many times called the JCPOA the “worst deal in history,” and he has always been right. It was the equivalent of the “Munich Agreement” between Neville Chamberlain and Hitler. The damage done to the world was enormous.

Although President Joe Biden’s disastrous and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan did not directly involve Iran, it deeply damaged America’s standing in the world and defined the Biden presidency as mired in catastrophic failure from the leap.

President Trump attempted to reverse the damage wrought by the JCPOA with attacks on Soleimani and Iran’s nuclear facilities.

IRAN PROTESTS, WE WANT TRUMP’S NEW WARNING ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT’S DEADLY PRESSURE

But now the Iranians are responding with thousands of ballistic missiles that already threaten American bases in the Middle East, Israel, and our Gulf allies. The nature of the regime has been fully revealed, even to the appeasers on Team Obama and Team Biden: The ayatollahs ordered tens of thousands of their citizens to be shot or macheted to death this January. Does anyone doubt that as soon as they improve the range, they will turn their missiles on American cities? Crazy killers will kill again and again.

Because of President Obama and Biden, Ayatollah Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guard thugs believe that America is always “winking” in the end. They still don’t believe Trump is different from Obama and Biden. They see Trump’s one-day missions as brief diversions from the Obama-Biden model of appeasement. Iranians are not afraid of Trump. Yet.

The Iranians are building massive missiles with massive warheads. They already have more than a thousand missiles in their arsenal and have ramped up production of thousands more following Trump’s attack on nuclear weapons facilities last year.

IRAN RESPONDED TO TRUMP PRESSURE WITH A WARNING OF RETAIL: ‘FINGERS ON THE TRIGGER’

The Iranians are trying to extend the range of their missiles. Iran’s longest-range missiles will probably now be able to reach Europe. They will threaten the USA sooner or later, and we do not have Trump’s “Golden Dome” yet.

So Trump now needs to decide what to do about these missiles and the mass murderers who rule Iran. Trump has ordered a massive increase in American military presence; He ordered American military assets established within striking range of Iran and deployed the defense systems we have to protect our bases and allies.

Now he has to decide which door to go through.

HEGSETH SAID HE WOULD BE READY TO OFFER ANYTHING TRUMP WANTS AFTER THE WAR DEPARTMENT’S IRAN WARNING

Truman and Reagan (and both Bush) would order the strike.

Carter, Obama and Biden would step back and pretend they had defused a crisis, when in reality they had decapitated America’s deterrent.

Rarely do we see a president presented with such a stark choice: a fork in his personal road as far as history is concerned, and a fork in the road to America’s future.

Trump may be remembered as the man who brought aid to the Iranian people and protected America from an emerging threat after nearly 50 years of fanatical dictatorship, or as the president who stepped back more spectacularly than any president before him.

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On August 26, 1990, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher spoke with President George HW Bush about Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iraq. “This was not the time to waver,” the prime minister told the president.

This was probably the least necessary incentive ever, as the former World War II fighter pilot was not the type of man to back down. (HW was shot twice and flew back to his duties after both.) But Thatcher’s line has gone down in history because it is both so British and so useful in so many contexts.

IRAN’S COLLAPSE OR SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON A SINGLE ELECTION WITHIN THE REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS

It is useful now. President Trump will not be able to swing, no matter how attractive the Carter/Obama/Biden door may seem as an exit. In other words, Trump “can’t go Obama.”

To reiterate: President Trump’s election will determine his place in history. Everything else in his eight years will be secondary to the decisions he makes in the near term.

All other achievements will be secondary. Not every criticism will be valid when the elimination of the Iranian regime’s threat to the world is put on the table.

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President Trump may choose to do what no president since Jimmy Carter has dared to do: cripple or end the fanatic regime in Iran, which seeks to threaten and destabilize the Middle East every day and could soon threaten the United States unless stopped.

Pray that he chooses wisely. America’s national security, the hope of the Iranian people, and the future of the Middle East depend on this decision.

Hugh Hewitt, Fox News contributor and “The Hugh Hewitt Show” weekday afternoons from 3 to 6 p.m. ET on the Salem Radio Network and simulcast on the Salem News Channel. Hugh takes Americans home to the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on more than 400 affiliates nationwide and on all streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest of Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier on weekdays at 6 p.m. ET A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996, where he started his eponymous radio show in Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has appeared frequently on all major national news television networks, hosted television programs for PBS and MSNBC, written for all major American newspapers, and authored a dozen books. He has moderated multiple Republican candidate debates, most recently the 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in 2015-16. Hewitt focuses his radio show and column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians Today Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests, from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush.

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