Trump invokes regime change in Iran; media needs to learn from its mistakes

That’s it for the pundits who will be following Donald Trump’s State of the Union throughout the weekend.

What about expert analysis of the tariff confusion caused by the president’s Supreme Court loss? This is also pending.

When Trump launched a bomb attack against Iran with the support of Israeli forces, he did more than take a giant, risky step against the world’s leading supporter of terrorism.

The attacks targeted Iran’s religious leader and succeeded in killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a remarkable military feat.

Behind such precise targeting, Trump used a very important phrase: regime change.

These words resonate because they echo George W. Bush’s rhetoric two decades ago. Bush’s stated goal was to overthrow Saddam Hussein, rather than stand by as his father had done, despite imaginary claims of weapons of mass destruction. And this impulse was supported by demonstrations rallying around the flag, almost fawning over it in the media.

I feel strongly about this because, when I was at the Washington Post, I wrote a long report in which the newspaper’s leaders admitted that they had been too enthusiastically involved in the march toward war and downplayed evidence to the contrary. “I think I’m part of groupthink,” Bob Woodward told me.

CONTINUED IRAN’S CROWN PRINCE SAYS US HAS SIGNED ‘THE BEGINNING OF THE END’ FOR THE REGIME

So Trump is no longer just trying to stop Iran’s nuclear program, which he claims he did with a surprise attack on Tehran’s underground nuclear facilities nine months ago.

Now the president says he wants Iranians to oust the last of the theocratic authoritarians who rule the country with an iron fist; as if they could do it on their own.

Not that I have the slightest sympathy for these awful ayatollahs. Trump called Khamenei “one of the worst people in history.”

Recent attacks on Iran have resulted in the elimination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Sobhan Farajvan/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Many Trump supporters were drawn to the America First language, which they saw as the end of distant wars. Instead they witnessed the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, whose Venezuela is one-third the size of Iran. And finally the threats to take over Greenland ended. Plus, now the second bombardment of Iran.

No wonder some of his conservative allies oppose these military offensives. They want federal money to be spent here, not in an unstable region driven by centuries of ethnic hatred.

Iran’s retaliation against Israel and US bases in several nearby Arab countries was both immediate and predictable. We now find ourselves in a regional war.

While Khamenei’s massacre sealed his fate, the targeted killing of another head of state certainly fuels critics who think the United States is acting like the Great Satan. At the same time, most neighboring countries, including Saudi Arabia, do not want Iran or its proxies like Hamas to do anything.

OPERATION EPIC FURY: HOW AMERICA’S AIR POWER CRUSHED IRAN’S REGIME OF TERROR

Looking at the question of why military escalation is being initiated now, some of Trump’s statements appear to be based on questionable or exaggerated evidence, given that Tehran is no closer to completing a bomb. He may have decided that the regime is too weak to survive right now.

But Iranian hardliners, who openly refuse to give up their nuclear ambitions, have left Trump with little choice.

This is the same gang of dictators who killed thousands of protesters in the streets. Trump continued to claim that the practice had been stopped, but that was not true, except for public executions. This situation is very reminiscent of Beijing’s crackdown on Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Let’s go back even further. What civilized country would hold 52 diplomats hostage for more than a year to pressure America to hand over the sick Shah Reza Pahlavi? I think the key word is civilization.

The 444-day ordeal ended Jimmy Carter’s presidency, but it also served to realize that even American embassies are not safe.

The Iran Hostage Crisis meant the end of the Carter administration. (Universal Images Group via Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Chuck Schumer wants to continue invoking the War Powers Act because the Constitution gives that authority to Congress. It’s a little late for this.

Politically speaking, who could vote to undermine the administration when our pilots are risking their lives in an attack on Iran?

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Come on, in the modern age, presidents declare war and Congress holds hearings. Whether it is JFK and Cuba, Ronald Reagan and Grenada, George HW Bush and Panama, Bill Clinton and Kosovo, or many more, the commander in chief calls the shots.

However, as Trump rightly points out, war also brings deaths.

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Before the invasion of Iraq, Bush’s CIA chief said it was a “slam-dunk” case that Saddam had illegal weapons. As the media gets caught up in coverage of Trump’s war in Iran, it may display the kind of skepticism sorely missing during the latest showdown in the Middle East.

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