President Donald Trump delivered a speech on Wednesday night with the intention of informing Americans about what’s going on with our joint military operations with Israel against Iran. It was remarkably restrained for a Trump speech and relatively brief.
Side note: My favorite phrase from the speech was when Trump referred to the “green, green cash” that Barack Obama threw at the Islamic regime during his presidency.
The president remarked that Wednesday was the one-month mark for Operation Epic Fury:
As we speak this evening, it has been just one month since the United States military began Operation Epic Fury targeting the world’s number one state sponsor of terror, Iran. In these past four weeks, our Armed Forces have delivered swift, decisive, overwhelming victories on the battlefield — victories like few people have ever seen before. Tonight, Iran’s navy is GONE. Their air force is in ruins. Their leaders, most of them — the terrorist regime they led — are now dead. Their command and control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard [Corps] is being decimated as we speak. Their ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed and their weapons, factories, and rocket launchers are being blown to pieces — very few of them left. Never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating large-scale losses in a matter of weeks.
He reminded viewers that disabling Iran was one of his earliest campaign promises:
From the very first day I announced my campaign for President in 2015, I have vowed that 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 servicemembers with roadside bombs, they were involved in the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, and they’ve carried out countless other heinous acts… For these terrorists to have nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat. The most violent and thuggish regime on earth would be free to carry out their campaigns of terror, coercion, conquest, and mass murder from behind a nuclear shield. I will never let that happen.
The president expressed that his goal was to resolve Iran’s issues diplomatically, but Iran wouldn’t allow that to happen:
My first preference was always the path of diplomacy — yet, the regime continued their relentless quest for nuclear weapons and rejected every attempt at an agreement. For this reason, in June, I ordered a strike on Iran’s key nuclear facilities in Operation Midnight Hammer… 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… For years, everyone has said that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons — but in the end, those are just words if you’re not willing to take action when the time comes.
Trump acknowledged the pain Americans are feeling at the gas pump. (As somebody who recently bought a new vehicle that gets much lower gas mileage than my prior car, I can testify.)
Many Americans have been concerned to see the recent rise in gasoline prices here at home… This short-term increase has been entirely the result of the Iranian regime launching deranged terror attacks against commercial oil tankers and neighboring countries that have nothing to do with the conflict. This is yet more proof that Iran can never be trusted with nuclear weapons. They will use them and they will use them quickly. It would lead to decades of extortion, economic pain, and instability worse than we can ever imagine. The United States has never been better prepared economically to confront this threat.
He called out nations that are dealing with the effects of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz:
To those countries that can’t get fuel — many of which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, we had to do it ourselves — I have a suggestion. Number one, buy oil from the United States of America; we have plenty. We have so much. And Number two, build up some delayed courage… Go to the Strait and just take it. Protect it. Use it for yourselves. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done.
After assuring the public that operations in Iran should be done in “two to three weeks,” Trump reassured his viewers that Iran’s days as a threatening power are almost over.
"Tonight, every American can look forward to a day when we are finally free from the wickedness of Iranian aggression and the specter of nuclear blackmail," he declared. "Because of the actions we have taken, we are on the cusp of ending Iran’s sinister threat to America and the world."
Tonight, the president gave a speech that was characteristically Trumpian. But it achieved the objective that he wanted: informing the American people that Operation Epic Fury is nearly over and won’t be a “forever war.”
Recommended: Jon Ossoff’s ID Hypocrisy Was Begging for Mockery, and Mike Collins Delivered
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