Trump is fighting Iran with strategic clarity — and America is winning

Operation Epic Fury is the right war at the right time. And, informed by Bush and Obama/Biden Administration failures, it is being fought in the right way.

Critics left and right make similar arguments: "Illegal war of choice," "unwinnable quagmire," "war makes the mullahs more extreme," and even "Trump is a Jewish puppet." These criticisms, and many who offer them, are detached from reality.

First, Epic Fury is a right and just war. Since 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has owed the American people a blood debt. But until now American policymakers have generally failed to collect this debt much less effectively manage the regime's ongoing threat to U.S. interests, regional peace, and international economic stability. This is partly due to the regime’s dangerous "revolutionary" Islamic supremist ideology that drives Iran’s aggression against the United States and Israel; justifies its brutal internal repression and foreign adventurism, including massive investments in the Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi, and Iraqi terrorist groups; and drives its development of advanced offensive ballistic missile, drone, and nuclear weapon capabilities. A rational actor would not spend billions subsidizing terror tunnels and missiles in Gaza and Lebanon when its own citizens lack clean water and reliable electricity. But the mullahs, like other "revolutionary" authoritarians, have different incentives.

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Second, Epic Fury was launched at a uniquely favorable time because the regime has never been weaker.

Historically, the mullahs relied on geography, oil revenue, and regional proxies for strategic deterrence. U.S. and allied diplomatic and military options were constrained by the possibility that the regime could close the Strait of Hormuz and disrupt international oil supplies, and by the fact that the utility of our economic sanctions were cabined by the robust commercial demand for Iranian oil and the political influence of the nations and networks that moved Iranian money. The Islamic Republic’s proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship in Syria shielded Iran from its regional foes.

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But President Trump’s American energy dominance policy and rejuvenated U.S. military have essentially rendered Iran’s geography and oil resources a strategic nullity. Similarly, the regime’s proxy shield has been undone. Israel convincingly defeated Hamas and Hezbollah, then decimated Iran’s military and scientific leadership and fatally degraded the regime’s strategic air defense capabilities in the June 2025 "12 Day War." Assad fell, and the Houthis yielded to a combination of American resolve and punishing military strikes. And thanks to the U.S. blockade, economic sanctions, and strong diplomatic engagement with the Gulf Arab states and China, the Iranian economy is rapidly collapsing. The mullahs have been left naked and bare.

Third, this war is being fought the right way.

Writing for Tablet magazine, the commentator Michael Doran describes the President as steering between "two wrecks" — the first, George W. Bush’s regime-change war in Iraq, and the second, Obama/Biden’s appeasement program of paying the mullahs for quiet, indulging their regional and nuclear aspirations, preventing Israel from dealing hard blows to Hamas and Hezbollah, and calling it peace.

Doran is generally correct.

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Epic Fury is certainly not the Global War on Terror. Epic Fury has strategic clarity: The President has made it clear Iran will not have a nuclear weapon, will not threaten international shipping, and will not, directly or through proxies, attack other states in the region. Accordingly, the United States and its allies have focused on eliminating imminent threats posed by Iranian missiles, naval forces, nuclear infrastructure, and the security apparatus that enables proxy terrorism, while decapitating the regime’s leaders and maintaining crippling pressure through unprecedented maritime interdiction and financial sanctions. Success is measured by killing the enemy, destroying his ability to attack Americans and our allies and partners, and terminating the economic sources of his war machine. No American forces are tasked with reconstructing Iranian society or reconciling its factions.

By contrast, the GWOT was crippled by incoherence in its target, means, and ends. Even the GWOT’s name was nonsensical, employing the word "terror" as a euphemism for Islamic radicalism. On the ground, political "nation-building" objectives expanded without clear connection to the strategic goal. American forces, tasked with responsibility for local governance and security, were left to endure two decades of combat under crippling and ineffective rules of engagement. After more than 7,000 American deaths, 50,000 American wounded, and over five trillion in American taxpayer spending, the end was not democracy and social change in the Middle East, it was Biden’s Afghanistan retreat.

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Epic Fury is also most assuredly not a continuation of the failed and morally bankrupt Obama/Biden appeasement policies: President Trump has acted decisively and effectively to ensure Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. The Obama/Biden policy was to pave the way for the Iranians to develop such a device and provided sanctions relief and other payments as they went along.

Operation Epic Fury is strategically sound and magnificently executed. America has air supremacy. Much of the Islamic Republic’s political and military leadership is dead. Layered defensive networks have significantly mitigated the threat from Iranian ballistic missiles and drones and the blockade of vessels bound for or departing Iranian ports has choked Iranian oil exports and commercial trade. Treasury’s "Economic D-Day" has put into place unprecedented secondary sanctions targeting the mullah’s bankers, digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping severing every economic lifeline that sustains the Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And at every step, the Trump Administration’s close cooperation with Israel and our other regional friends and partners has been a significant force multiplier.

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History teaches that the end phase of war against a fanatical, despotic enemy is difficult and unpredictable. But President Trump has proven that he, uniquely, has the courage to stay the course and the will to finally settle the mullahs’ account. The truth is this: The United States is winning.

Reed D. Rubinstein is Senior Vice President of the America First Legal Foundation. He served as Legal Adviser to the U.S. Department of State from 2025 to 2026 and previously served as Deputy Associate Attorney General, General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Education, and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury. He has more than 30 years of experience in private practice and government.