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One of the most famous moments in the lead-up to the Iraq war in 2003 was when then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited the Pottery Barn rule regarding the Middle East: "If you break it, you buy it."
Sadly, that is precisely what happened back then, as the war turned into a 12-year slog in which almost 5,000 American soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice without achieving the goal of a stable and modern Iraq.
That is the cloud under which American B-2 bombers pierced the night sky in Iran on Sunday, just after 12 a.m. local time, attacking three Iranian nuclear facilities in an operation aptly dubbed Midnight Hammer.
RUBIO DECLARES IRAN'S DAYS OF 'PLAYING THE WORLD' OVER AFTER TRUMP'S DECISIVE STRIKE
What the Trump administration understands here is that while it is good to learn the lessons of the Iraq War, it is bad to be paralyzed by them, and Saturday’s strike was a good example of both principles.
Obviously, the most vital difference between this weekend’s strike on Iran and the Iraq War is that we do not even have boots on the ground in Iran, much less designs on occupying it, which is what created the quagmire of Iraq.
FILE - This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran on May 20, 2025. (Planet Labs PBC via AP, File)
Back then, we had Army colonels who, instead of leading battles, were trying to negotiate with rival tribal leaders in a culture they barely had time to understand, and no, they were not greeted as liberators.
That leads us to the second major difference between now and the Iraq War. Trump is only using the military for military actions, not some vague viceregal nation-building and policing mission.
A third major distinction between Iraq and our current hard place is that the government of Iran is still intact. In Baghdad there was no one in charge after Sadaam Hussein was chased off. Here, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini can still come to his senses and give up his country’s nuclear weapons program, or whatever is left of it.
Last, but not least, the Iraq War was squarely led by the United States, with our "coalition of the willing" some distance behind us. This is a war between Israel and Iran. All we did was assist a close ally with a mission that caused no Iranian deaths.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the strikes in Iran are not the beginning of a war with US involvement. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
On Sunday morning, both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance were making the TV circuit and both unequivocally stated that the United States is not "at war" with Iran, the polar opposite of 2003.
Any choice Trump made on Iran, to attack, not to attack, was going to come with risk. And there is certainly a legitimate fear that Iran could respond with attacks on our troops in the region, or even a terror attack in the U.S. that would draw us into a Middle East meat grinder.
But this was also true when Trump killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani back in 2020. Swift and deadly revenge was promised by the mullahs, but it never materialized. They knew then, and likely still do, that a wider war against America is madness.
Meanwhile, unlike Barack Obama, who drew more redlines in the sand of the Middle East than Yosemite Sam, all while never backing it up, Trump just showed America’s foes that he will do what he says. That's as powerful a negotiating tool as there can be.
Timeline showing Operation Midnight Hammer. (Fox News)
Even just hours after the attack, carried off flawlessly by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his forces, you can sense that there is no great building fear of a wider war here.
Democrats, with a few exceptions such as staunch Israel-supporter Sen. John Fetterman, of Pennsylvania, are upset that Trump didn’t get Congressional approval. But they aren’t really warning about forever wars.
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The non-interventionist wing of the MAGA movement, which was very loud online against military action, has lost this one internal battle, but is mostly back in the fold. Nobody wins them all.
In the end, Trump did what he always does. He looked at a problem everyone said had no solution, like moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, or closing the border, and decided he would be the one who finally slammed the door on Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
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One week before Saturday’s attack, the United States Army celebrated its 250th birthday with a military parade in Washington D.C. Critics called it pointless, or self-aggrandizement by Trump, when in fact, it was a display of America’s incomparable military might.
On Saturday, Iran and its supreme leader learned that those lines of marching troops, those machines and flyovers were much, much more than simply a parade.
