Israel’s Operation Rising Lion, with an assist from America’s Operation Midnight Hammer, dealt a potentially devastating blow to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, leading President Donald Trump to announce Monday he had negotiated a “complete and total” ceasefire barely a day after he sent B-2 stealth bombers to attack the Islamic Republic’s deeply buried nuclear sites.
The announcement that he had brokered a halt to the 12-day Israel-Iran war gives him an opportunity to move from peace rhetoric to peacemaker. He has said for nearly a decade that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated by his nemesis and predecessor Barack Obama was “a horrible one-sided deal,” and that he, the consummate dealmaker, could easily do better.
This is his chance to put up or shut up. It’s time to do the heavy lifting. It won’t be the “forever” ceasefire he blithely predicts, but he has an opportunity to assure the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism never gets nuclear weapons.
We don’t yet know what he has offered either side or what they agreed to.
The Islamic Republic accelerated its pursuit of the bomb – you don’t enrich uranium to near-weapons level if you’re only using it for civilian electricity – after Trump tore up the JCPOA in 2018, largely under pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Iran’s network of terror proxies in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have been dramatically weakened by Israel, which has neutralized Tehran’s air defense system, battered its nuclear facilities, removed its top scientists, and damaged its ballistic missile arsenal.
Israel’s Friday the 13th attack on Iran this month softened the targets and opened the path for Trump to send in American stealth bombers with their bunker-buster bombs.
It remains to be seen whether Trump started another war or ended one that day. Attacking another sovereign power is defined as an act of war, notwithstanding the denials of Vice President J.D. Vance. He insists the United States didn’t declare war against Iran, only its “nuclear program.” I guess that means this is just a “special military operation,” not a war.
American bombing of Iran's nuclear sites, and subsequent ceasefire
THE AMERICAN intervention and ceasefire, if it holds, were cheered across all of Israel, and appear to have boosted Netanyahu’s sagging standing for the time being.
Trump can also expect an uptick in his dropping poll numbers, but many in his base feel he broke a sacred promise. He ran as an anti-interventionist with a vow to eschew foreign conflicts, blaming his opponents of waging “endless wars.”
Pre-ceasefire polls contain a warning for Trump. One survey taken shortly before the American bombing raid showed most Americans, including Republicans, don’t want the US to get involved in this war, even though they consider Iran’s nuclear program a serious threat to the United States, Axios reported.
That may explain why Trump insisted – falsely – that he didn’t know about Israel’s initial attack in advance, although he quickly shifted as IDF successes piled up, eventually even trying to take credit for Israel’s achievements.
Some of Israel’s outspoken critics from opposite ends of the spectrum are accusing Netanyahu of pushing the United States into war.
Far Right MAGA cheerleader Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) complained we are “being dragged into another war by Netanyahu.” On the Left, Vermont’s two Democratic senators, Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch called the attack an “act of war” that “risks retaliation” and allows Netanyahu to “drag us into his war against Iran.”
This debate was about political power as well as military power.
Democrats are rightfully upset that Trump notified Republican leadership and Intelligence Committee chairs in advance of the bombing attack but not their Democratic counterparts, a sharp break from past practices of bipartisanship during times of international crises.
They are pressing for war powers legislation that would check presidential authority to commit the United States to armed conflict without congressional consent, but legislators have gradually surrendered that power under presidents of both parties in recent years.
NO ONE has done more than Trump to expand presidential power, and he’s only just begun. He knows he can count on wall-to-wall Republican fealty, with barely a murmur of disagreement. Historically, Republicans have shown a greater propensity to fall in line behind a president of their own party than Democrats.
This administration, more than any in memory, has pressed an expansive – bordering on unlimited – definition of presidential power at the expense of the other constitutionally equal branches of government, as well as the independent agencies, the media, academia, and beyond. It has been an overarching theme of this presidency.
The ceasefire can make or break Trump’s legacy. It got off to a shaky start with the president castigating both sides for early violations. “They don’t know what the f*** they’re doing,” he told reporters.
These two arch enemies will test and probe each other intensely for the slightest breech. Israel must particularly worry about Tehran sweet talking Trump while continuing its terror and cyber warfare through proxies.
With his notoriously short attention span – except for holding grudges – Trump cannot afford to lose interest or leave the job to his weak and inexperienced national security team of Fox News has-beens.
He’s already fired his national security adviser, and his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, may be on the way out after he told reporters “I don’t care what she said” when his view of Iran’s nuclear weapons program contradicted hers.
It could well be in Israel’s and America’s best interests that Trump’s greatest motivation may be that he sees protecting and expanding this ceasefire not in strategic terms but in very personal ones as his ticket to the Nobel Peace Prize he covets.
The B-2 raid on Iran’s nuclear sites can prove to be a historic turning point if it can lock the door to nuclear weapons for a leading state sponsor of terrorism. That will be a far better use of the army than a parade for an elderly draft dodger.
The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and a former legislative director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.