As the war against Iran enters its fourth week, President Donald Trump is taking bold stands rooted in his America First foreign and national security policy. He knows, for instance, that the U.S. needs to secure free passage through the Strait of Hormuz for the commercial vessels that transport one-fifth of the world’s oil supply, and, while he’s open to asking other countries for help, he’s made clear he doesn’t think he needs it: “[M]y attitude is, we don’t need anybody. We’re the strongest nation in the world.”
And even as he concerns himself, properly, with the conduct of the war in the Middle East, he is also rightly concerned about the conduct of the battle back home – the battle for perception here among the citizenry that’s called on to give its blood and treasure when our nation’s leaders make the decision to go to war.
Consequently, it should be no surprise that President Trump “has unleashed a multifaceted pressure campaign” against news outlets like The New York Times and CNN in an effort to ensure that the information that gets to the American public about the conduct of the war is accurate and truthful, because without information that is accurate and truthful, the public will likely come to conclusions about the war that are wrong. And President Trump understands the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln’s comment, delivered at his first debate with Stephen Douglas in 1858, that, “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.”
President Trump, so unlike his predecessors – none of whom, faced with the threat from the radical theocratic regime in Iran, had the guts to commit U.S. armed forces to destroy the regime’s capability to project power beyond its borders and threaten the U.S. and its interests around the world – is also unlike his predecessors in his willingness to publicly shame the dinosaurs of the news media to ensure that the “news” they serve up to the American people is accurate and truthful.
It is precisely this willingness to go where no man has gone before that got him elected. It is the essence of what makes him unique – his rejection of “that’s the way it’s always been done, sir” thinking, and his willingness, nay, determination to break China, if necessary, to get things done.
Support for President Trump’s unconventional style is reflected in data from a recent survey of public opinion: according to a new poll for Tea Party Patriots Action conducted by McLaughlin & Associates on March 10, a strong majority of likely general election voters supports U.S. military action against Iran, and an even larger majority says it’s time to finish the job.
Specifically, 57% of survey respondents agree that “the United States military actions against Iran and the leadership of the Iranian regime were necessary and warranted to protect American lives today and in the future.” The intensity on the question favors Trump’s side, as well – 37 percent said they “strongly” agree, while just 21 percent said they “strongly” disagree.
Further, 59% agreed that “the United States must finish the job once and for all to protect the United States and our allies.” Again, the intensity on the question favors Trump’s side – 38% said they “strongly” agree, while just 18% said they “strongly” disagree.
Clearly, the American public wants the conflict with Iran over and done. I’m not talking about the current military exchanges in the Middle East, I’m talking about the half century-long effort by Iran to target, kidnap, and murder Americans all over the planet, beginning with the regime’s introduction of itself to the world, the November 1979 hostage crisis, when the regime held 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days, and including the October 1983 Hezbollah truck bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 Americans; and the June 1996 Hezbollah truck bomb attack on the Khobar Towers, a U.S. Air Force housing complex in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 American airmen and wounded another 500.
That was 30 years ago. Lest anyone think that Iran’s attacks against U.S. targets have slowed down, consider the January 2007 attack in which a dozen men affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) disguised themselves as U.S. soldiers to gain entry to a U.S facility in Iraq and then killed five American soldiers and wounded three others; a July 2014 Hamas terrorist attack that killed two Americans serving in the Israel Defense Forces; the November 2022 IRGC captain’s orchestration of the killing of an American citizen in Baghdad; and, of course, the November 2024 charges filed against an IRGC asset for plotting to assassinate a former American president – President Trump.
President Trump has public opinion on his side as he works to end the Iranian mullahs’ infrastructure of death. That’s as it should be – the President is doing the right thing to protect American lives and interests here at home, in the Middle East, and around the world.
