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Source: https://quillette.com/2026/04/17/the-wrong-man-to-tackle-iran-trump-iran-middle-east/
Deciding What to Do about Iran's Nuclear Program
(Quillette-Australia) Michael J. Totten - Deciding what to do - if anything - about Iran's nuclear program is the mother of all terrible jobs. Do nothing, and Iran will obtain apocalyptic weaponry. On Quds Day in 2017, the regime installed a digital clock in Tehran's Palestine Square that began counting down the number of days until "the annihilation of Israel." The countdown's conclusion was timed to coincide with the 25-year expiration date of Obama's nuclear deal, at which point the Islamic Republic would be free to finish what Hitler started. No people on earth would sit patiently awaiting the moment when genocidal fascists decide to erase them from the map. The Jews, in particular, are in no mood to be passive after what happened the last time somebody tried this kind of thing. The U.S. could have decided to stick with the nuclear deal, buy time, and hope that the Iranian regime imploded or was overthrown. But the ayatollahs are nothing like reformist Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev in the waning days of the Cold War. They negotiate in bad faith and use the money from sanctions relief to unleash a vast swath of murder, arson, and mayhem even without nuclear weapons. So Donald Trump opted for a limited air war, hoping to get the best possible result for the lowest possible cost. He went to war together with the Israelis, and with much quieter support from America's Arab allies in the Persian Gulf, who had been menaced and attacked by Iran for decades. We can hardly blame them for finally hitting back at a regime weakened by the destruction of its allies in Syria, Gaza, and Lebanon.