The Islamic Republic of Iran has been murdering people for 47 years. It murdered American hostages' dignity in 1979. It murdered 241 Marines in Beirut in 1983. It murdered dissidents in the streets of Tehran in 2009, 2019 and again in January of this year. It funded the murder of Israelis through Hamas and Hezbollah. It supplied the drones that Russia used to murder Ukrainian civilians. It tortured and executed its own people for not wearing a hijab correctly. For nearly five decades it pointed a finger at America and Israel and called it the Great Satan while hiding behind the skirts of diplomatic process long enough to get closer and closer to a nuclear weapon. Donald Trump looked at that record and decided enough was enough. In my opinion, he was right. And in my opinion, the United States needs to stay in this fight until that regime is gone - not degraded, not pressured, not negotiated back to the table. Gone.

What Trump Got Right

Operation Epic Fury, launched February 28, killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the opening strikes along with 49 senior regime officials, decimated Iran's navy, degraded its ballistic missile capability by more than 90 percent and put American B-1 bombers over Iranian airspace with near-total air dominance. Iranian ballistic missile launches fell from 350 on day one to roughly 25 by day fourteen. Iran's nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordow have been hit repeatedly. The regime that spent decades building the architecture of regional terror is on its back foot for the first time in its existence.

That is not an accident. It is the result of a president who was willing to do what every administration before him was not - apply decisive force against a regime that had learned to outlast diplomatic pressure, survive sanctions and reconstitute after every previous limited strike. The June 2025 strikes set back Iran's nuclear program. The February 2026 campaign went further. It targeted the regime's ability to function, not just its hardware. That is the right instinct. Half-measures have a 47-year track record of failure against this particular opponent.

The War Needs to End With the Regime, Not With a Deal

Washington Post intelligence reporting from March 16 is sobering: despite more than two weeks of relentless strikes, U.S. intelligence assessments say the regime likely remains in place for now, weakened but more hard-line, with the IRGC exerting greater control. Mojtaba Khamenei has taken his father's position. The clerical apparatus, the Revolutionary Guard patronage networks and the internal coercion machinery are still functioning. The regime has absorbed the blow and kept running.

That is exactly the scenario that cannot be allowed to stand as the final outcome. A regime that survives this campaign will have learned that the United States will eventually stop, that the costs of endurance are survivable and that the case for a nuclear deterrent has never been stronger. A nuclear-armed Islamic Republic on the other side of this war is a catastrophically worse outcome than any cost of seeing the campaign through. The only acceptable endpoint is a government in Tehran that is not the Islamic Republic. Not a reformed version of it. Not a successor that keeps the IRGC apparatus intact under a different name. The regime itself has to go.

Europe Is Hiding and Should Pay for the Privilege

Germany's Friedrich Merz said NATO is a defensive alliance and the Iran operation has nothing to do with it. France's Emmanuel Macron called the strikes legally questionable and warned about global stability. Spain called it a violation of international law. EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Kaja Kallas, after a meeting of all 27 EU foreign ministers, delivered Trump a direct refusal to join the Strait of Hormuz mission and said: "This is not our war." Luxembourg's deputy prime minister said his country would not succumb to "blackmail" from Washington.

Let me be clear about what Europe is actually doing. It is benefiting from the removal of a regime that supplied drones to Russia for use against Ukraine - a war Europe claims to care deeply about - while refusing to share any of the cost of removing it. It is consuming roughly one-fifth of the world's oil supply through the Strait of Hormuz while declining to lift a finger to help keep that waterway open. It is calling the operation illegal while simultaneously preparing to benefit from whatever stability emerges when the job is done.

Americans are not stupid. They can see when a rule is selectively enforced. Europe has consumed American security guarantees for 80 years. It invoked Article 5 exactly once - after September 11, when Americans were the ones who were attacked. Now, when the United States is doing the hard work of removing the world's most active state sponsor of terror, Germany says it is "not our war" and France asks for clarity on strategic goals. Trump is right to be furious. He is right to make the level of enthusiasm matter. If Europe will not help clear and secure the Strait of Hormuz - a waterway that keeps their economies running - then Europe should pay for the service. Toll the passage. Charge for the naval escort. Make the free-riding visible and expensive. The days of America doing the dangerous work while Europe writes op-eds about international law are over.

Help Iran Get Back on Its Feet - but Do It Right This Time

The legitimate concern about this operation - and it is a legitimate one - is what comes after. Iraq taught the world what happens when you remove a regime without a serious plan for what follows. Afghanistan taught it again. The lesson is not that regime change is always wrong. The lesson is that regime change without serious post-conflict investment and political architecture produces chaos that is sometimes worse than what it replaced.

Iran does not have to be that story. The conditions for a better outcome exist in a way they did not in Iraq or Afghanistan. Iran has an organized opposition with recognized leadership. Reza Pahlavi has publicly stated his readiness to lead a transitional government and commands genuine support among the diaspora and significant elements of the opposition inside Iran. Iran has a large educated middle class that has been demanding secular democratic governance for two decades at mortal risk. It has a diaspora with technical capacity, financial resources and political experience. These are not guarantees. But they are starting conditions that are vastly more favorable than anything America had to work with in Baghdad in 2003.

The United States should commit now to a serious post-conflict framework: financial reconstruction support, coordination with the Iranian opposition on transitional governance, protection of civilian infrastructure, international monitoring of elections and the kind of sustained diplomatic investment that turns military victory into durable political change. That commitment does not require an occupation. It requires a plan, funding and the honesty to admit that finishing the military campaign is only the beginning of the harder work.

My Bottom Line

Donald Trump launched a campaign against the most durable state sponsor of terror in modern history and hit it harder in two weeks than the previous six administrations did in 47 years. The regime that funded Hezbollah, armed Hamas, supplied Russia with drones, chased a nuclear weapon in secret and killed its own people in the streets every time they dared to ask for freedom is on its back foot for the first time since 1979. That is worth defending. That is worth finishing.

Stopping short - taking a deal that leaves the IRGC intact, that leaves the clerical apparatus in place, that gives the regime time to reconstitute - is not restraint. It is the same mistake made repeatedly for nearly five decades. The regime survives, learns from the experience, accelerates its nuclear program and comes back more dangerous. The Iranian people pay for it with another generation under a government that views them as subjects to be controlled rather than citizens to be served.

Europe can call this not their war if they want. Someone should send them an oil price chart and a list of the Iranian-supplied drones that fell on Ukrainian cities. The United States should charge for the service of clearing the strait they depend on and keeping open the waterway their economies require. The free ride has a price now.

Forty-seven years of murder, terrorism, hostage-taking and nuclear ambition. The regime did not stumble into being evil. It was built that way. Finish the job. Then help the Iranian people build something better. They have been waiting long enough.