On Saturday, President Donald Trump took decisive action. He bombed three of Iran’s nuclear sites in a stunning display of American might and military power. The president is now saying he wants peace. To that point, Vice President J.D. Vance said the U.S. is not at war with the Iranian people, but rather with Iran’s nuclear program.
But there is more breaking news today, with reports of Israel now dropping bombs on targeted sites within Iran’s capital city, Tehran, as well as on access routes to the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant. That is, of course, one of the sites on which the U.S. dropped “bunker-buster” bombs from B-2 stealth bombers as part of Operation Midnight Hammer (great name!) over the weekend.
With all of this going on, Iran’s “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is reportedly hiding out in a bunker and has suspended all electronic communications with his commanders. That is exactly what made it so difficult to find Osama bin Laden when he was hiding out in the Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound. He wouldn’t communicate with most people because he knew it would be traced and he would be found.
So, this guy is clearly taking a lesson from history, though President Trump has already said we know where he is. In any event, he is determined to try to conceal his location amid assassination concerns. According to The New York Times, the ayatollah is giving orders only through a single, trusted aide.
The Reaction
The Trump administration appears 100 percent aligned on the actions so far, but the president has faced criticism for the move from Democrats, the media, and even some within the MAGA movement.
As for the division between the more isolationist MAGA wing and the more neocon wing that is still very much present – not dominant, but present – within the Republican Party, I’ll say this: You don’t have to be a neocon to be in support of what President Trump just did.
Iran is an enemy of the United States. Iran has been the number one state sponsor of terror against the United States for the past 46 years. Iran is not just theoretically chanting “death to America,” as some absolute fools have been suggesting over the past few days; they have actually been causing death to Americans for decades now.
Iran has several arms to it – from Hamas to Hezbollah to the Houthis and beyond – that are sponsored by it and who have been doing its bidding. It is ridiculous to suggest that Israel started this war with Iran. Israel was attacked by Iranian-proxy Hamas. That is how this whole thing got started.
The MAGA Divide
If you ask me, the reason we did what we did this weekend all started on October 7, 2023, in that the Iranian proxies have been greatly weakened by Israel over the past two years. I think this happened now because we had an American president who was willing to listen to Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims that the nukes were imminent because Iran was so weakened.
It made sense now in a way it didn’t before. It was, in a way, less provocative to bomb Iranian nuclear sites right now than it ever has been. Yes, it poses danger to our U.S. troops – especially on foreign military sites – but the danger is less now than it has in decades.
The ‘isolationist right’ (for lack of a better term) has lost this one. There is no question my friend Tucker Carlson and others did not want this to happen. And they had every right to be concerned, and they have an ongoing right to be concerned.
Their objections are based on some very real and unfortunate recent history. What happened in Iraq is chief among them. The absurd, failed nation-building we tried under President George W. Bush – and continued under Barack Obama – was a nightmare.
Even our troops have had it. Look at the interviews we did here on this program with Shawn Ryan. Look how Pete Hegseth has turned on some of these missions. Of course, they are not talking about the sacrifice made by our troops, but rather the folly of thinking we could swoop into the Middle East and create some democratic republic that in any way resembled our own or had shared values with us.
We are, understandably, a little jaded when it comes to the Middle East.
And the other real piece of it is Bibi Netanyahu is suffering from looking like the boy who cried wolf when it comes to some factions of the American people. I have been in the news business for 20 years now and, in every single one of them, I have heard him say that Iran is months or, at most, a couple of years away from getting a nuclear bomb. My team found examples dating back to the mid-1990s, and I think a large portion of the American populace is reacting to that and not believing him when he says it now and our president acts in response.
The Intel
And our president does seem to be responding to Israeli intelligence. There was a New York Times report out last week talking about how Israeli intelligence showed Iran was in the midst of cruder and faster efforts to get a nuclear weapon; and the weaker the Iranians got, the closer they were moving to the bomb.
In terms of the enrichment of uranium, Iran was reportedly days away from where it needed to be, but there were other components still required to complete the weapon. It points out in the same report, however, that contrary to Israeli claims, senior administration officials within the Trump administration were unaware of any new intel showing the Iranians were rushing to build a nuclear bomb.
It seems clear to me that Trump was listening to Bibi’s intel and not to our own. And there are flaws with our own because – prior to Tulsi Gabbed – we have had an office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) going back to the end of the Bush administration claiming Iran doesn’t mean it. And I believe that messaging was because there was zero appetite to bomb Iran or to get involved in a new Middle East war at the end of George W. Bush’s presidency and throughout the Obama administration.
So, the U.S. has used the DNI office for years as the excuse for not doing anything about Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli intelligence – and I don’t know whether it is real or not, to be honest with you – has certainly been consistent in saying Iran is inches away.
And what we saw most recently was the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is the international monitoring organization when it comes to nuclear behavior, going into these Iranian nuclear sites (albeit with limited access) and saying they have 60 percent enriched uranium. Absolutely no domestic energy program needs that level of enrichment. You need less than 10 percent. According to the reports, Iran was enriching enough uranium for nine or 10 nuclear bombs.
We were pretending we didn’t see it because nobody had the appetite for a war with Iran. That is my take on it, and it is not just mine. Many smart experts who have been watching the region are saying the same.
What Comes Next
And here’s the thing: President Trump doesn’t have the appetite for a war with Iran. There is nothing inconsistent – not one word – in the way Trump ran for office and the way he is handling this crisis. He was never an isolationist. MAGA is far more isolationist than Trump is. We discussed this when I interviewed Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year. Trump has a foot in both camps, but he has not been shy about using American power where it makes strategic sense and when he thought it would serve the United States well.
There was an excellent tweet from Noah Pollak last week in response to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and others talking about “another endless war.” It reads as follows: “This ‘endless war’ shrieking is ridiculous. Trump bombed the Houthis for six weeks and then ended it. He fought ISIS for around two years, defeated them, and then ended it. Trump killed Soleimani and did not engage further. He degraded Al-Shabaab in Somalia for three years and then ended it. Trump’s record of NOT ‘dragging us into another endless war’ is impeccable.”
There is something in between targeted military strikes and “endless war.” And Trump and, yes, Netanyahu saw the opportunity for it in bombing the nuclear sites of a now weakened Iran, whose proxies are in no position to fight back the way they would have been even five years ago. I don’t think they have the capacity to respond in the way some are fearing, and I don’t think they are inclined to go that route.
I know they are martyrs. I know they love jihad. I know they hate the infidel. I know they mean “death to America.” But I think they understand that escalating this will risk everything they care about, from the ayatollah’s ability to go on (though he is already 86 years old) to the Islamic regime in general. That is my own back-of-the-envelope take.
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,093 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.