In 2024, Donald Trump staged the greatest political comeback in American history, becoming the first president since Grover Cleveland to take back the White House after losing it four years earlier. As he took the oath of office following a swing-state sweep and a decisive popular-vote victory, Democrats were demoralized and defeated.
Two years later, it is Republicans who are demoralized as Democrats celebrate their big midterm victory. But Democrats should not be too sanguine, nor should Republicans feel so crushed. As was just shown, a lot can change in two years — and the political pendulum swings in both directions.
Indeed, Republicans can take comfort from the experience of Ronald Reagan, who suffered a similar midterm drubbing in his second term but is now remembered as one of our nation’s greatest presidents. The same can be true for Trump.
In 1984, Reagan secured a second term with the most electoral votes in U.S. history, winning 49 of 50 states. Two years later, he was trounced in the 1986 midterms. Democrats won control of the Senate, gaining eight seats and a 55-45 majority, while shrinking the GOP’s House minority to just 177 seats. “Two years after President Reagan had ‘Morning in America,’ he lost [in] both the Senate and the House [with] pretty similar numbers,” says Roger Zakheim, director of the Ronald Reagan Institute and author of the incredible new book “Peace Through Strength: How Reagan’s Military Buildup Won the Cold War.”
Reagan’s legacy is not defined by that midterm loss. Instead, he is remembered for his foreign policy achievements — as the man who brought down the Berlin Wall and left the Soviet Union on the ash heap of history. Likewise, Zakheim says, Trump’s place in history “will not be measured in terms of one midterm election. It will be measured by a historic win over the Iranian regime” — and whether he leaves that regime on the ash heap of history.
Trump’s decision to take military action against Iran was one of the most courageous any president has made in my lifetime. As Trump pointed out in his Veterans Day speech, “Iran has been waging war on America since 1979,” responsible for the killing and maiming of thousands of Americans in terrorist attacks. Trump is the first president in 47 years to fight back.
The military operations he ordered have been a huge success. But, as Trump said, the United States must achieve “not a 93 percent victory” but a “total victory” over Iran. He’s right. Total victory will come in one of two ways: Either the enemy surrenders or it is defeated. Trump has offered Iran’s leaders multiple opportunities to surrender the remaining elements of their nuclear program.
After more than six months of failed negotiations led by Vice President JD Vance, it is now clear they have no intention of doing so. “We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed,” Trump declared on Truth Social. Good for him. Continued talks are useless. If anything, the Iranians have been emboldened, not chastened, by the U.S. election result.
Yes, Iran’s nuclear program has been set back significantly, but the government’s nuclear aspirations have grown stronger. If the Iranian regime survives Trump’s presidency, the lesson will be that it can win a battle of wills with America — and that the only way to prevent another attack is to obtain a nuclear weapon. Iran’s leaders will wait for a weak president without the will to strike them again. They will then begin to reconstitute the program Trump buried. It may take years, or even decades, but they will try.
So, Trump should finish the job. Eliminate Iran’s remaining leadership figures; further entomb Iran’s nuclear sites; take out Iran’s remaining ballistic missile capabilities; destroy the economic and energy infrastructure that provides the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with a financial lifeline, as well as key highways, railroads, airports and seaports the regime uses to try to bypass his highly successful naval blockade; and demolish Iran’s remaining defense industrial base so it cannot rebuild its destroyed capabilities. Then declare an end to major combat operations and launch covert support to help the Iranian people undermine and eventually bring down the regime. Just as Reagan provided covert support to freedom movements across the world that liberated 400 million people during the Cold War, Trump can create the conditions for the ultimate collapse of the Iranian regime.
That collapse may come before Trump leaves office, or it may take a little longer. The Berlin Wall didn’t fall until November 1989, nine months after Reagan left office, and it took another two years for the Soviet Union to collapse. But history records that it was Reagan who brought down Soviet communism. Trump is on the precipice of a similarly historic victory. After seven presidents allowed the Iranian regime to wage war on America, he can be the one who finally ends the Islamic republic’s reign of terror.
And his victory does not have to end there. He has already removed Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela; now he can consolidate that success by helping to usher in free elections and the emergence of a pro-American, democratic government. And thanks to his campaign of economic pressure, a communist regime in Cuba that has outlasted 12 U.S. presidents might not outlast Donald Trump.
Those advising Trump to find an “exit strategy” in Iran are operating from a false premise: that his decision to take military action was a mistake. It was not. It was the one of the boldest decisions any commander in chief has ever made — the kind that separates ordinary presidents from great ones. Trump has greatness within his grasp: A free Iran, a free Venezuela and a free Cuba would place him alongside Reagan and FDR in the pantheon of America’s most revered and respected presidents. He has already paid the political price for his decision to disarm Iran. What remains is the verdict of history.
The post The midterms won’t define Trump’s legacy. Iran will. appeared first on Washington Post.
