‘Operation Midnight Hammer’ flexes U.S. military muscle and Trump’s policy of peace through strength
Opinion-editorial by Summer Lane |
On the heels of the United States’ precision strike on three Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend, the nation and the world have cautiously waited to see what further steps President Donald Trump will take to ensure that peace through strength is maintained at home and abroad.
The president’s ordered strikes on Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan reportedly “obliterated” the uranium enrichment facilities, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
The strikes were carried out by B-2 stealth bombers and submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles, and following the operation, Trump warned that any attempts from Iran to retaliate would be met with unyielding force.
“ANY RETALIATION BY IRAN AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL BE MET WITH FORCE FAR GREATER THAN WHAT WAS WITNESSED TONIGHT. THANK YOU! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES[,]” he wrote on Truth Social.
Since Saturday evening in the U.S., millions of Americans have waited to see if Iran would indeed strike back, or if the Middle Eastern country would appropriately take the knee and admit defeat.
Iran saves face with symbolic retaliatory strike
On Monday, President Trump confirmed that Iran had indeed launched missiles toward the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, but not before giving advanced warning to the United States that they would be doing so.
This move directly mirrors 2020, when Iran warned the U.S. that it would retaliate against American troops stationed in Iraq following the killing of terrorist and Iranian military officer Qasem Soleimani.
Legacy media may debate whether Iran gave the United States advanced notice of their strike five years ago, but according to President Trump, that’s what happened.
Trump has strongly said Iran informed him of this decision before it took place as a matter of “self-respect.”
“I was the only one who wasn’t nervous because I knew what was going to happen,” Trump said last year.
In 2025, it appears that Iran has once again launched missiles with empty intentions toward the United States in a symbolic gesture of saber rattling.
The president said on Monday that the U.S. “effectively countered” 14 missiles fired by Iran, with 13 “knocked down” and one “set free” since it was “headed in a nonthreatening direction.”
President Trump also thanked Iran for giving “early notice” of their missile strikes.
“I am pleased to report that NO Americans were harmed, and hardly any damage was done. Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday afternoon.
He said he hoped Iran would proceed to “Peace and Harmony” and he also noted that he would encourage Israel to “do the same.”
While many pundits and commentators have counted down the minutes on the doomsday clock in the aftermath of the Iranian strikes, the president and his administration have deftly protected domestic peace by maintaining authentic strength.
Doom and gloom predictions have fallen flat
It’s very difficult to maintain a policy of peace through strength. President Trump must decide when to step back from conflicts and when to get involved. The geopolitical complexities in the Middle East made the Iranian nuclear issue even more mind-boggling, as Russia and China looked to gain the most, both economically and militarily, from prolonged American indecision.
Trump had to consider all the players involved – not just Iran and Israel – but larger, more dangerous countries who could benefit from Iran’s nuclear weaponry, or perhaps even globalist shadow players who would encourage or enable such behavior to hurt the United States.
It was a very delicate situation, and many blaring voices were accusing Trump of beating the drums of war. Prominent figures seemed to immediately assume the worst: postulating that President Trump, simply because he was considering striking Iran, must be another George W. Bush, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Fight to win or don’t fight at all
President Bush deployed troops to Iraq and set in motion a sequence of disastrous events that kick-started a forever war in the Middle East. President Trump ordered a singular precision strike on three uranium enrichment facilities in the hands of a nation that chants “Death to America.”
“Operation Midnight Hammer” was completed in a matter of hours, and not a single soldier was deployed on the ground. The lesson here comes down to the intent behind the actions. President Bush deployed the troops with no end game in sight, with a haphazard mission to find so-called “weapons of mass destruction.”
In war, no army should be deployed unless its objective is to achieve victory as quickly as possible. If you can’t win, you don’t greenlight the mission. In “The Art of War,” Sun Tzu puts it thusly: “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”
Never get involved in a fight unless you know you can win. President Trump ordered the strikes on Iran because he was clearly confident that it would successfully eliminate the infamous nuclear facilities – and he was right.
“The president wouldn’t have launched the strikes if we weren’t confident in that,” Karoline Leavitt said Monday morning.
President Trump appears to have once again proven the naysayers wrong, summarizing it best in a Monday afternoon statement signaling the chance for a rosier future:
“CONGRATULATIONS WORLD, IT’S TIME FOR PEACE!”
Photo: Adobe Stock
