Douglas Murray: Unlike past presidents, Trump kept and delivered his promise to eliminate our enemies

Perhaps we forgot what it’s like when politicians act on their promises. 

Perhaps our enemies ­forgot as well. 

For decades, American presidents — Democrat and Republican — have said the theocratic dictatorship in Iran cannot have nuclear weapons. 

For decades those same administrations were strung along by the ayatollahs. 

American negotiators — like their European counterparts — sat through years of negotiations.

And every time, the Revolutionary government in Iran got closer to the bomb. 

Well, not this time. 

As Trump envoy Steve Witkoff described in an interview with Fox News this week, even during last month’s negotiations, the Iranians were playing their old games.

The Iranian team sat down opposite Witkoff and Jared Kushner and boasted about how much enriched uranium they had.

The Iranian team wanted America to know they had the capacity to make at least 11 nuclear bombs in a matter of days. 

Perhaps the Iranians had become used to weak and ineffectual foreign governments.

Perhaps they thought this administration was like all its predecessors.

Perhaps they imagined this administration in Washington is like all those governments in Paris and London who said they were against crazed fanatics having nuclear weapons but never intended to do anything about it — apart from sitting around another conference table in Geneva. 

Lessons learned 

Well now the regime in Iran has finally learned a lesson. 

As a Post editorial this past weekend said, Trump’s critics used to like to try to taunt Trump with the acronym “TACO” [Trump Always Chickens Out”]. Well now they and the ayatollahs in Iran have learned the meaning of another acronym: FAFO (Fool Around, Find Out). 

How long did the regime in Iran — and its apologists in the West — expect to get away with the same playbook of excuses and lies? 

For decades they pretended that one of the world’s most oil-rich countries needed nuclear power only for civilian energy purposes.

They pretended that the regime wasn’t enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels.

Then, as late as recent weeks, they had the gall to tell their US counterparts the regime did indeed have vast stores of uranium ready to make nuclear weapons — but that this was their right. 

They had a choice.

But the ayatollahs decided to learn their lesson the hard way. 

To date, the US-led attacks on the regime and its infrastructure have been outstandingly successful.

In the first strikes this past weekend, the ayatollah himself was taken out, along with much of his senior leadership. 

In the days since then more than 2,000 primary targets have been hit in Iran. 

Of course, the remaining military and political leadership in Iran has tried to lash out.

But they have done so in the most self-destructive ways possible. 

They have attacked American military bases.

And they have attacked almost every other country in the region.

Of course they have fired missiles at Israel — the “Little Satan” to America’s “Big Satan,” in the words of the late ayatollah.

But they have also fired rockets and drones at the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq, Azerbaijan and even Cyprus, member of the European Union. 

Many of these attacks have been anticipated.

Many of the missiles and drones that the flailing Iranian regime has been firing have been shot down. 

To say that the radical terrorist regime in Iran is now weak and isolated is to vastly understate things. 

‘Panicking’ regime 

Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Iran appear to be preparing for a ground war against the regime in Tehran.

I have been with these groups in the past and they include some formidable fighters.

The remaining regime in Iran would be right to be panicking. 

The mission of the government in Washington, DC, is now to follow through on a promise that previous American governments failed to keep. 

This administration said they would prevent the ayatollahs getting a nuclear bomb.

And they are now doing everything they can to achieve that. 

Not only by making sure that the world’s deadliest weapons aren’t in the hands of the world’s most dangerous regime.

But so that the madmen who have run Iran since 1979 are not around to fire them. 

Of course there are many legitimate concerns that some Americans will have.

They might fear that America is going to be dragged into some long-term conflict.

But Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — among others — have made it very clear that this is going to be a short and limited war. 

What is more, the Trump administration has made it clear that the future of Iran is in the hands of the Iranian people.

If those people — who have been oppressed by the radical fanatics since 1979 — can seize their country back then they could have an amazing future.

As could the whole region and the wider world. 

Imagine the difference if the world’s foremost sponsor of terror was no more?

Imagine the difference in America if death squads could not be sent from Tehran to try to assassinate American presidents, former US government officials and others? 

Imagine what the future of the Iranian people could be like if instead of being repressed or chased into exile the people of that country could actually own their own destiny? 

The crown prince of Iran in exile has made it clear that he is willing to oversee an interim coalition government.

One which could unite the different factions. 

Critics of the Iranian royal family say that they don’t want a hereditary monarchy.

But the person being lined up to take over from the now late Ayatollah Khamenei is the ayatollah’s own son. 

So much for opposition to hereditary rule! 

America can help guide some of this transition.

But it does not need to get bogged down in it. 

For now we can be proud of America’s heroic pilots as they carry out a long-held promise.

A promise that America made to the world.

And a reminder to that world that when America makes a promise, it sticks to it.