Morning Glory: Trump's Iran strike and Trump's Doctrine
By Hugh Hewitt
Published June 26, 2025
A half-dozen B-2 bombers dropped at least a dozen Massive Ordinance Penetrators on Iran's nuclear weapons faculty at Fordow, but since the mountain didn't explode like the Death Star in Star Wars, the mission was deemed a disappointment by some in legacy media and many online keyboard warriors.
"Minimal damage causing a month or two delay": That's a summary, composite "take" of TDS-afflicted journalists and their sources who appear to suffer from JCPOA separation anxiety disorder.
The idea that Iran's nuclear weapons program was set back for only a matter of months—as opposed to the "several years" that Israeli intelligence has concluded—is not a serious assessment but yet another "product" of a hyper-politicized "intelligence community." (Recall that 51 of the "IC"'s best and brightest retired "leadership" told the legacy media and via them the entire country in 2020 that Hunter Biden's laptop bore "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.")
Israeli journalist Amit Segal, armed with the first layer of Israeli IC assessments that concluded "that US and Israeli strikes set back Iran's nuclear program by 'several years,' but did not completely destroy it…" added the next day: "Don't forget: It wasn't just scientists who Israel eliminated. Indeed, I can now reveal the scale of Israel's opening strike against Iran: Israel eliminated 29 Iranian officers with the rank of brigadier general and higher."
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION
"They don't have the scientists, and they don't have the centrifuges, and they don't have the infrastructure," Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman and current senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon.
"Even if it hasn't been destroyed," Conricus added, "it is out of reach, most likely buried under hundreds of feet of rock and concrete. At the end of the day, the Iranian ability to develop nuclear weapons sustained quite extremely heavy blows."
TRUMP SAYS US WOULD STRIKE AGAIN IF IRAN REBUILDS NUCLEAR PROGRAM
I asked the last National Security Advisor to President Trump in Trump's first term, Ambassador Robert C. O'Brien, now chairman of American Global Strategies, for his overall take.
"The air raid on Iran's nuclear bomb factories was the essence of an 'America First' foreign policy," O'Brien emailed me.
"The Ayatollahs have been kidnapping, maiming and killing Americans in Beirut, at Kobar Towers, in Iraq and Afghanistan for forty years," O'Brien continued. "The regime's supporter chant 'death to America in their mosques each Friday. Letting these radicals get an atomic bomb and the ballistic missiles to deliver it to our homeland would be a monumental mistake and would have put the American people at risk."
"Donald Trump said 'no.'" O'Brien concluded. "And, he meant it. The Iranians thought they were dealing with Obama or Biden. They found out last night what happens when you string President Trump along."
The widespread destruction of regime assets by the Israeli airforce before the American strikes occurred had already humbled the regime of Ayatollah Khamenei. When the mullahs sent up a fireworks display over Qatar is was their penultimate gesture of resignation to defeat and harmless. Their final attack did kill four Israeli civilians and underscored the regime's lawlessness as the missile was aimed at civilians to kill civilians.
Still so deep does hatred for President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu run that their critics have already assumed the attitude of the Black Knight is the old "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" movie, shouting "it's only a scratch."
I'm going to believe Israeli intelligence and the political leadership of both countries. Not only did the Israelis use some sort of version of the weapon Woody Harrleson wielded as Yondu Udonta in Guardians of the Galaxy —a Yaka Arrow" — it did so armed with Intel on where everyone was sleeping or gathering. The precision nature of every Israeli blow should lead anyone unburdened by deep, deep confirmation bias needs (say, everyone who worked on the "JCPOA") to conclude the nuclear ambitions of Iran are in a smoldering heap, like their "doomsday clock for Israel" and the gates of Evin Prison. Trust the Israeli IC. They appear to have free run of everything the Iranian regime says and does.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
What Trump ordered done was a history-altering event as well as a war-ending blow. Again, Iran cannot be expected to concede its humiliation. But its leaders must now know they are no longer feared in the Middle East as a dominant power, and that if even token gestures are taken by it to hurt Americans or Israelis, or to resume forbidden nuclear weapons development, retribution will be swift. President Trump is sending the same message again and again: "Don't harm one American. Don't even think about restarting the nuke program." Every leader in the world got the same message as did the mullahs: Trump and the prudent use of American military force are back.
Finally, Americans should have learned, again, that they cannot trust the "fake news" of much of legacy media. The underlying disorders of these former "newsrooms" are too deep to treat. They are as broken as Natanz nuclear weapons complex.
Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor, and host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show," heard weekdays from 3 pm to 6 pm ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives America home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel's news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University's Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM HUGH HEWITT Print Close
URL
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/morning-glory-trumps-iran-strike-trumps-doctrine
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Hezbollah warns Lebanon 'will have no life' if state moves against it
By Maya Gebeily and Jana Choukeir BEIRUT (Reuters) -Hezbollah raised the spectre of civil war on Friday with a warning there would be "no life" in Lebanon if the government sought to confront or eliminate the Iran-backed group. The government wants to control arms in line with a U.S.-backed plan following Israel's military campaign against Hezbollah which was founded four decades ago with the backing of Tehran's Revolutionary Guards. But the group is resisting pressure to disarm, saying that cannot happen until Israel ends its strikes and occupation of a southern strip of Lebanon that had been a Hezbollah stronghold. "This is our nation together. We live in dignity together, and we build its sovereignty together - or Lebanon will have no life if you stand on the other side and try to confront us and eliminate us," its leader Naim Qassem said in a televised speech. Israel has dealt Hezbollah heavy blows in the last two years, killing many of its top brass including former leader Hassan Nasrallah and 5,000 of its fighters, and destroying much of its arsenal. The Lebanese cabinet last week tasked the army with confining weapons only to state security forces, a move that has outraged Hezbollah. Qassem accused the government of implementing an "American-Israeli order to eliminate the resistance, even if that leads to civil war and internal strife." DIALOGUE POSSIBLE However, he said Hezbollah and the Amal movement, its Shi'ite Muslim ally, had decided to delay any street protests while there was still scope for talks. "There is still room for discussion, for adjustments, and for a political resolution before the situation escalates to a confrontation no one wants," Qassem said. "But if it is imposed on us, we are ready, and we have no other choice ... At that point, there will be a protest in the street, all across Lebanon, that will reach the American embassy." The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which left parts of Lebanon in ruins, erupted in October 2023 when the group opened fire at Israeli positions along the southern border in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas at the start of the Gaza war. Hezbollah and Amal still retain influence politically, appointing Shi'ite ministers to cabinet and holding the Shi'ite seats in parliament. But for the first time in years, they do not hold a "blocking third" of cabinet, enabling them to veto government decisions in the past. Hezbollah retains strong support among the Shi'ite community in Lebanon, but calls for its disarmament across the rest of society have grown. Solve the daily Crossword
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Hezbollah vows to keep arms, says Lebanon's disarmament plan serves Israel
BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group on Friday vowed not to disarm, saying last week's decision by the national government to remove the Iran-backed group's weapons by the end of the year serves Israel's interests. Naim Kassem said the government's decision to remove 'the defensive weapons of the resistance, its people and Lebanon during an aggression' facilitates the killing of 'resistance fighters and their families and evict them from their land and homes.' He said the government should have instead 'spread its authority and evicted Israel from Lebanon.' Speaking in a televised speech to mark a Shiite religious event, he added 'the government is serving the Israeli project.' Kassem added if the ongoing crisis leads to an internal conflict, the government is to blame. He noted that Hezbollah and its Shiite ally, the Amal movement, did not to ask their supporters to protest in the streets to give way for more discussions. The Amal movement was one of the main armed groups in Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war and is now a powerful political party led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. But, he said if a decision is taken to protest in the streets, protesters 'will be all over Lebanon and head to the U.S. embassy.' He did not elaborate. Hezbollah's weapons have been a major dividing point in Lebanon with some groups that are opposed to Hezbollah saying only the state should be allowed to have arms. The Lebanese government voted last week for a U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the year and implement a ceasefire with Israel. The small Mediterranean country has been under international pressure to get Hezbollah to lay down its arms since the 14-month war with Israel that ended with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in November. However, the Hezbollah leader said his group will only discuss a national defense strategy over its weapons once Israel withdraws from Lebanon and stops its almost daily airstrikes that have killed scores of Hezbollah members since the war's end. 'The resistance will not hand over its weapons as the aggression continues and occupation remains,' Kassem said, adding that the group will fight a long battle if needed. The Israel-Hezbollah war weakened the Iran-backed group and left much of its military and political leadership dead. The war killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, displaced over 1 million and caused destruction that the World Bank said will cost $11 billion in reconstruction.
2 hours ago
Hezbollah vows to keep arms, says Lebanon's disarmament plan serves Israel
BEIRUT -- The leader of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group on Friday vowed not to disarm, saying last week's decision by the national government to remove the Iran-backed group's weapons by the end of the year serves Israel's interests. Naim Kassem said the government's decision to remove 'the defensive weapons of the resistance, its people and Lebanon during an aggression' facilitates the killing of 'resistance fighters and their families and evict them from their land and homes.' He said the government should have instead 'spread its authority and evicted Israel from Lebanon.' Speaking in a televised speech to mark a Shiite religious event, he added 'the government is serving the Israeli project.' Kassem added if the ongoing crisis leads to an internal conflict, the government is to blame. He noted that Hezbollah and its Shiite ally, the Amal movement, did not to ask their supporters to protest in the streets to give way for more discussions. The Amal movement was one of the main armed groups in Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war and is now a powerful political party led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. But, he said if a decision is taken to protest in the streets, protesters 'will be all over Lebanon and head to the U.S. embassy.' He did not elaborate. Hezbollah's weapons have been a major dividing point in Lebanon with some groups that are opposed to Hezbollah saying only the state should be allowed to have arms. The Lebanese government voted last week for a U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the year and implement a ceasefire with Israel. The small Mediterranean country has been under international pressure to get Hezbollah to lay down its arms since the 14-month war with Israel that ended with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in November. However, the Hezbollah leader said his group will only discuss a national defense strategy over its weapons once Israel withdraws from Lebanon and stops its almost daily airstrikes that have killed scores of Hezbollah members since the war's end. 'The resistance will not hand over its weapons as the aggression continues and occupation remains,' Kassem said, adding that the group will fight a long battle if needed. The Israel-Hezbollah war weakened the Iran-backed group and left much of its military and political leadership dead. The war killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, displaced over 1 million and caused destruction that the World Bank said will cost $11 billion in reconstruction. After the war ended, inside Lebanon. Israel has accused Hezbollah of trying to rebuild its military capabilities. Israel's military has said the five locations in Lebanon provide vantage points or are located across from communities in northern Israel, where about 60,000 Israelis were displaced during the war.
