Trump’s redemption arc from pariah to international peacemaker
US and Israel "worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before," said President Trump after the strikes that debilitated Iran's nuclear facilities.
Today we woke up in a new world. As President Trump confirms strikes on three nuclear facilities across Iran, he has single-handedly reshaped the Middle East region, neutralized the threat from the Islamist regime of Iran, helped protect Israel, and potentially steered the world away from a new World War.
Not bad for a night’s work, I’d say.
“Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror,” Trump said, accompanied by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. “Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not. Future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.”
The strikes come after days of back and forth between Israel and Iran as they exchange blows, trying to take each other out. Israel, at risk of annihilation from the state, has been pre-empting an attack by acting in advance. Iran, which has long promised ‘death to Israel’, has dealt massive blows to Israel at a large human and economic cost.
To date, 24 Israelis have been killed in the strikes. According to the Wall Street Journal, some estimates suggest that rebuilding or repairing damage could cost Israel at least $400 million.
America’s involvement in the conflict has reaffirmed its commitment to Israel and has the opportunity to completely transform the country, the region, and the world. Trump made the partnership between the two countries clear, in no uncertain terms:
I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we’ve gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel. I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they’ve done. And most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent machines tonight, and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades.
In his address, Trump claimed America has lost “over 1,000 people and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world” as a direct result of their hate. Chants of ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’ had gone on for long enough, in his mind. So he decided to act.
“I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen. It will not continue,” he added.
They say history is written by the winners, yet for a long time, Donald Trump was on the losing side. Sure, he was elected president, but his first term was taken up battling with a hostile press that would diminish his achievements and emphasize his shortcomings. He long said he had to fight them alongside other ‘enemies’, perceived or real. When his first term ended in 2021 and he was locked out of practically every social media platform, it appeared his place in history would be written as none other than a mistake in America’s story: a footnote engulfed with scandal, fake news, facilitated only due to ‘Russian interference’.
Of course, that would all be reversed, and here he stands again, firmly securing a place in history. The years ahead are set to undo all the work by political enemies in D.C. and media critics in New York and California. He has taken steps today to undo much of former President Obama’s disastrous Iran policy, and he has helped secure a brand new place in the history books: one that endured the archetypal ‘Hero’s Journey’ and may just secure peace in the Middle East.
He is metamorphosing from pariah to peacemaker before our eyes.
In 2020, I wrote that I believed Donald Trump deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. There are many articles I have penned that haven’t aged well (life is, of course, terrible), and yet this one remains one of my most prescient predictions. I did not know that he would lose that election, nor did I know that he would be re-elected four years later. And yet, here we are again.
As for Israel: this is the break it needed. Reports were already suggesting that Netanyahu could not finish the job of destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities without the US, and the country was achieving success in some of its operations, but at great long-term costs.
Today’s actions have reinforced the relationship between two great allies, brought more peace to an unstable region, neutralized a threat to the wider world, and secured Trump’s legacy as a leader who operates with peace through strength. It shows that we are in a new post-October 7, Trump 2.0 world that has no patience for terrorism and will act swiftly and firmly to protect us from the axis of evil.
It is long overdue.
And yet, it is not over. Writing this story was interrupted by a barrage of missiles from Iran at Israel. I am currently exchanging footage and information from the latest attack with my friend, Eitan Goldstein, writer of Eitan’s Eight Cents. There has been a direct hit on Haifa and sirens across the whole country, including where I am in the north.
We can see the retaliation has already begun. The world will be watching this space to see what will happen next.