A major talking point among Democrats and their media handmaidens is that President Trump launched a “war of choice” against Iran.
Given American casualties and the earth-rattling impact, the criticism could be a powerful political argument in the midterm elections — if it’s true.
But it’s not true.
In fact, we now can be certain that the war on Iran is not a war of choice.
It is instead a war of American self-defense and maybe even a war of survival for Western civilization and Israel.
We know this because the curtain has been lifted on what happened inside the room during the last-ditch negotiations to head off the war.
The picture that emerges is of an Iran hell-bent on becoming a nuclear-armed power and determined to continue exporting its bloody Islamist revolution throughout the region and around the world.
That was the leaders’ fatal mistake, for unlike his two immediate predecessors, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Trump had no interest in bribing the mullahs with pallets of cash and sweet talking them into joining the civilized world.
That he is cut from a different cloth became clear early in his first term, when Trump withdrew the US from the toothless nuclear pact Obama crafted.
Bombs & olive branches
Trump’s more hawkish approach was confirmed when he droned Qasem Soleimani, the key Iranian military leader whose preference for roadside bombs had caused so many injuries and deaths to American soldiers in Iraq.
Those experiences led Trump to begin his second term with a vow that Iran would never get a nuclear weapon on his watch.
And there certainly would be no deal that depended on trusting the ayatollah or weak-kneed international organizations, such as the United Nations.
Despite that posture, Trump still believed that a negotiated settlement was possible and far more preferable than military action.
The problem was there was never a sign that Iran would be willing to voluntarily give up its quest for nukes.
The ayathollah’s commitment to getting a doomsday weapon was one of the pillars that made the regime a feared regional power, even among Muslim-ruled lands, and the mothership of Islamist terrorists.
Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis — they were like so many cancerous cells metastasizing in the region and around the world because of Iran’s guidance, protection and aid.
Nonetheless, Trump took office last year and offered again to negotiate the terms of a pact with Iranians.
My first reaction was surprise that he seemed optimistic about success.
What few people realized was how willing he would be to use America’s military might if and when those negotiations failed.
He first demonstrated that willingness last June, during Israel’s 12-day-war with Iran.
In a single night, seven American B-2 bombers flew from Missouri to smash the mullahs’ three main enrichment sites with bunker-buster bombs.
Yet soon after the war ended, Trump surprisingly renewed his offer for direct talks.
Then came the Iranian street protests, and the regime’s slaughter of thousands of unarmed civilians.
Trump was infuriated, and publicly promised the protesters that “help is on its way.”
Still, he dispatched his top Middle East envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to three long meetings with Iranian officials that were focused on the nuclear issue.
Nukes ‘with no shame’
Although we know there were no breakthroughs and Trump finally concluded the Iranians were not negotiating in good faith, the actual substance of what happened in those high-stakes talks has been a well-kept secret.
Until now, thanks to what Witkoff told Sean Hannity on Fox News Monday.
The envoy revealed how the Iranians arrogantly boasted about their stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and showed no willingness to yield.
“In that first meeting, both of the Iranian negotiators said to us directly, with no shame, that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60%, and they were aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs,” Witkoff told Hannity.
“That was the beginning of their negotiating stance . . . they were proud of it,” Witkoff added.
“They were proud that they had evaded all sorts of oversight protocols to get to a place where they could deliver 11 nuclear bombs.”
He noted that uranium enriched to 60% represented an immediate threat because it could be brought to 90% enrichment, which is weapons grade, in about “one week, maybe 10 days at the outside.”
Because the Iranians “manufacture their own centrifuges to enrich this material, there’s almost no stopping them,” Witkoff said.
He told Hannity that to every offer the US made, the answer was no.
The upshot was he and Kushner concluded that Tehran simply had no intention of dismantling its nuclear program.
In addition to the continued killing of civilians, the refusal to budge was the final straw for Trump.
Indeed, the six-hour meeting in Geneva on Feb. 26 produced only an agreement to hold yet another meeting.
Even before then, the belief that the Iranians would never get to yes on any meaningful pact led Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to begin planning a joint attack.
One obvious sign was the massive US military buildup in the region, which included an armada with two aircraft carrier groups.
Taking media questions about the situation almost daily, the president provided a running commentary about progress in the negotiations, or the lack of it.
Although Oman’s foreign minister, who served as the mediator, insisted the Geneva session had yielded “significant progress,” that wasn’t how Trump saw things.
When he had been asked why he had sent the second carrier group to the region, the president’s answer provided a jolt of realism: “In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need” more firepower, Trump said.
He also dropped another big hint when asked if he favored “regime change.”
His quick answer made news because he seemed open to the idea for the first time: “Well, it seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.”
Showing his eagerness for a resolution, he added: “For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking.”
Death over deals
Days earlier, Netanyahu had come to the White House, where they had reached final agreement on the battle plan.
Israeli media reported Netanyahu was eager to get underway and his desire for America to focus on Iran’s ballistic missiles, which were and still are a major threat to Israel’s population centers.
Israel’s first order of business, it seems, would be to take out the ayatollah and other regime leaders.
It was able to succeed spectacularly because nearly 30 of them had foolishly gathered for a morning meeting, their location known through tracking intelligence gathered by both Washington and Jerusalem.
Boom, they were all gone with one missile.
Days later, their possible replacements made the same mistake and they too are gone.
They would all be alive if they had only been smart enough to make a deal with the man who wrote the book on the art of it.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
