Chris Roemer: Trump seized the moment | COMMENTARY

For nearly half a century, Iran has been a thorn in the side of the world, killing and maiming American soldiers, butchering Israeli citizens, threatening its neighbors and fostering terror around the world.

Iran lies, cheats, blusters and bullies.

Can you imagine what it would do if it ever acquired a nuclear weapon?

After two years of negotiations, in 2016, the United States and other world powers entered into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, which restricted the number of centrifuges Iran could possess — for 10 years —and how much enriched uranium it could produce, for 15 years.

In exchange for the temporary JPOCA restrictions, President Barack Obama immediately lifted economic sanctions on Iran. He even secretly arranged a plane to deliver $400 million in cash to Iran, which the country promptly used to fund terror activities throughout the region.

President Donald Trump recognized early on why Iran was only too willing to sign such an agreement, and during his first term in office, pulled the United States out of the deal.

Few people think Iran having a nuclear weapon — today, tomorrow or 10 years from now — is a good idea, and with Israel having paved a path for the United States to finally do something to prevent that from happening, the opportunity to act decisively was simply one Trump would have been a fool to ignore.

Trump had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of world history and to bring peace to a region of the world that has known precious little of it. He seized the moment.

But rather than celebrate the fact that the United States had just effectively ended Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Democratic politicians like Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen could only think to call Trump’s actions “unconstitutional.”

Last Saturday evening, after learning the United States bombed three sites key to Iran’s ambition to become a nuclear power, Van Hollen issued a statement reading, “Trump said he would end wars; now he has dragged America into one. His actions are a clear violation of our Constitution — ignoring the requirement that only the Congress has the authority to declare war.”

It was only a couple weeks ago that Democrats were claiming Trump sending the National Guard into Los Angeles was “unconstitutional.” That argument took a major hit when, as Politico reported, a “three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that Trump appeared to have acted within his authority when he took control of 4,000 California National Guard troops.”

So, Democrats needed to find a new constitutional crisis to lay at the feet of the president.

For a mealy-mouthed politician like Van Hollen, who would rather engage in partisan attacks than celebrate an American success, the strikes on Iran offered the perfect opportunity, not to bring peace to the Middle East by defanging a cancerous regime which has wrought death and destruction for decades, but to attack the American president.

Van Hollen didn’t stop to take a breathe before criticizing the president’s actions. The B-2 bombers were still in the air with hours to go before reaching home when Van Hollen issued his querulous statement.

He didn’t take time to compliment the American service men and women who put their lives at risk, and whose courage and skill allowed them to eliminate one of the greatest threats to world peace.

Unfortunately, Van Hollen is representative of today’s Democratic Party, which puts its own partisan interests ahead of the interests of the country.

To justify their all-consuming irrational hate for the president, Democrats have convinced themselves he is Adolf Hitler reborn.

As long as the far-left is determining their party’s agenda, Democrats will continue to bleed support as more and more Americans reject not only its radicalism but its inability to distinguish between right and wrong and its inclination to appease evil.

Whether it’s reducing waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, securing the southern border, eliminating the threat posed by criminal aliens in the United States or keeping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Democrats always say they are in favor of the ends, but they are never in favor of taking the steps necessary to achieve those ends.

What would Democrats have us do? Cower in fear? Allow ourselves to be blackmailed by Iran? Pass on the opportunity to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program because it’s safer to do nothing? Condemn the world to live with the threat of a terrorist state lobbing nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles because we’re afraid the mullahs might get mad?

Democrats were wringing their hands worried what Iran might do in response to the destruction of its nuclear sites, and well they should have.

Given how porous the southern border was under the prior administration, it would be foolhardy to think Iran and its proxies did not take advantage of the opportunity to send sleeper cells into the United States. Between 2021 and 2024, over 1,500 Iranian nationals were arrested at the southern border. The Biden administration released nearly half of them into the United States.

But rather than criticize the conditions that made such an infiltration of the country possible, if the terrorists living among us should decide to act, is there any doubt Democrats will cast that as President Trump’s failure?

Trump’s restraint after Iran’s retaliation in Qatar is commendable, but we should stop playing with the current Iranian regime. How many Americans does Iran have to kill before the U.S. says, “Enough”? If Iran wishes to remain a country that tells the world, “Do what we say or we’ll blow you up,” then it’s time for the world to take definitive action to eliminate that threat once and for all.

As for partisan rubes like Senator Van Hollen, Maryland can do better. Much, much better.

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.