President Donald Trump has a simple answer when asked whether he regrets ordering military action against Iran: regret isn’t part of his vocabulary.
During an interview Thursday on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham asked Trump whether he had second thoughts about the decision as Republicans head toward the midterm elections.
Trump did not hesitate.
“I don’t believe in the word regret,” Trump said. “You can always question yourself a little bit. A few people have asked me that. If I had it to do again, I’d do exactly as I did.”
That is more than a sound bite. It is a window into the president’s approach to national security: make the decision, accept responsibility for it, and do not apologize for protecting American interests.
Trump pointed directly to Iran’s nuclear program as the reason for the operation.
“I took out their nuclear capability,” Trump said.
The president argued that allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon would have created a far more dangerous situation, warning that the regime could use such a weapon against Israel, targets across the Middle East and eventually American cities.
“They are crazy,” Trump said of Iran’s leadership. “They would use it.”
That is the fundamental argument behind Trump’s position. For the president, waiting for a nuclear-armed Iranian regime to become an even greater threat was not a serious option.
And Trump is making clear that he has no intention of backing away from that decision simply because an election is approaching.
The political stakes are obvious. Iran has become a major issue for Trump and Republicans heading into the midterms, and Trump has used the Republican convention in Dallas to draw a sharp contrast between his approach and what he says would be a weaker Democratic policy toward Tehran.
According to Trump, Iran’s leaders are hoping Democrats regain power because they believe a Democratic administration would be more willing to tolerate Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“They are trying to do anything possible to get me out, because they think the Democrats will let them essentially have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “They’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.”
That is the dividing line Trump wants voters to see: deterrence versus accommodation, strength versus hesitation, America First versus the old foreign-policy establishment.
Trump also pointed to the resilience of the U.S. economy during the conflict, noting that the stock market had reached record highs, even though stocks had pulled back from those levels by Thursday.
But the president's larger message was not about Wall Street. It was about consequences.
At the Republican convention, Trump declared that the war would end shortly after Election Day and warned that Iran was effectively waiting for a Republican defeat so it could deal with what he characterized as “dumb, weak Democrats” and pursue a nuclear bomb.
“We’re not going to let that happen,” Trump said.
For Trump, there is no mystery about the choice before voters. His argument is that America's enemies should never be allowed to mistake restraint for weakness—and that the commander in chief should not be haunted by a decision he believes prevented a greater threat.
No regret. No apology. No retreat.
That is the America First message Trump is taking into the midterms: peace through strength, national security before political convenience, and a refusal to let hostile regimes dictate America's future.
