Free Republic

Last June when the United States targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities in a series of coordinated airstrikes with Israel, President Trump boasted that “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” He said that on the day of the operation, which hit the enrichment facility at Fordow, buried under a mountain, as well as sites at Natanz and Isfahan.In the ensuing days and months, Trump repeated this claim, saying that Iran’s nuclear facilities and capabilities had been “obliterated.” In August he said, “We obliterated … the future nuclear capability of Iran.” In October he said, “Well, they don’t...

On Tuesday night, President Trump made his case for attacking Iran. #Perhaps we ought to ask ourselves if an attack on Iran is prudent or desirable.#In his address, Trump argued that Iran was in the process of developing intercontinental ballistic missiles to hit the United States. This assertion is farcical and risible. Iran simply has no ability to hit the United States, and even if it did, the doctrine of classical deterrence would come into play. The United States and the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear-armed ICBMs targeted at each other for decades yet never engaged in direct conflict....