An Unfinished Job in Iran Would Be Catastrophic

Just over a week ago, President Donald Trump declared that he would accept nothing less than unconditional surrender by the Islamic Republic of Iran. But after Iranian forces launched deadly strikes against civilian cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz, will the president accept conditional surrender—or even less? Will he just withdraw and declare victory?

One of Iran’s greatest weapons is using its military to strike civilian cargo ships—especially oil tankers—with missiles, drones, bomb-carrying boats and mines. The number of vessels it has hit so far appears to be more than a dozen. Usually, about 40 cargo ships transit this passage every day, including more than a dozen large oil tankers carrying no less than 20 percent of all oil consumed worldwide.

Now, since the terrorist regime in Iran has proved more than willing to attack civilians, the global circulatory system that is maritime trade is suffering a severe blockage.

What will President Trump do next?

World trade is designed to continuously flow, and it depends heavily on constant supplies of energy. Looking at a maritime traffic map, with its hundreds of ship icons clustered on either side of the Strait of Hormuz but almost none passing through it, is an insurance, finance and economic nightmare. Oil has surged to more than $100 per barrel.

President Trump has not revealed what he is planning, and much of the future lies beyond his control. But he is unlikely to sustain the fight much longer.

This war will ultimately reveal his character. The price of defeat, or even a partial victory, is far greater than most people realize.

“If Trump declares a premature victory, he will embolden our enemies and leave the Iranian regime unbowed,” Allister Heath wrote in the Telegraph on March 11. “It’s double or quits for the civilized world, for the cause of human flourishing, freedom and democracy. Either Donald Trump holds his nerve, crushes the Iranian regime, rides out the oil shock and reopens the Strait of Hormuz, or he and America are finished, exposed as unserious, fickle and incapable of forward planning, a superpower manquée felled by drone-wielding barbarians.”

To date, Operation Roaring Lion by Israel and Operation Epic Fury by the United States have achieved major successes, including the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and many other top leaders, and extensive destruction of Iran’s navy, air defenses, missile launchers, arsenals, nuclear program and facilities used by the security apparatus to sponsor terror and oppress Iranians.

Iran’s massive Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (irgc) has absorbed heavy tactical damage, but it remains very much in place and is, in some ways, strengthened. irgc leaders were decisive in selecting the next supreme leader, Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba.

Despite the damage inflicted by the U.S. and Israel, will the irgc come out of this with even more power over Iran’s government, even more ideological hatred, and even more influence over radical Islam?

The Revolutionary Guards are the core of Iran’s power. They are even more ideologically motivated than the troops in the regular Iranian military, by design. They report to the supreme leader, and their purpose is to keep his regime in place by all means necessary. (In January, that meant helping to kill tens of thousands of Iranian protesters.) They oversee internal “security,” meaning monitoring, spying on, arresting and controlling the Iranian population for adherence to the regime and its brand of Islam.

This is like Mussolini’s black shirts and Hitler’s brown shirts, except the irgc has controlled large sections of the Iranian economy—energy, logistics, construction, ports, telecommunications, banking and more—for years, plus smuggling and other illicit activities. And the irgc has its own drones, navy, ballistic missiles and foreign operations.

This is a huge force of hundreds of thousands of men that is fueled most of all by ideology, an ideology that the radical and violent Islamic Revolution is still ongoing and must be exported beyond Iran’s borders. Even Iran’s constitution, to which the regular military and regular Iranian citizens are held, demands “continuation of the revolution at home and abroad.”

So this is one conflict where leaving the job unfinished would be truly catastrophic.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich offered pragmatic counsel on Fox Business’s Kudlow program, warning that American support for the war won’t last indefinitely. He urged Trump to prioritize keeping the Strait of Hormuz open at any cost: “If they can’t keep it open, this war will, in fact, be an American defeat before very long because the entire world, including the American people, will react to the price of oil if the strait stays closed very long. I lived through this with Reagan, as you did, in the late 80s. Keeping the strait open is the number one job because it buys you time for the two other jobs” (dismantling the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and achieving regime change).

This is sound advice that countenances a harsh reality: The American public lacks the stomach to endure even moderate economic pain—like sustained high oil prices—to eliminate the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.

Although recent polls are finding that more than 80 percent of Republicans surveyed support the war, an nbc News poll released March 4 found that 54 percent of all registered voters surveyed disapprove of how President Trump is handling Iran, with many independents and some Republicans believing the U.S. should not have launched military action at all. Meanwhile, prominent voices in the Make America Great Again movement, including Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, have criticized the war, accusing Trump of being excessively influenced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They are loudly calling for a swift withdrawal, even if it amounts to military defeat.

The stakes are high!

A half measure risks empowering a more entrenched, radical Iranian regime while exposing American limits. Only decisive victory—crushing the regime, reopening the strait, and preventing future threats—can avert catastrophe. This is not a time to worry about oil prices and midterm elections. This is a time for courageous action!

According to the Global Firepower 2026 rankings, the U.S military is roughly 4.3 times stronger than the Iranian military, yet most Americans are still afraid to confront the Islamist regime. This is exactly the way God prophesied it would be if the American people turned away from His law. In Leviticus 26:17-19, God says that if His people rebel against him, then “ye shall flee when none pursueth you” and “I will break the pride of your power.”

We definitely see this prophecy being fulfilled today. America has the power to secure the Strait of Hormuz, dismantle the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and empower the 70 percent of Iranians who oppose the Islamic Regime to build a new society. But it is too afraid of a temporary spike in gas prices and global economic disruption to follow through.

“For decades, the West’s expert classes have warned it was too risky to attack Iran,” Heath continued. “The Iranians have too many missiles, we were told, their armed forces are too large, their leadership too clever—and, crucially, they could shut the Strait, triggering a global depression. It was supposedly inevitable that Iran would eventually obtain nuclear weapons, and there was nothing we could do other than to sign dishonest, useless treaties. It has taken just a few days to disprove the first arguments, but Trump must show he won’t be held hostage by sociopathic pirates threatening to cut off the economy’s lifeblood. … The great danger is that Trump snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. A loss would involve the Iranians shutting the strait for an extended period, the Americans panicking at elevated oil prices and the U.S. president walking away with a premature declaration of victory.”

This war is indeed a test of President Trump’s character, but it is also a test of the American people’s character. Thus far, President Trump has actually shown quite a bit more character than the average American, yet his willpower alone will not grant America the kind of victory it needs to ensure that Iran stops exporting terror around the world.

“God said to our people that if we would obey Him, have no other gods before Him—keep His Sabbath from polluting it, we should prosper, and have peace,” Herbert W. Armstrong wrote in his 1961 article “The Real Reason for Cuban Disaster.” He continued:

Five of us could chase a hundred. A hundred of our men would put an army of ten thousand to flight. But if we forgot Him as our God, and disobey, and cease trusting in Him, He said, among many other things, that He would break the pride of our power! (Leviticus 26:19). Our prestige would be dragged in the dust.

The American people have not kept God’s laws, however. That is why they no longer have the will to defend freedom as they did in past generations. Therefore, America’s eventual retreat from Iran will leave our enemies emboldened and leave the Iranian regime empowered to keep pursuing Middle East dominance.