Opinion

MORNING GLORY: President Trump, Iran and Napoleon’s still-relevant maxim

'If you start to take Vienna, take Vienna'

By Hugh Hewitt Fox News

Published July 23, 2026 5:00am EDT

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The future of the West and President Donald Trump’s reputation within it through the centuries will depend on the outcome of the ongoing battle with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

America is decisively winning that battle, but it has not yet won it. In fact, the U.S. could lose the battle. If President Trump perseveres, that will not happen. If he abandons the battle, it could very well be the worst foreign policy debacle for the U.S. since the end of the Vietnam War, rivaling even that of the catastrophe of President Joe Biden’s command to American forces to quickly depart Afghanistan in 2021.

Because of those two competing futures, it is highly likely that President Trump will persevere. And he should.

IRAN IS NOT A NORMAL NATION YOU CAN MAKE DEALS WITH; IT’S A NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT

Iran is run by religious fanatics. That is the overarching reality about the defining threat Iran poses to the region and indeed the world. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps ("IRGC") cannot be "deterred" in the way other evil tyrannies can be deterred.

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Xi Jinping can be deterred. Vladimir Putin can be deterred. Both have no evident desire to die, or for history to end.

Iran cannot be deterred from its mission to destroy Israel and the United States, because destruction and even defeat in this battle is not what ultimately matters the most to the theocrats atop the Islamic Republic. "Martyrdom" is itself the best result for any individual caught up in Khomeinism. "Regime survival" is a secondary goal to its leadership’s personal worldview, an extreme version of a minority branch of Islam often called "Twelver" theology.

IRAN TO EXECUTE FIRST FEMALE PROTESTER TIED TO ANTI-REGIME UNREST

The defining belief of Twelver Shi’ism is that the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, did not die, entered occultation (a state of concealment) in the 9th........

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