Iran, not Trump, lit the inflation fuse

U.S. inflation has risen to its fastest pace in three years, and gas prices have been hit particularly hard. This is not Trump inflation. It is Iran terror inflation.

Iran is using anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles, drones, fast attack boats, and mines to paralyze an oil trade that moves through one of the world’s most important energy chokepoints — the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is engaged in this maritime terrorism because President Trump has done what no president before him has had the courage to do–demand an end to Iran’s nuclear weapons development.

The question is not why America is confronting Iran, but why anyone thinks America can avoid confronting Iran forever.

For nearly half a century, Iran has attacked Americans directly, through proxies that include Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, and through terror networks it arms, funds, trains, and protects.

In 1979, Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held American diplomats hostage for 444 days. In 1983, terrorists tied to Iran’s emerging Hezbollah network bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 220 Marines, 18 sailors, and three soldiers. It remains one of the darkest days in Marine Corps history.

In 1996, Iran’s hand appeared again at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. A truck bomb killed 19 American airmen and wounded 372 Americans. Attorney General John Ashcroft said elements of the Iranian government “inspired, supported, and supervised” the terrorist activity behind the attack.

Then came the Iraq War. Qasem Soleimani did not merely command Iran’s shadow army. He helped perfect and spread one of the most lethal weapons used against our troops in Iraq: the explosively formed penetrator. These Iranian-designed roadside bombs........

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