Finish the Job: How Trump Can Still Win in Iran

Mr. Bolton was the longest-serving national security adviser in the first Trump administration and is the author of “The Room Where It Happened.”

The war the United States and Israel are fighting is for much higher stakes than what could well be simply a temporary reopening of Persian Gulf maritime traffic. The entire geopolitical shape of the Middle East is now at issue, whether or not that was originally intended by President Trump and whether or not he realizes it even now.

Just over a year ago, Mr. Trump launched airstrikes against the Houthis, an armed Yemeni faction aligned with Iran, to thwart their menace to Red Sea maritime traffic. The Houthis were then also attacking Israel.

Mr. Trump ended the mission inconclusively, after an Omani-brokered cease-fire. Last week, after issuing new anti-Israel threats, the Houthis again attacked Israel, the first such attacks since U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran started in late February.

Last year’s Houthi lesson applies directly to Iran today: Negotiating with these enemies will not yield a durable result. Their cease-fires last as long as they find it convenient. And what applies to maritime blackmail applies a fortiori to Iran’s nuclear weapons and terrorism blackmail.

There are two key lines for the United States to pursue at the same time: We must use the considerable momentum of the military to eliminate Iran’s ability to seize control not just of the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz but also of the Red Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait — and we must simultaneously continue to destroy the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, including its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Durable Middle Eastern peace and security can come only after regime change in Tehran. The president says that has happened, but he is badly mistaken. Even Secretary of State Marco Rubio seemed to recognize that reality, almost immediately after Mr. Trump’s remarks. The faces at the top have changed, but the regime’s extreme ideology is possibly even stronger in them than it was in their predecessors.

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