The moment Israeli fighter jets cracked open Iran’s air-defense umbrella last week, the professional panic class—President Trump aptly calls them the “Panicans”—went straight to Defcon Twitter, wailing that World War III had begun and demanding that America stay out of it. As if we weren’t already in it. The Pentagon has been clear: our forces are in a defensive posture, which means active radar, ready launchers, and iron in the sky—not a bunch of soldiers sitting around waiting to be target practice. And now, for anyone still half-asleep, the President just announced that we hold “complete and total control over Iranian skies.” That is not mission creep; that is mission accomplished at thirty-thousand feet.

First, a little memory‑jog for the amnesiacs. Candidate Trump never promised monastic isolation. What he promised—and delivered—was an end to feckless, open‑ended nation‑building while preserving America’s right to strike quickly, decisively, and overwhelmingly when genuine threats emerged. In 2017 he unleashed new rules of engagement that collapsed the Islamic State’s “caliphate” in weeks—something Washington’s polite war managers had failed to do for three long years. 

Then came January 3, 2020. Qassem Soleimani, the terror architect who had American blood on........

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