Townhall Review | Conservative Commentary On Today's News

The Iranians had one reasonable chance to negotiate an end to the war. Donald Trump sent J.D. Vance, reportedly a skeptic of military action, to Islamabad to lead the American delegation. The Pakistan government urged the Iranians to take this seriously. Instead, the IRGC junta refused to negotiate at all on the main points of the conflict, especially their pursuit of nuclear weapons and claims of sovereign control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Then: Trump ordered a blockade of all Iranian shipping through the Strait—a move that will cost Iran’s regime $450 million dollars a day in lost sales and eliminate their only reliable method of resupply during the war. The Iranians threatened to escalate, but Trump has his own escalation options too.

As military analyst Sascha Bruchmann told a German news program, the Battle of Hormuz is a game of chicken, and “it is dangerous to play a game of chicken against Donald Trump.”

That’s the lesson the world ought to be learning. It’s a lesson we need to see through to the end in Iran.

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The Iranians had one reasonable chance to negotiate an end to the war. Donald Trump sent J.D. Vance, reportedly a skeptic of military action, to Islamabad to lead the American delegation. The Pakistan government urged the Iranians to take this seriously. Instead, the IRGC junta refused to negotiate at all on the main points of the conflict, especially their pursuit of nuclear weapons and claims of sovereign control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Then: Trump ordered a blockade of all Iranian shipping through the Strait—a move that will cost Iran’s regime $450 million dollars a day in lost sales and eliminate their only reliable method of resupply during the war. The Iranians threatened to escalate, but Trump has his own escalation options too.

As military analyst Sascha Bruchmann told a German news program, the Battle of Hormuz is a game of chicken, and “it is dangerous to play a game of chicken against Donald Trump.”

That’s the lesson the world ought to be learning. It’s a lesson we need to see through to the end in Iran.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The ceasefire in Iran will be a big win for President Trump if the Strait opens and stays open—and we’ll know over the course of the two weeks whether or not that happens.

If it does: The world’s oil supply will surge a bit and the remnants of the Iranian regime will have a chance to inventory the destruction that has rained down on their forces for five weeks.

If the Strait doesn’t reopen—or the attacks on Israel or our Gulf allies don’t cease—another round of the third Gulf war will soon commence.

President Trump issued his ultimatum. His never-evolving critics denounced his language though it got through to whomever is running the bunkers in Iran.

The war is far from over, but long conflicts never resolve in a month, and this one is 47 years old.

Fundamental things are afoot in the Middle East, most of them very good indeed.

Freedom for the long-suffering Iranian people and stability in the Middle East has never been closer since 1979..

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President Trump has done what seven presidents before him would not: he demolished the leading state sponsor of terrorism’s leadership, military, and nuclear abilities. For this, alone, the Nobel Peace Prize seems not quite enough.

We shall see if the temporary cease-fire holds; perhaps it is a moment of calibration that may require further military action, as President Trump has shown his mettle in doing with Iran before. And for those who have chosen to ignore or forget Iran’s 47-year war against the United States and the West—slaughtering and maiming untold thousands of Americans and other innocents, including assassination plots against the President—if Iran fully breaks this ceasefire, they will teach the world again who they are and what they do.

Meanwhile, critics blame Donald Trump for his rhetoric—of course having said nothing about the routine calls of genocide from Iran’s leadership or, for that matter, hundreds of thousands who take to the streets shouting, “From the river to the sea.”

This is a moment to thank President Trump, not condemn him.

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King Charles of Great Britain has sparked outrage and made one of the great unforced errors of recent UK history. After hosting an iftar at Windsor Castle last year and delivering messages for the Muslim holidays of Eid and Ramadan this year, he refused to offer an Easter message.

The decision is striking. As King, Charles is the head of the Christian Church of England. And his country is deeply polarized amid rising extremism, as well as reports of the government’s years-long institutional failure to investigate and prosecute sexual abuse of young girls by Islamist gangs.

The modern monarchy wields no political power. It exists only to provide a national symbol of unity, stability, and continuity. If it no longer serves that purpose, the taxpayers who subsidize it are justified in asking: What, exactly, is it for?

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