Michael Goodwin: Trump’s steadfast approach to ‘no nukes’ for Iran shows his unwavering resolve

The Democratic left’s favorite caricature of President Trump describes him as recklessly impulsive, wildly inconsistent and addicted to shooting from the hip.

The image is powerful boob bait for the uninformed, but it is demonstrably false when it comes to matters of great importance. ­Exhibit A is Trump’s consistent and decade-long patient policies toward Iran.

For years he has been saying the mullahs would never be allowed to get nuclear weapons on his watch.

It was a major theme of his first campaign and first term.

He proved he was serious in 2018 when he withdrew the United States from Barack Obama’s sketchy pact, which would have at best slowed Iran’s march to nuclear weapons, but not prevented it.

The excessively generous terms also provided the ayatollah with sanctions relief and pallets of cash, as much as $1.4 billion over all.

Yet after America’s shameful wooing, bribing and begging, Iranian negotiators refused to promise they would not seek nukes, nor would they promise not to use the money to fund Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and other terror proxies in the region.

Funding terrorists

Later, John Kerry, who had helped negotiate the pact, admitted the administration knew some of the American money would go to fund terrorists.

Which, of course, is exactly what happened, and ever since, Iran has reaped buckets of blood in Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

It also put out assassination contracts on Trump and former aides Mike Pompeo and John Bolton.

When he sought the White House again in 2024, Trump made it clear his position had not changed.

It marked a clear difference with both of his general-election opponents, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who subscribed to the Obama fantasy that Iran could be bribed and sweet-talked into rejoining the community of nations.

Nonetheless, the ayatollah never showed a moment’s interest in any of their liberal piety.

He made it clear his goal was to spread the Islamist revolution throughout the region and, ultimately, around the world, and do it by military conquest.

Then last June, six months into his second term, Trump proved he had not changed his mind and ­understood the ayatollah hadn’t either.

He showed he meant business by dispatching B-2 stealth bombers to attack three Iranian nuclear sites, as part of Israel’s 12-day war with Iran.

The operation, dubbed Midnight Hammer, involved nonstop, round-trip flights from and to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, while the actual raids took just a reported 25 minutes.

In that time, the bombers dropped 14 “bunker buster” bombs, each weighing 30,000 pounds, on the fortified nuclear facilities.

Despite the intense pounding, Iran still refused to yield on the issue during negotiations that followed and stretched into early this year.

In the last meeting, in February, chief envoy Steve Witkoff said Iranian officials boasted to him and Jared Kushner that they had enough enriched uranium to make 11 bombs, and that they would never yield on what they regarded as their right to have nuclear weapons.

Days later, Israel and United States launched the current war.

Firepower did its job

The tremendous firepower did its job, and led to a supposed two-week cease-fire in early April.

Pakistan offered to mediate what it and Trump hoped would be ­final peace talks.

The American side was led by Vice President JD Vance, marking what has been called the highest meeting between officials from Iran and the US since the Carter administration.

Afterward, Trump declared that “most points were agreed to, but the only point that mattered, ­NUCLEAR, was not.”

Although both sides largely have continued to keep the cease-fire and exchange demands through mediators, the talks have not advanced significantly.

While Iran’s attempts to close the vital Strait of Hormuz have taken center stage, Trump has kept the nuclear issue in focus.

But in the middle of May, the ­Iranians again dashed any hopes they were willing to concede a single point.

Their representatives were said to have declared that enrichment rights “cannot be negotiated” — and that enrichment “is a right that already exists.”

In a rebuke to the left’s narrative about Trump’s impulsiveness, it is a crucial fact that he has never changed or wavered on his no-nukes demand.

It remains his No. 1 priority to this day.

Although the war is not popular at home and could endanger ­Republicans in the midterms, Trump said that he was prepared to ­resume the attacks.

In fact, he told reporters just how close he had been to ordering a return to war.

“I was an hour away from making the decision to go today,” he said Monday at the White House.

“We’re all set to go,” he continued.

“It would have been happening right now. Yeah, it was all done, the boats, the ships were all loaded, they’re loaded to the brim, and we were all set to start.”

In a separate post on Truth ­Social, he credited Arab allies with persuading him to pull back.
Citing the leaders of Qatar, ­Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, he said “serious negotiations with Iran are now taking place” and expressed confidence in a deal which he vowed “will include “NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR IRAN.”

Wobbly Euro allies

In contrast to the president’s refusal to budge on his top priority, our traditional European allies have gone wobbly and stayed wobbly.

They refused to help militarily, and limited themselves to playing critic and sitting on the sidelines, a pathetic posture that was underscored again Tuesday.

A statement from the six other finance ministers in the G7 about reopening the Strait of Hormuz did little more than state the obvious.

To wit, the world economy needs free movement of oil, food, fertilizer and other energy products.

Yet it’s what they didn’t say that is most concerning.

The ministers from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the UK cited Trump’s push for peace but not his demand that Iran forsake the pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Their position effectively is one that would settle for “peace at any price.”

The amazing thing is that while they mock Trump and hold him in contempt, they refuse to learn the lesson that appeasement doesn’t work.

It didn’t work against Hitler, and it has not worked against the Islamists ruling Iran.

Those so-called allies should count their lucky stars that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, both of whom they revile, are fighting the good fight.

Especially now that Iran has proven it has ballistic missiles capable of reaching London and Paris, you would think Europe would join America and Israel, or at least thank Trump and Netanyahu for fighting to make sure those Iranian missiles could never be armed with nuclear warheads.

Dream on.