Trump refuses to normalize Western decline

OPINION:

North America’s longest cascading fountain, in Meridian Hill Park in the District of Columbia, started flowing again this month after being dry since 2019. For years, the park was filled with drug addicts and homeless encampments.

No more, thanks to President Trump’s executive order last year to make the District safe and beautiful, to renovate D.C. infrastructure and restore monuments ahead of our country’s 250th anniversary. In recent weeks, families have made the trip to Meridian Hill, snapping pictures of the fountain, picnicking there and enjoying the beauty of the nation’s capital, which had long been neglected.

Through simple acts, such as restoring monuments, and bold foreign policy moves, Mr. Trump has refused to normalize Western decline and has shown Americans the power, might, strength and grandeur of our great country. Mr. Trump has demonstrated that competent American leadership is possible and that living in squalor or diminished capacity is a choice and not an inevitability.

On the world stage, the Trump administration indicted Cuban dictator Raul Castro this week on charges of murder and conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals — the same Castro with whom President Obama flew down to the island nation to watch a baseball game. For decades, presidents, including Bill Clinton, looked to appease and accept the communist nation’s humanitarian violations and threat to our national security, thinking that would improve relations.

In 1996, after Mr. Castro allegedly ordered the Cuban military to shoot down two civilian aircraft operated by the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue, resulting in the deaths of four men, including three Americans, Mr. Clinton condemned the shooting but did not respond militarily or pursue a legal indictment. He and his predecessors, up until Mr. Trump, sought to manage a delicate “back channel” with Cuba, accepting their provocations while hoping diplomacy would help lead to a peaceful transition with the island.

As Cuban dissidents tried to flee to Florida, Mr. Clinton went as far as deporting 5-year-old Elian Gonzalez after he was rescued at sea off the coast of the Sunshine State, one of only three survivors of a makeshift boat that capsized, killing his mother and 10 others. Elian’s father remained in Cuba and demanded his return — a cause that was heavily lobbied by Cuban President Fidel Castro. After Elian’s family in Miami refused to surrender him, federal agents conducted a predawn SWAT raid in April 2000, seizing Elian from his home at gunpoint.

Appeasement was Mr. Clinton’s strategy, as was Mr. Obama’s. In 2015, Mr. Obama reopened the U.S. Embassy in Cuba and eased travel and trade restrictions. The following year, he visited Havana, the first such visit by a sitting U.S. president since 1928, aiming to replace Cold War isolation with engagement. The change in U.S. policy did not loosen the grip of the Castro regime, nor did it improve its corruption and subversion of the U.S. As Americans, we were told we had to accept it and had no real power to change it.

Not under Mr. Trump.

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The long-overdue indictment of Mr. Castro was unsealed on Cuban Independence Day at Freedom Tower in Miami. It is part of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Cuba’s communist government. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration’s goal is for a “new Cuba,” where its citizenry enjoys economic freedoms, free speech and a government system that allows its people to vote to replace leaders who fail.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche noted that the Trump administration expects Mr. Castro to “show up here by his own will or by another way” to face justice, much as indicted Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro was captured in his own country by U.S. forces.

The Maduro raid was another example of America’s awe-inspiring ability to reclaim our leadership in the Western Hemisphere. In January, operating under the code name Operation Absolute Resolve, U.S. Special Forces broke into a secure compound in Caracas and apprehended Mr. Maduro and his wife. The highly coordinated raid, which consisted of early-morning airstrikes and suppression of Venezuela’s defenses, lasted only two hours and 28 minutes. Mr. Maduro is now sitting in a New York City jail cell waiting on charges of cocaine importation and narco-terrorism conspiracy.

Less reported were the military’s successful precision strikes in Nigeria this month, where the global second-in-command of ISIS was eliminated. Instead of snapping social media selfies in the West Wing with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls to raise awareness of terrorism in Nigeria, the Trump administration is actively rooting it out.

There is not enough room in this column to write on the Trump administration’s Operation Epic Fury and Operation Midnight Hammer in Iran — but needless to say, our military prowess has been unbeatable, and our resolve to never allow the Iranian regime to have a nuclear weapon has been steadfast.

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The search-and-rescue effort of two Americans shot down behind enemy lines in southern Iran in April was so daring that Universal Pictures will develop it into a movie, complete with director Michael Bay.

For the first time in my lifetime, I am witnessing America’s ability to actually change things for the better, both on the world stage and here at home. Mr. Trump is truly demonstrating that he won’t sit idly by and help manage the West’s decline.

We are the world’s preeminent superpower, not just conceptually but also in actuality, and it is about time we started acting like it.

• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at the Washington Times.

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