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Last week, I had the pleasure of participating, alongside Advisory Board member Rebeccah Heinrichs, in an Alexander Hamilton Society debate on the Iran war. While there are many strong and divergent views on the operation—including within our Coalition—it is quite rare to witness a nuanced, respectful debate. As Rebeccah and I argued that the War in Iran has been a net benefit to U.S. security, we emphasized one central premise that I think has largely been unexplored: the need to stop Iran from becoming North Korea. By this, I mean denying a bellicose, violent adversary the capabilities to exercise either the military or economic coercion that constrains our ability to defend our own national security interests.
North Korea now has upwards of 50 nuclear warheads—a fact we can no longer change through military force alone. They achieved this in part through building a conventional military capable of deterring any potential attack against their nuclear program. While Operation Midnight Hammer seems to have destroyed the bulk of Iran’s nuclear program, including most aspects of its production chain, we did not eliminate one central aspect of their program: their will. Accordingly, the Iranian regime pledged to produce upwards of 100 ballistic missiles per month and already assembled an arsenal of hundreds of thousands of drones. This threat was exacerbated by the fact that despite pledging not to produce a ballistic missile capable of traveling over 2,000 kilometers, the regime launched two missiles toward a U.S. base twice that distance away during Operation Epic Fury. Following North Korea’s example, the Iranian regime sought to deter any future U.S. attack on their nuclear program, allowing them to enrich to weapons-grade uranium with little American pushback.
Thanks to Epic Fury, however, the United States has reportedly destroyed 80 percent of Iran's missile production facilities, two-thirds of its arms manufacturing capabilities, 450 ballistic missile storage facilities, 90 percent of its weapons factories, and 70 percent of its missile launchers. These actions not only denies Iran the conventional military deterrence to protect a future nuclear program, it also denies them even more leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, weakening Iran’s efforts to coerce America economically.
President Trump has been consistent since we left the JCPOA that his concerns on Iran are not exclusively nuclear but encompass the entire remit of their power projection capabilities. With Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury, the president is putting that view into action. While the overall success of this war will largely be dependent on its final outcome, the damage done to their ballistic missile arsenal and the ability to address their control over the Strait of Hormuz now—before any potential conflict with China—are key achievements.
-Carrie Filipetti, Executive Director of the Vandenberg Coalition
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