(The Federalist)—President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities last week might be a historical turning point. In a single stroke, Trump defanged the world’s leading state sponsor of terror. He radically reshaped the Middle East in favor of the United States’ interests and allies. And he sent an unequivocal message — roughly translated as “FAFO” — to enemies around the world.
The War Party’s Consistent Aim
For Americans wary of foreign military adventurism, Operation “Midnight Hammer” may have struck a similarly paradigm-shifting blow against another threat to our national security: Washington’s institutional Forever War Party.
The right talks often about unelected, unaccountable bureaucracies setting domestic policy outside our constitutional framework. But nowhere is the Deep State deeper than at the Pentagon, in our intelligence community, and the rest of Washington’s national security establishment. These agencies don’t merely — and often don’t, period — carry out the decisions of elected leaders. Rather, they shape the intelligence and narratives that define those decisions before they’re ever made.
They selectively present intel. They stoke policymakers’ fears and stroke their egos. In public statements, press leaks, and in secure briefings, they promote their narrative at the expense of alternative views — often of the truth itself. They narrow the range of “acceptable” options, smear dissent, and advocate for military action that feels inevitable. And when they don’t get their way, they fight back — even against Congress, even against their commander-in-chief.
Americans worry about being “dragged” into another quagmire, and these are the institutions doing the dragging.
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