The war has been postponed, it turns out, a day after the Islamic Republic of Iran fired a salvo of ballistic and cruise missiles into a pair of military bases in Iraq.
We are back from the brink. On Wednesday morning, in a live address to the nation, which you no doubt saw, President Trump announced that Iran's missiles had landed harmlessly. No American troops were killed and no Iraqis, either. It turned out to be a purely symbolic bombing designed to stop rather than start a larger war.
As the president explained, at least for now, the hostilities are over.
President Trump: Our great American forces are prepared for anything. Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world.
"A very good thing for the world." That's a big claim. But in this case, it is not an overstatement.
For the past five days, all of us have had, if nothing else, a chance to ruminate on what war with Iran would mean for us here in the United States. And of course, at best, it would be tragic. Very easily, it could become a catastrophe.
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We've had time to think about it. We ought to be saying prayers of thanks that it didn't happen.
We came close. And in fact, we're still close.
Thousands of American troops remained stationed in Iraq. And that's a country, we just learned, that is largely run by Iran. Think about that.
After nearly 17 years of American occupation, Iran's most powerful military leader, a man that we considered a terrorist, was flying in and out of Baghdad's airport like he owned it. That's how comfortable he felt in Iraq, a place that we supposedly control.
Now the government of Iraq -- which, need we be reminded, we created out of nothing and spent untold billions propping up for more than a decade -- is taking Iran's side in this dispute and demanding that Americans leave the country. So, 17 years, trillions of American dollars, more than 35,000 Americans killed or wounded -- you probably know one. And this is what we get at the end in return, another Iranian proxy state that hates us.
It's infuriating.
Iraq's democratically-elected government has asked us to leave, and we should leave immediately. Remaining in Iraq increases the power of bureaucrats and think tanks in Washington.
In fact, it's worse than infuriating, it's immoral. And the Americans who let this happen should be punished.
The casual recklessness they displayed, the utter incompetence -- it's all an insult to the memory of the thousands of Americans who died in Iraq.
This mismanagement of that country by our leaders is one of the saddest things America has ever done. And yet, suddenly there may be an upside to all of this sadness and it's this: we can go now.
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Iraq's democratically-elected government has asked us to leave, and we should leave. Immediately. Remaining in Iraq increases the power of bureaucrats and think tanks in Washington. It does do that and that's why they're in favor of it.
But as the last week has shown, staying in Iraq imperils the lives of Americans -- and for no good reason. We can't turn Iraq into Belgium. We tried that, it didn't work. It's never going to work.
We don't need their oil anymore. A lot has changed since 2003. We've got fracking now. And so it's time to go. "Oh, but you can't just leave Iraq," scream the think-tankers and the TV war planners. "It's irresponsible." They miss the irony.
"But you can't leave." Well, actually, you can. Here's how it's done:
Wolf Blitzer, CNN host: How does the United States get out of this situation? Is there a way out of this?
Trump: How do they out? You know how they get out? They get out. That's how they get out. Declare victory and leave. Because I'll tell you, this country is just going to get further bogged down.
They are in a civil war over there, Wolf. There's nothing that we're going to be able to do with a civil war. They are in a major civil war, and it's going to go to Iran, and it's going to go to other countries. They are in the midst of a major civil war.
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That interview was in 2007/. -- Thirteen years ago. It was good advice then and we should have taken it.
It's not too late. Let's do it now.
Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Jan. 8, 2020.
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