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It is difficult to imagine any other Republican or Democratic president taking such a risk to hit Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. The Middle East is understandably viewed as the graveyard of presidential misadventures, where an administration’s good polls crash and sometimes do not revive.

Jimmy Carter’s reelection hopes blew up after the failed 1980 rescue mission. Iran-Contra almost sabotaged Ronald Reagan. Even the successful 1991 Gulf War ended poorly with the survival of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, the ensuing endless “no fly zones”—and a repudiated George H.W. Bush in 1992.

George W. Bush lost control of his presidency with the devolution of the 2003 Iraq War. Joe Biden’s polls never recovered from the skedaddle from Kabul, Afghanistan.

But President Donald Trump’s limited and defined agenda—and unpredictability—was a different operation and may avoid such a fate.

His administration has likely destroyed most of the Iran nuclear infrastructure at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. So far, the only Iranian response seems to have been a half-hearted attempt to strike a US base in Qatar. All signs point to that being a limited and largely symbolic retaliation: Tehran even gave Qatar advance notice of the attack and the base had been evacuated.

The initial success of Trump’s strike on Iran can be appreciated by the poverty of both foreign and domestic criticism. The American left claimed the bombing was unnecessary and without provocation. More likely it was long overdue given the 1979 storming of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran; the mass-murdering of Americans at the Beirut embassy and Marine Corps barracks in 1983; the blowing up of thousands of Americans in Iraq; and the plans to assassinate Trump. In short, the Iranian theocracy has for nearly half a century waged a one-sided war against America, without much retaliation—until now.

Indeed, the terrorist Iranian regime alone largely explains why there are still so many American bases in Syria, Iraq, and the Gulf, even after the erosion of al-Qaeda and ISIS capabilities.

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China criticizes Israeli strikes

China on Friday criticized Israel’s airstrike against Iran, which has emerged during recent years as a key strategic partner of the Chinese Communist Party as Chinese government-linked companies invest heavily in the Iranian economy and lead the world in Iranian crude oil purchases.

Beijing “opposes actions that violate Iran’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity” and is “deeply concerned about the potential grave consequences of the operations,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters.

His comments underscored the precariousness of the current dynamics in the Middle East, as well as the prospect that the situation could dangerously devolve into global conflict.

There is a consensus in some American national security circles that China and Russia, as well as North Korea, would likely back Tehran against the U.S., Israel and other Western allies should the present hostilities spiral into world war.

The notion of such an alignment hung in the backdrop Friday as world leaders watched for signs of whether Iran may attempt to target both Israel and the U.S. in retaliation for Israel’s airstrikes, which decimated several Iranian nuclear sites and killed the top commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami.

News of his death has triggered global headlines and brought to the fore a level of regional anxiety comparable to that which gripped the Middle East during the days after a U.S. drone strike killed Mr. Salami’s predecessor, Qassem Soleimani, in October of 2020.

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