MORNING GLORY: Why Trump must finish what he started with Iran’s regime |
Opinion
MORNING GLORY: Why Trump must finish what he started with Iran’s regime
President Trump’s most difficult decision is ahead
By Hugh Hewitt Fox News
Published March 3, 2026 5:00am EST
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President Donald Trump has proven again and again to have mastered strategic and tactical surprise in conflict, and to depend upon the military professionals advising him. Now, however, he faces a decision on when to end the battle with the Islamic Republic of Iran or whatever regime follows its collapse.
In making that decision, the events of 35 years ago should figure in his calculation.
The American-led international coalition that assembled to drive Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi troops from Kuwait began that war with a massive aerial and naval bombardment of Saddam’s forces in Kuwait and some targets in Iraq on January 17, 1991. The first phase of the first Gulf War lasted five weeks. The second phase, a ground invasion of Kuwait, began on February 24, 1991, and famously (or infamously) concluded after 100 hours.
Serious military professionals have long debated the decision by then President George H.W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell to end military operations when they did. A huge tactical success had been achieved and the strategic benefit of such an overwhelming display of force, and almost certainly some Americans are alive today who would not have survived an extended campaign to depose Saddam Hussein 35 years ago.
But..
The "Marsh Arabs" of Iraq, the Shi'a Muslim population that inhabited the marshlands around the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the southern part of the country still controlled by Saddam after the 100-hours........