Photo: Alamy | Op-ed by Summer Lane
While the nation and world attempt to anticipate what steps President Donald Trump will take to ensure Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons, it has become clear that social media narratives and pontification often give way to panic, but historic facts are clear: President Trump has been wholly consistent about his position on Iran’s quest to obtain nuclear firepower.
As far back as 2015, when Trump was a newly minted presidential candidate, he expressed his distaste for then-President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.
“I don’t understand the president. He dealt from desperation, and he shouldn’t have been desperate,” Trump said ten years ago.
He also criticized Obama for “giving [Iran] billions of dollars in this deal, which we shouldn’t have given them. We should have kept the money.”
While speaking at a political event in early 2015, before even announcing his official presidential candidacy, Trump communicated clearly about his stance on Iran yet again.
“We really do have to get strong and we have to get strong fast. We can’t let Iran get a nuclear weapon. We can’t do it. Can’t do it. We cannot let that happen,” he said.
In 2020, while acting as the sitting president for his first term, President Trump strongly stated that “Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.”
By contrast, during the Biden administration, the Democrats allowed Iran access to $10 billion in Tehran via a sanction waiver, according to the New York Post. Biden’s weakness in dealing with Iran was a point of considerable criticism during his term, and it differed significantly from Trump’s approach.
While President Trump ran for president again in 2024, he consistently stated his position on Iran, noting, “They can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
Before the election in November 2024, Trump told Fox News, “I had to have one thing – no nuclear weapons. You can’t have [a] nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapons are the greatest danger to our country going forward – to the world going forward.”
He made this statement repeatedly, especially in the lead-up to the 2024 Election Day, while speaking at his popular campaign rally events.
The president has also been consistent in his stance on Iran’s potential nuclearization since taking office in January, noting in February and April that the Middle Eastern country could not be allowed to possess such destructive weaponry.
“I want Iran to be a wonderful, great, happy country – but they can’t have a nuclear weapon,” he said in April.
On Tuesday, while flying back from Canada, Trump told reporters on Air Force One the same thing: “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. It’s very simple. You don’t have to go too deep into it. They just can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
He also stated his desire to reach a permanent end to the conflict in the Middle East, explaining that he was looking for something “better than a ceasefire,” aiming to achieve “a real end, not a ceasefire – an end.”
President Trump’s consistency on this integral issue is reassuring amid media panic and commentators’ rampant speculation.
“…POTUS has been amazingly consistent, over 10 years, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Vice President J.D. Vance said on X Tuesday morning. “Over the last few months, he encouraged his foreign policy team to reach a deal with the Iranians to accomplish this goal. The president has made clear that Iran cannot have uranium enrichment. And he said repeatedly that this would happen one of two ways–the easy way or the ‘other’ way.”
Vance praised the president for showing “remarkable restraint in keeping our military’s focus on protecting our troops and protecting our citizens” despite Iran’s repeated moves to bolster its uranium enrichment capacity.
Regardless, Vance said that the decision to end Iran’s moves to potentially nuclearize was exclusively with the President of the United States.
“…I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue. And having seen this up close and personal, I can assure you that he is only interested in using the American military to accomplish the American people’s goals. Whatever he does, that is his focus,” Vance concluded.
Vance was right to point out Trump’s consistency on the topic of Iran and its creeping footsteps toward nuclearization. The Middle Eastern country has received more than enough warning to cease and desist its antics from the president.
President Trump’s “peace through strength” policy is only as powerful as its follow-through in times of hardship.
In 1900, President Teddy Roosevelt quoted a West African proverb in a letter to Henry Sprague, advising, “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”
Indeed, that is the America First approach: America comes first, which includes American safety, sovereignty, security, and interests. A guard dog without teeth is a poor guard dog indeed, and based on President Trump’s history of consistent statements on Iran, it is clear that his ultimate goal is always peace, but under his leadership, America has the strength to protect that peace with action.
