Trump's statement was perfect. Increased sanctions are definitely the way to go. Iran's theocracy has indisputably suffered the worst humiliation in its diseased existence, and they won't be able to spin that for very long, not even with their own captive people.
Obama's delusional idiocy about empowering "moderates" against "hardliners" in Iran is dead forever. The only chance of REALLY doing that is to convince the Iranian elite that it cannot have a comfortable, cosmopolitan existence until they get rid of the mullahs.
Meanwhile, the Iranian people need constant reminders their travails are the fault of their thug leadership. A lot of them understand that and hate the theocracy. They must be emboldened enough to begin a preference cascade, dispelling the fog of fear that keeps others in line.
Trump made the Iranian theocracy look foolish and weak. It's exactly how you need to treat barbarian leaders. They get knocked off once their own people no longer fear them.
As the huge Iranian protests of late 2019 made clear, much of the public is angry that the windfall from the Iran nuclear deal was squandered on foreign military adventures. Well, Iranians were just shown that money was wasted. The U.S. easily killed the guy who spent it.
Trump was right to point out Obama's role in funding the Iranian regime's terror operations. I think he's canny enough to see that Obama's monstrous error also gives us an interesting opportunity: Iran can no longer afford to maintain the network it built with the Obama loot.
The Iranian regime is basically like someone who bought a flashy new house during boom times but can't make the mortgage payments any more. We should hit that weak point hard by making every Iranian foreign operation more expensive and less effective.
Sounds like that's what Trump has in mind, and it will have the very salutary effect of not only destabilizing the regime and limiting its regional mischief, but also making nuclear weapons development prohibitively expensive. Iran made itself a LOT more isolated last night. /end
