“Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” So spoke Secretary of State John Quincy Adams in a speech to the House of Representatives on July 4, 1821. On February 28, 2026, America went abroad to destroy a monster — the Islamic regime that has plagued the people of Iran and much of the world since it seized power in 1979. President Trump, who launched the attack under his Article II powers in coordination with Israel, called upon Iranians to overthrow the Islamic regime, but he justified the air and naval attack on U.S. national security grounds, especially Iran’s killing of Americans since the 1980s, the threat posed by the regime’s growing arsenal of ballistic missiles, and its avowed goal of obtaining nuclear weapons. President Trump’s brief address announcing the attacks cited Iran’s “unending campaign of bloodshed, mass murder targeting the United States, our troops and the innocent people in many, many countries.” Trump cited the regime’s taking of American hostages in 1979, the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. military personnel, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, the killing of American military personnel in Iraq by Iranian proxies, attacks on American vessels in shipping lanes, its promotion and funding of terrorism throughout the world, the Iranian-supported Hamas attack on Israel, and the recent massacre of Iranian citizens who were protesting against the regime. And Trump accused Iran of attempting to rebuild its nuclear weapons program. The president’s list of Iranian and Iranian-sponsored attacks against Americans is reminiscent of the powerful argument set forth by the late Norman Podhoretz in his book World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism. Podhoretz wrote the book based on his articles that appeared in Commentary in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks on America by Al Qaeda. Podhoretz’s book was a full-throated support of the Global War on Terror launched by the George W. Bush administration. Podhoretz portrayed the geopolitical threat of Islamofascism to the previous totalitarian threats of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. And while Trump is seeking regime change in Iran, there is no sense that [he] will seek to transform Iran into a Western-style democracy. Podhoretz’s list of justifications for the Global War on Terror included Iran’s taking and holding of American hostages in 1979; the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983, by Iranian-supported Hezbollah; the bombing of the American embassy in Kuwait in December 1983; Hezbollah’s kidnapping and murder of CIA station chief William Buckley and the taking hostage of other Americans between 1982 and 1992; the September 1984 truck-bombing of the American embassy annex in Beirut; Hezbollah’s hijacking of a Kuwaiti airliner and killing of two American passengers in December 1984; Hezbollah’s hijacking of an American airliner and murder of an American naval officer on the plane in June 1985; the seizing of the Achille Lauro and murder of a wheelchair-bound American in October 1985 by PLO terrorists backed by Libya; the first bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 by Al Qaeda terrorists; the attempted assassination of former President George H.W. Bush in Kuwait; the November 1995 car bombing near a building housing U.S. military advisers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that killed five Americans; the June 1996 truck bombing of Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. airmen and wounding 240 other U.S. citizens; the 1998 car bombings of our embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 12 Americans; that attack on the Cole in 2000; and culminating in the 9/11 attacks. Not all of those attacks on Americans and U.S. interests were tied to Iran, but many of them were. Podhoretz viewed the Islamic state of Iran as the Clausewitzian center of gravity in the war against what he called Islamofascism. The Bush administration seemed to agree and sought and achieved regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also attempted to transform those countries into Western-style democracies, with disastrous results. Wars always have unintended consequences. In On War, Clausewitz famously wrote that “Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult.”  The “friction” of war, Clausewitz explained, “corresponds to that which distinguishes real war from war on paper.” Trump as a candidate and as president denounced the endless wars of the Global War on Terror. And while Trump is seeking regime change in Iran, there is no sense that if the U.S.-Israeli attacks result in regime change, the Trump administration will seek to transform Iran into a Western-style democracy. That would be a fool’s errand. What would replace the Mullahs in Iran — should they fall — is unknown and unknowable. READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: The Court Strikes, But the Tariffs March On America Should Celebrate Nixon, Not the Washington Post Anchors Away: The Perils of Our Shipbuilding Imbalance