I have conducted several media engagements on the topic of Iran over the past three weeks. Contrary to what the mainstream, anti-American media often portrays, I believe that over 75% of the world's problems were mitigated in less than one week by Operation Epic Fury.
The West keeps trying to treat Iran like a normal state, one with beneficent goals, goodwill, and reasonable governance. Yet states do not survive on wishful thinking. They survive on clarity and the willingness to see the world as it is, not as diplomats and think tank courtiers pretend it to be.
Niccolò Machiavelli understood this when he warned, “A prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised.” And nothing is more unwise, nothing more fatally naïve, than believing that the Iranian theocracy can be negotiated into good behavior.
Iran is a revolutionary regime animated by a theological mandate to dominate the region, destroy Israel, and bleed the U.S. wherever possible. Its leaders do not hide this. They proclaim and celebrate it, building their entire legitimacy on it.
And yet, Western diplomats cling to the fantasy that the ayatollahs can be coaxed into moderation with the right combination of incentives, sanctions relief, and “confidence‑building measures.” This is the very delusion Machiavelli warned against when he wrote that rulers who fail to understand the nature of their enemies are undone by their own mercy.
Now is not the time to give mercy to the battered remnants of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; rather, now is the time to exponentially increase kinetic attacks on this pariah state.
Iran has made its nature unmistakable. They enrich uranium not because they need energy, but because they seek leverage. They build ballistic missiles not for deterrence, but for coercion. They develop autonomous weapons platforms not for defense, but for regional hegemony. They arm proxies from Gaza to Yemen, insisting defiantly, openly, proudly that Israel has no right to exist.
Machiavelli would laugh at the idea of negotiating with such a regime, not because diplomacy is useless, but because diplomacy without the credible threat of force is nothing more than begging. When dealing with “incorrigible” enemies, he wrote, a leader must not merely wound them; he must destroy their capacity to rise again. Anything less invites future conflict on worse terms.
This is where America stands today.
For decades, we have wounded Iran but never finished the job. We have struck their proxies but spared their masters. We have disrupted their nuclear program but allowed it to regenerate. We have punished their militias but left their missile factories untouched. We have responded to their aggression with proportionality, as if proportionality were a virtue rather than a strategic liability.
Iran’s networks of proxies were marginalized with Operation Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury, but now we must decapitate this Persian snake.
Machiavelli warned that when a republic confronts a hostile power, it must act with “cruelty well used.” Not cruelty for its own sake, but cruelty that prevents greater bloodshed later, that restores order, and ends the cycle of violence rather than perpetuating it.
Iran’s theocracy is weakened, fractured and internally despised, but it is not yet finished. And a negotiated settlement with a dying regime is not peace. It is only a pause that allows them to rearm, regroup and reassert themselves with greater fanaticism.
The ayatollahs understand only one language: power. They respect only one currency: force. They fear only one outcome: annihilation of their ability to threaten their neighbors. They respect and fear the sword above all else – it is their native tongue. So let us speak to them in the language they understand.
America and Israel have decisively dismantled a majority of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, crippled its ballistic missile program, severed its command‑and‑control networks, and neutralized its capacity to project power through proxies, all without occupying a single inch of Iranian soil. We are not lacking the means but the will, all while facing a national leftist media driven with vitriol and angst for all things Trump, which pushes propaganda on American weakness and failed military operations. This narrative distracts from the fight.
Machiavelli wrote that fortune favors the bold, not the hesitant. He warned that leaders who fail to act decisively when the moment demands “lose the opportunity that fortune offers.
Fortune offers America a moment of strategic clarity: Iran is vulnerable, isolated and exposed. Its proxies are overextended. Its economy is collapsing. Its people are restless. This is the moment to finish the job.
This is not warmongering. This is deterrence and restoration of order in a region that has known too little of it for too long.
Peace is not achieved by trusting the untrustworthy, rewarding defiance, or pretending that fanatics can be persuaded into moderation. Peace is achieved when the enemies of peace are rendered incapable of waging war.
The way ahead is simple: Finish the job, end the threat, restore the peace. Machiavelli would tell us plainly that the time to act is upon us … otherwise, we must prepare to pay later.
Troy Carico is a former infantry enlisted soldier (11B) and infantry officer with branch qualifications including counterintelligence (35E) and military intelligence (35D). He served with distinction in the U.S. Army for more than 22 years and is highly decorated and service-connected disabled. He also has prior service as a civilian intelligence officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency Great Skills Program and has served in numerous clandestine assignments throughout the world. You can find him on X @CaricoTroy, LinkedIn @Troy Carico, and Substack.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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