‘Peace through Strength' and 'The Causes of War'

Introduction

America struck Iran's nuclear enrichment facility located 300 feet under a mountain AT Fordo with six 30,000-pound “bunker buster bombs," last night. Iran’s other nuclear facilities were attacke with 30 Tomahawk missiles launched by American submarines some 400 miles away.

Donald Trump’s address to American Nation

A short time ago, the US military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror.

Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace.

If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.

For 40 years, Iran has been saying, “Death to America, death to Israel”.

They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs – that was their speciality.

We lost over a thousand people, and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate, in particular, so many were killed by their general, 

I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen.

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It will not continue.

I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.

We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we’ve gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel.

I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they’ve done and, most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent machines tonight, and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades.

Hopefully, we will no longer need their services in this capacity. I hope that’s so. I also want to congratulate the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan “Razin” Caine – spectacular general – and all of the brilliant military minds involved in this attack.

With all of that being said, this cannot continue.

There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days.

Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight’s was the most difficult of them all by far, and perhaps the most lethal, but if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes.

There’s no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight, not even close. There has never been a military that could do what took place just a little while ago.

Tomorrow, General Caine, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, will have a press conference at 8am (12:00 GMT) at the Pentagon, and I want to just thank everybody, and in particular, God.

I want to just say, “We love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them.” God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel, and God bless America.

Thank you very much. 

Thank you.

Benjamin Netanyahu's statement

Congratulations, President Trump.

Your bold decision to target Iran’s nuclear facilities, with the awesome and righteous might of the United States, will change history.

America has done what no other country on earth could do.

President Trump and I often say, ‘Peace through strength.’
First comes strength, then comes peace.

And tonight, Donald Trump and the United States acted with a lot of strength.

History will record that President Trump acted to deny the world’s most dangerous regime the world’s most dangerous weapons.”

Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi response:

The events of this morning are shocking and shameful, and will have lasting [everlasting] consequences.

The U.S. has engaged in extremely dangerous, illegal and criminal behaviour - continuing grave violations of the UN Charter, international law and the Nuclear Non‑Proliferation Treaty.

The United States reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interests, and people.
We categorically reject this act of aggression and will pursue all legal avenues, including an emergency meeting at the UN Security Council.

This reckless strike occurred during an ongoing diplomatic process—betraying diplomacy and supporting the aggressive actions of the genocidal and lawless Israeli regime.

By completing this chain of violations, the U.S. has itself launched a dangerous war against Iran.
Iran will resist with full force against U.S. military aggression and the crimes committed by this rogue regime, in defence of our security and national interests.” 

Winston Churchill - The Causes of War

Delivered during Churchill’s “wilderness years” (1929–1939), he challenged prevailing appeasement policies and warned Britain of the growing Nazi threat.

Many people think that the best way to escape war is to dwell upon its horrors, to imprint them vividly upon the minds of the younger generation. They flaunt the grizzly photographs before their eyes; they fill their ears with tales of carnage; they dilate upon the ineptitude of generals and admirals; they denounce the crime and insensate folly of human nature. But how would that avert war if we were attacked or invaded ourselves?

For history shows on many a page that armaments are not necessarily a cause of war, and that the want of them is no guarantee of peace. Indeed, the lucid intervals of peace and order in human history have only occurred after armaments in the hands of strong governments have come into being. Civilisation has been nursed only in cradles guarded by superior weapons and discipline.

As we go to and fro in this peaceful island, with its decent ordinary people going about their business under free institutions, and with so much tolerance and fair play in their laws and customs, it is startling and fearful to realise that we are no longer safe in our island home. After all, only a few hours away by air there dwell a nation of nearly seventy millions of the most educated, industrious, scientific, disciplined people in the world, who are being taught from childhood to think of war as a glorious exercise and death in battle as the noblest fate for man.

There is a nation which has abandoned all its liberties in order to augment its collective might. There is a nation … in the grip of a group of ruthless men preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride, unrestrained by law, by Parliament or by public opinion. From their new table of commandments they have omitted: 'Thou shalt not kill.' I am afraid that if you look intently at what is moving towards us, peace can be founded only upon preponderance. There is safety in numbers.

Only a few hours' flight away, in the air we are within shattering distance of the great aerodromes of central Europe. So close as that! Is it prudent, is it possible—however much we might desire it—to turn our backs on Europe and ignore what may happen there?

We must, without another hour’s delay, begin to make ourselves, at least, the strongest air power in the European world. Peace must be founded upon preponderance. There is safety in numbers. May God protect us all.