The Return of Resolve: Why the U.S. Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Sites Marks a Turning Point for the West

How the U.S. strike on Iran signals the West's long-overdue return to moral clarity and strategic courage.

On June 22, 2025, the United States launched coordinated strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities—a move as geopolitically bold as it is historically significant. In an era defined by retreat, hedging, and moral detachment masquerading as diplomacy, this operation represents something we have not seen in years: a clear assertion of Western resolve, grounded in strategic realism and a moral clarity rooted in the classical liberal tradition.

Make no mistake—this was not just a military operation. It was a signal that the long twilight of Western passivity may finally be coming to an end.

The End of Moral Detachment

For over a decade, Western foreign policy—particularly under Presidents Obama and Biden—was guided by a posture of minimalism. It was a worldview that confused multilateralism with moral parity, and diplomacy with delay. Under the guise of avoiding “forever wars,” we retreated from moral responsibility, allowing bad actors to fill the vacuum: Russia in Crimea and Ukraine, China in the South China Sea, the Taliban in Kabul, and Iran across the Middle East.

This detachment didn’t arise in a vacuum. It was the logical endpoint of a post-Cold War era in which Western policymakers gradually abandoned the conviction that liberal democracy, rule of law, and sovereignty were values worth defending beyond their own borders. Instead, we outsourced our moral compass to global bureaucracies and empowered regional hegemons on the misguided hope that economic interdependence would civilize them.

June 22 may be the first credible sign in decades that this delusion is dying.

Why Iran Matters

Iran’s nuclear ambitions have never been benign. Since at least the early 2000s, Tehran’s regime has pursued a dual-track strategy of nuclear development and regional destabilization through proxies—Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Shiite militias in Iraq, and terror networks in Syria and Gaza. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated under Obama and revived by Biden, offered Iran economic relief in exchange for temporary nuclear limits. In practice, it bought time—for Iran.

The problem wasn’t diplomacy per se. The problem was negotiating from a place of fear rather than strength. The JCPOA presumed Iran could be co-opted into the international order. But Iran never intended to join that order. It meant to subvert it.

The June 22 strike therefore isn’t a step away from diplomacy—it is the necessary condition for meaningful diplomacy. There are times when the defense of civilization requires not conversation, but confrontation. This is one of them.

Realism Without Cynicism

Some will say this is an act of imperialism or “cowboy politics.” That’s nonsense.

What we are witnessing is not a return to reckless adventurism, but a restoration of balance—a reminder that Western restraint must be undergirded by the credible threat of force. This is realism tempered by classical liberalism: acknowledging the tragic limits of human nature, while still believing that freedom, law, and individual dignity are not just Western preferences, but universal aspirations.

The classical liberal tradition—rooted in thinkers like John Locke, Adam Smith, and more recently, figures like Isaiah Berlin and Michael Oakeshott—has always recognized that values without power are hollow. Freedom requires force to protect it. Institutions require deterrence to survive. And order, if it is to be just, must first be secure.

Historical Echoes: From Truman to Osirak

This moment has parallels.

In 1947, President Harry Truman stood before Congress and articulated what would become known as the Truman Doctrine: the principle that the United States would support free peoples resisting subjugation by authoritarian powers. That doctrine was not just about Greece or Turkey—it was a philosophical and strategic declaration that the West would no longer stand by while tyranny advanced.

Similarly, in 1981, Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin authorized a preemptive strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. At the time, the move was condemned by the international community. But within a decade—after the Gulf War—it was recognized as a necessary act that prevented Saddam Hussein from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Both examples demonstrate the same core lesson: waiting for threats to mature is not prudence. It is procrastination, and it is deadly.

The June 22 strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities fits this lineage. It may not end Iran’s ambitions, but it resets the calculus. It reminds the world that red lines are real, that deterrence still matters, and that the West has not entirely lost its will to act.

The Decline of “Leading From Behind”

Barack Obama once infamously described America’s role in Libya as “leading from behind.” That phrase became emblematic of an era where Western power was used reluctantly, and often only after moral clarity had been outsourced to NATO committees or UN resolutions.

But you cannot lead from behind. To lead is to chart the course—not to ask who else is coming before taking the first step. Under the Biden administration, the U.S. defaulted back to this posture—especially in its Iran policy. The strikes of June 22 suggest a possible break from this ambivalence. They suggest that the West may be ready to lead again—not as a bully, but as a moral force.

A Risk Worth Taking

Of course, this action carries risk. Iran could retaliate directly or through its proxies. The region could spiral. The global oil market could convulse. But risk alone is not reason enough for inaction.

Every meaningful defense of liberty has come with risk—from Normandy to Korea to Kosovo. What matters is whether the risk is tied to purpose. In this case, the purpose is clear: to prevent a theocratic regime with a record of terror sponsorship from obtaining the most destructive weapon on Earth.

That is a risk worth taking. That is a purpose worth defending.

Conclusion: A Turning Point?

It’s too early to declare a wholesale reawakening of Western will. But something shifted on June 22. For the first time in years, we saw an American president take decisive action to uphold not just national interest, but civilizational interest. We saw a flash of Truman, a flicker of Reagan, even an echo of Churchill—the conviction that freedom demands strength, and that strength requires action.

This is not the end of our geopolitical malaise. But it may be the beginning of the end.

Let’s hope the West doesn’t waste it.