The ink wasn’t even dry on Trump’s latest “winding down” comments before the warmongers started sharpening their pens. Like clockwork. The bombs are still falling, the Navy’s turning Iranian ships into reef material, and somewhere in a mahogany-paneled office, a former Pentagon bureaucrat is banging out an op-ed demanding we send American boots into the sand — again.
His name is Seth Cropsey, and he got prime real estate in the Wall Street Journal this weekend to make his case. The headline? “American Credibility Is on the Line in Iran.” Translation: “We haven’t spent enough blood and treasure yet.”
The Pitch: Send In the Troops
Cropsey’s argument boils down to this — Trump’s military campaign against Iran has been brilliant, but stopping now would be a disaster. He wants “several thousand special-ops forces” deployed to southern Iran, backed by regular troops, to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. His words:
“President Trump must put boots on the ground to open the Strait of Hormuz and demonstrate the unquestionable supremacy of American power.”
He also warns that “the job, while admirably executed, is unfinished,” and that pulling back would be — wait for it — “a cataclysmic mistake with repercussions well beyond the Middle East.”
And here’s where it gets stupid. Cropsey drags out the old domino theory, claiming that leaving now “would destroy American credibility” and “could trigger a Chinese move against Taiwan or a Russian move against NATO.” Because apparently, if we don’t plant a flag in southern Iran, Xi Jinping is going to invade Taiwan next Tuesday. These people have been running the same playbook since 2003.
Trump Isn’t Taking the Bait
Give the man credit — Trump didn’t tiptoe around this. He came right out on March 20 and said the U.S. was “getting very close to meeting our objectives” and was “considering winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East.” He even told the countries that depend on the Strait of Hormuz to start guarding it themselves, adding, “If asked, we will help these Countries.”
That’s not retreat. That’s common sense. Why should American soldiers babysit a shipping lane for countries that won’t lift a finger to protect their own oil routes?
When pressed about troop deployments, Trump played it like a poker champion: “As far as troops are concerned, I can’t tell you what we’re doing.” A day earlier, he was even more direct — “I’m not putting troops anywhere. If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you, but I’m not putting troops.”
The man knows something Cropsey doesn’t: you don’t telegraph your next move to your enemies. Or to the Wall Street Journal.
The Murdoch Machine Grinds On
This op-ed didn’t land in a vacuum. The Journal has been running interference against the America First agenda for the better part of a decade. They’ve hammered Trump on trade, immigration, and foreign policy restraint like a broken jukebox stuck on the same globalist tune.
Remember January? The Journal pushed a story claiming Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were steering Trump away from striking Iran. Vance’s office torched that narrative fast, calling it flat-out inaccurate and clarifying that he and Rubio were “presenting a suite of options to the President, ranging from a diplomatic approach to military actions” — “without bias or favor.”
Last June, Trump himself called out the paper, saying the Journal “has No Idea what my thoughts are concerning Iran!” after they cited anonymous sources to claim he’d authorized attack plans. Trump kept everyone guessing: “I may do it. I may not do it… nobody knows what I’m going to do.”
And it’s not just the Journal. Breitbart News documented a “barrage” of anti-Vance coverage across the entire Murdoch empire — the Journal, Fox News, the New York Post — logging “more than a dozen hits” on the VP over economic and foreign policy. The Journal alone ran at least 17 opinion pieces or letters attacking Vance since February 2025. One GOP adviser summed it up perfectly: these outlets are “completely out of touch with the direction of the GOP.”
The Real Game
Cropsey invoked the 1956 Suez crisis to scare everyone, warning that Britain and France’s humiliation back then marked “the psychological transformation of two erstwhile great powers into medium powers.” His message: America faces the same fate if it doesn’t go all-in.
But here’s what Cropsey won’t tell you: Britain and France collapsed at Suez because they overextended. Sound familiar? Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. The graveyard of American foreign policy is littered with conflicts that started with “just a few thousand troops” and ended with trillion-dollar bills and Gold Star families.
Trump sees the pattern. The globalist commentariat at the Journal either doesn’t — or doesn’t care.
This isn’t about American credibility. It’s about a dying media establishment that views the world “through the clouded lens of a bygone era” trying to drag a populist president into the same forever-war quicksand that the American people voted against — twice.
Trump didn’t get elected to be the Wall Street Journal‘s war president. He got elected to be America’s president. And if Cropsey wants boots on the ground so badly, I hear they’re still selling combat gear on Amazon.