President Obama pledged to use "all options" to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, years before President Trump made the bold decision to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
In resurfaced comments from a 2012 presidential debate, Obama warned that he would use military force if diplomatic efforts were not successful.
“So, the work that we’ve done with respect to sanctions now offers Iran a choice: They can take the diplomatic route and end their nuclear program, or they will have to face a united world and a United States president -- me -- who said we’re not going to take any options off the table," he said at the time.
In the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, Obama and his vice president, Joe Biden, said repeatedly that the administration was not "bluffing" about using force to stop Iran from getting a bomb, but not everyone was convinced that the tough talk was genuine.
Of course, Obama wasn't shy about using military force in the Middle East, authorizing a major intervention in Libya that he later called his biggest mistake.
But on the Iran issue, he prioritized a diplomatic approach, culminating in the controversial Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015. Critics of the agreement said it was based on naive assumptions about Iran's nuclear intentions.
The Iran deal, as it became known, was labeled the "worst deal ever" by Donald Trump, who went on to dismantle it during his first presidential term.
Trump decided to strike Iran's nuclear facilities this month after it became clear that Iran was not negotiating with the United States in good faith. Trump has also said Iran was getting dangerously close to getting a bomb.
Some Democrats, and the libertarian Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), have accused Trump of conducting an illegal operation that bypassed Congress, but he is not the first U.S. president to use military force unilaterally.
In fact, Obama dropped some 25,000 bombs on seven countries in 2016 alone, all without input from Congress.
The difference is, Trump is using military force in a prudent way to advance America's national interests. He has no interest in pursuing disastrous regime change efforts like Obama's Libya disaster.
While there is debate about how damaging the bombing was, Trump has already re-established America's credibility, forcing even his worst critics to offer praise of his bold action.
Obama clearly was bluffing about Iran, but Trump is a doer, not a talker.
