The TV tag line "ripped from today's headlines" applies here ... literally. Throw in a dash of payback from the Russia-collusion hoax, plus the meat of the clear demonstration of fecklessness from the Biden-Harris administration in the Middle East crisis, and it all adds up to a yuuuuge feast for a Donald Trump argument on foreign policy.

The last line -- "America doesn't need another TikTok star" -- is just the apertif:

New ad launched by the Trump campaign AFTER the Islamic Republic of Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting Israel. pic.twitter.com/yEdfaR5iak

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 1, 2024

Trump followed up the messaging on Truth Social by arguing that the world would have bee a much safer place had he won in 2020:

"THE WAR WAS TOTALLY PREVENTABLE," Trump declared in a follow-up post. That's debatable, of course; this war has stopped and restarted for decades, under administrations of both parties. At some point, Hamas would have chosen to conduct their barbaric attack when the time was right for Israel to be vulnerable enough for terror success.

Of course, it certainly helped to have the ever-incompetent Joe Biden in office, demanding that Israel offer concessions to terrorists. Had Trump won in 2020, Hamas might have waited for the next administration to conduct the attack. And of course, they would have had to wait, as Iran didn't have access to hundreds of billions of dollars until Biden took office that they used to fund the escalating attacks by their proxies against Israel over the previous two--plus years to October 7. 

At the heart of this argument, though, is an undeniable fact. The appeasement policies of Barack Obama and Joe Biden have not made Iran a more responsible nation on the international stage. As today's barrage of ballistic missiles demonstrated aptly, those policies have instead encouraged their terror adventurism and ambitions of military hegemony in the Middle East. The two administrations didn't just signal weakness, either -- they actively funded the Iranian mullahcracy, the IRGC, and Iran's proxy terror armies. The missiles may just have well been stamped "Funded by the USA," thanks to the bizarre policies used by Biden and Obama.

Would Kamala Harris continue those policies? Without a doubt.

Would that make the region more dangerous? Without a doubt.

Different policies might not have prevented a renewed war between Israel and Iran and its proxies. But Trump's policies would have limited the scope of that war and might have discouraged Iran from direct intervention in the dangerous manner it has now done twice in six months. What will follow from that, therefore, might very well have been preventable.

And the American public will likely recognize that, especially given the incoherence coming from both Biden and Harris in this instance.

Also, today's episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today's show features:

•  What will happen in tonight's VP debate? 
• Andrew Malcolm and I try to game it out. 
• We also talk about the failed Biden-Harris response to Hurricane Helene and the opening it leaves Donald Trump.  

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!