Reagan, Obama and Trump all faced crisis. Leadership is the difference.
As is my habit on Monday mornings, I’m driving around in my cop car listening to the Verdick with Ted Cruz’s podcast. Today he’s covering current events in Iran and how President Donald Trump is openly supporting the people in the street. He covered the difference between now and the Green Revolution in 2011.
A point I’ve mad countless times with Barrack Obama worshippers over the years. The one Middle Eastern nation he did not try to inflict regime change into was Iran. Hell, he supported the mullahs by immediately relieving sanctions in exchange for…nothing. A later nuclear deal that did not restrict their WMD or ICBM programs and gave them even more economic relief. To top it off, 1.7 billion in cold hard cash. Damn I would like to play poker against him.
In 2009, the Green Movement started in Iran. The people rose up in opposition to the stolen election of 2009. In the vote count, “50 constituencies had returned more votes than there were registered voters, bearing the potential to affect some three million votes in the final tally.” Sounds like they raised the dead like Illinois democrats.
The movement died two years later, for multiple reasons. Chief was lack of support from the west, the US in particular. Use of Special Operations forces to covertly support the effort would have at least weakened the Iranian regime. But the White House regime did not see a weakened or changed Tehran in their interest.
These sound familiar. Multiple red lines in Syria. Allowing our sailors to be kidnapped on the high seas. A retreat from Afghanistan in the greatest foreign policy disaster since Vietnam (Obama was making decisions, not Joe). Let’s say word of the American government was not to be believed. Contrast this to another recent American president.
In the short TV series The Presidents’ Gatekeepers, then White House Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver remembers a cabinet meeting with President Ronald Reagan the morning the air traffic controllers went on strike, in violation of their contract and federal law. Deaver said, “It was like the stock exchange, people yelling from one side of the table to another, exchanging one idea or option to handle this matter. Then I noticed President Reagan was sitting quietly with a legal pad and a pencil, writing something down. After a few minutes, he looked up and addressed the meeting. Everyone shut up and the president read a statement he prepared to give in the Rose Garden on the PATCO strike. After hearing it, no one had anything to add, the president went out and gave an address to the nation that set the tone for his administration.”
This morning at 7 a.m. the union representing those who man America’s air traffic control facilities called a strike…
…Let me make one thing plain. I respect the right of workers in the private sector to strike…But we cannot compare labor-management relations in the private sector with government. Government cannot close down the assembly line. It has to provide without interruption the protective services which are government’s reason for being.
It was in recognition of this that the Congress passed a law forbidding strikes by government employees against the public safety. Let me read the solemn oath taken by each of these employees, a sworn affidavit, when they accepted their jobs: “I am not participating in any strike against the Government of the United States or any agency thereof, and I will not so participate while an employee of the Government of the United States or any agency thereof.”
It is for this reason that I must tell those who fail to report for duty this morning they are in violation of the law, and if they do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated.
The leadership of PATCO bet against President Reagan. They lost. They thought they were dealing with Jimmy Carter, but Rawhide was made of sterner material. The other people who got an impression were the leaders of our allies and adversaries. Both understood the man in the White House would not buckle.
The Iranians tested that man multiple times, most significantly in April 1988. The USS Samuel Roberts was minded in the Persian Gulf by the Iranians, injuring ten sailors and almost sinking the ship. Four days later the US launched Operation Praying Mantis. By the end of the day, “the U.S. Navy destroyed two Iranian surveillance platforms, sank two of their ships, and severely damaged another.” Tehran never directly challenged us during the Reagan administration again.
Last year the Iranians challenged the world with open pursuit of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. A “peaceful regional” power wants delivery means that will reach America. Israel and the United States warned Tehran multiple times they would not be allowed to have this technology. They bet against the US and the only democracy in the Middle East. They chose poorly.
In June 2025, President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched multiple operations over 12 days that decimated Iran’s defenses, particularly its nuclear development program and air defenses. Iran’s skies are practically undefended and ground targets are open to attack.
Reportedly Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has made plans to evacuate to Moscow if his forces are unable to control the rise of the population. He knows he cannot count of the west to capitulate to his demands as he did under Democratic presidents (yes, Obama etc.). Also (speculation on my part), I believe since January 2025 we have used operators to destabilize the mullahs in Tehran (will someone refresh my memory, but I’m sure something happened in January 2025).
Again, it all comes down to leadership. Reagan was a leader. Trump is a leader. Mr. Obama could not lead a group of hungry kids to an ice cream stand, nor does he want to. He wanted to manage the decline of the US in particular, and the west in general. Strengthen our adversaries and weaken us at home. Hopefully this administration (and follow-on Republican presidents) can keep reversing this.
Michael A. Thiac is a retired Army intelligence officer, with over 23 years experience, including serving in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the Middle East. He is also a retired police patrol sergeant, with over 22 years’ service, and over ten year’s experience in field training of newly assigned officers. He has been published at The American Thinker, PoliceOne.com, and on his personal blog, A Cop’s Watch.
Opinions expressed are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of current or former employers.
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