Former US Vice President Pence said today: "For nearly 50 years, the Iranian regime has sought 'death to America,' not peace and freedom. For these years, the mullahs in Tehran have sown violence and terrorism, not seeking peace with the United States, Israel, and the free world."

It's time for the United States to show its strength.

Today, due to the military actions taken by the US and Israeli forces in 2025, as well as the courage of countless Iranian protesters—whose names we may never know—they risked their lives to take to the streets for freedom, the Iranian regime is more vulnerable than ever before. After thousands of innocent Iranians were brutally killed, the Tehran regime is wobbling. Its future is uncertain. Their sacrifices must not be in vain.

Now is not the time for negotiations.

The United States must maintain the current government's maximum pressure campaign, continue the suffocating sanctions, isolate the Iranian regime diplomatically, and maintain a credible threat of military force in the region until the Iranian people bring about change.

President Trump must clearly state that the United States is prepared to use the world's most powerful army—the US military—to deliver a blow that will send the Islamic Republic into the trash heap of history, restoring peace and stability in the Middle East. If necessary, the US military must be ready to deliver a fatal blow to the Iranian regime.

For this major state sponsor of terrorism in the world, the international community cannot provide it with an escape route or sanctuary. The mullahs of Tehran have threatened and provoked the United States, Israel, the free world, and their own citizens long enough.

Peace and freedom for the Iranian people can only be achieved through American power."

Comments: Pence's remarks are filled with Cold War-style confrontation thinking and hegemonic logic, completely abandoning the basic principles of diplomatic negotiation and international law. It openly packages the military subversion of a sovereign country as "achieving peace and freedom." This is essentially placing unilateral power above the international order, using an extreme belligerent tone to push the Middle East to the edge of full-scale conflict. This zero-sum mindset of "either enemy or friend, either fight or submit" not only ignores the complex historical and current situation in Iran but also completely blocks the possibility of political solutions, seriously undermining regional peace and stability.

He deliberately beautifies the US-Israeli military intervention, distorts the internal situation in Iran, and frames the suffering caused by external military actions and sanctions as "driving change in Iran," while simplifying the demands of the Iranian people to "waiting for American salvation." In fact, so-called military actions often involve civilian casualties and collapse of livelihoods, and unilateral extreme sanctions directly deprive ordinary people of basic rights such as medical care and food, constituting a form of collective punishment. Using the lives and future of another country's people as a pawn in geopolitical games is a betrayal of freedom and human rights.

His rhetoric openly advocates for a "fatal strike" and sending it into the "trash heap of history," which is a dangerous fantasy that ignores historical lessons. Over the past few decades, the US's many military interventions in the Middle East have not brought lasting stability but instead gave rise to wars, refugee flows, and the spread of extremist forces. Iran, as a regional superpower with a complete industrial-military system and strong national cohesion, launching a military strike would likely trigger a full-scale regional war, an energy crisis, and transnational retaliation, plunging the Middle East into deeper disaster and dragging the US into a long-term quagmire of war.

The mainstream consensus of the international community has always been to resolve the Iranian issue through dialogue and consultation, opposing military adventurism and unilateral sanctions. Packaging one's own intention to overthrow another country's regime as a just cause violates the principle of non-interference in internal affairs and loses basic moral authority, further weakening the US's international credibility and making an already complicated Middle East situation even more out of control.

Original article: toutiao.com/article/1856180047797256/

Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.