“A big win for President Trump IF the Strait opens and stays open.”

As part of The Panel on Special Report, that was my instant reaction when Bret Baier asked all five of us to assess the just announced two week cease-fire in the battle with Iran. While Dasha Burns, Mark Penn and Juan Williams demurred one way or the other, Kellyanne Conway agreed with me and elaborated, citing President Trump’s long established pattern of negotiation having brought about at least a temporary win.

The test of how big a win it actually is will be revealed in the rest of the two weeks. The crucial issue is, can whomever in Iran wrote the check promising the Strait of Hormuz would open actually be able to cash it?

If so, the world’s oil supply will surge a bit and the remnants of the Iranian regime will have a chance to inventory the destruction that has rained down on their forces for five weeks.

TRUMP’S IRAN STRATEGY IS WORKING AND TEACHING OUR FOES WHAT DETERRENCE MEANS

If the Strait doesn’t reopen to unmolested traffic, or the attacks on Israel and our Gulf allies don’t cease, another round of the third Gulf war will soon commence.

The first round began with the disaster of the invasion of Israel from Gaza and the massacre and kidnapping which followed on October 7, 2023. With a combination of help and hurdles, the U.S. under the (maybe) direction of President Biden stood with our embattled ally, and Israel struck back hard against Hamas to the south, Hezbollah to the north and from the Houthis across the Arabian peninsula. The Jewish State absorbed the first direct attack from Iran with our help. The reality of the menace from Iran and its proxies was revealed to the world.

When President Trump returned to the Oval Office, the Israelis got their hostages back because of pressure brought to bear by the president and his team. A cease-fire took hold and the remnants of Hamas and the forces Hezbollah retreated to their tunnels and hideouts, all of their senior leadership dead.

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The next round began in June of 2025, with Israel’s Operation Rising Lion and ended with America’s Operation Midnight Hammer. The Iranian nuclear program was obliterated and its air defenses shattered. The people of Iran then rose in December to demand change and were massacred in January. The world saw clearly the lunacy of the Khamenei 1.0 regime. The U.S. and Israel planned their next attack.

They struck with devastating results on February 28 with Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring Lion. At the enormous cost of 13 precious American lives and a score of seriously wounded U.S. soldiers and dozens of casualties in Israel and the Gulf States, the allies shattered every aspect of the terrorist regime in Tehran.

We don’t know who is running what in Iran, but we have more forces en route and anywhere from a day to two weeks to assess the massive intelligence haul of the past 96 hours, which includes the near miraculous rescue of the downed American airmen and the fractured, frantic and ineffective response of the disabled IRGC to the chance to capture one of our invaluable warriors.

The rescues humiliated the Iranian regime — again — and ongoing damage to their military industrial base continued unabated. Within the hours of the incredibly complex rescue missions also came the B-2s again, to drop Massive Ordinance Penetrators on two locations in Tehran in the midst of the rescue operation as IRGC senior leadership unwisely gathered.

The public doesn’t known who is left alive on the IRGC side, but reports of a critically wounded Khamenei 2.0 and still more erasures from the IRGC command structure leaves the regime tottering. There is still no internet for the people of Iran. The remnant is afraid of us, Israel and their own people.

President Trump issued his ultimatum. His never-evolving critics denounced his language though it got through to whomever is running the bunkers in Iran. (It’s absurd to read the post by President Trump as threatening the Iranian people when the “civilization” he was referring to was manifestly the one oppressing the “Great People of Iran,” the one which the president stated in the post had ruled for 47 years through “extortion, corruption and death.”)

Incredibly, some in the Manhattan-Beltway national security left tried to turn this post into the threat of the use of nuclear weapons or slightly less insane lesser degrees of disproportionate attack on civilians, which it never was. Insta-experts declaimed how attacks on bridges and power plants were war crimes. Online hysteria among those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome reached new heights.

Then someone within the regime blinked and the president took the big win. Instantly his online critics went from “He’s a war criminal” to “TACO Tuesday.” Their collective 180 doesn’t make sense. They don’t make sense. They have lost the thread. A mortal enemy of the West for nearly a half century has been pummeled, its leadership destroyed, its proxies battered. Five weeks of battle have shown the world that Iran cannot defend itself and possesses only missiles and drones that fire mostly ineffectively at anyone they can reach.

Time will quickly tell us if the new set of rulers atop the smoking ruins of the IRGC command chart can follow through on the promise that secured the cease fire. If not, President Trump can initiate another round of pummeling with more and updated intelligence on what is going on within the regime.

MIKE PENCE: TRUMP AND OUR INCREDIBLE MILITARY ARE ENDING 47 YEARS OF IRANIAN TERROR

It is far from over, but long conflicts never resolve in a month. The most relevant history to consult comes from the closing decade of Cold War I.

During the summer of 1983, President Ronald Reagan, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President Francois Mitterrand planned deployment to Europe of the Pershing II missile as well as nuclear-capable cruise missiles.

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Enormous domestic and international pressure tried to make them stop, but they didn’t. Instead they established deterrent and telegraphed Western will to the Soviets. Along with Reagan’s SDI, support of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and his walk-out at Reykjavík, the West turned the momentum of the Cold War, through the last acts of which President George H.W.  Bush adroitly managed the West, and that decades old drama ended in dissolution of USSR in December, 1991.

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Note that’s an eight-year unbroken stretch of American presidents’ commitment to winning crucial battles along the way which preceded the strategic victory.

To accomplish such huge shifts on the world stage, the West’s enemies must believe the U.S. and its allies are (1) strong and (2) can use that strength despite domestic political opposition and legacy media-hatred on both sides of the Atlantic. Snap judgments of every twist and turn have to be made, but the first five weeks of this phase of the 47-year war with the regime was been an enormous success, and probably made inevitable the transformation or collapse of the Iranian regime. It also revealed a terrible sclerosis among the European allies that stood with us in the first Cold War. The good news is that it also revealed the immense capabilities of our most important ally, Israel, as well as the recognition of reality from our Gulf State allies. Fundamental things are afoot in the Middle East, most of them very good indeed.

The U.S.-Israel-Iran battles of 2025 and 2026 are already pivot points in world history and we aren’t close to the end of this drama. But the U.S. has re-established deterrence via President Trump’s moves here and across the world. He and Prime Minister Netanyahu not only just ordered and oversaw the crushing of the Iranian nuclear program and military-industrial base in ways we can barely know, they also ordered the destruction of four or more levels of radical and corrupt regime leadership and brought much closer the prospect of real freedom for the Iranian people.

We won’t know for years how to fully assess the past five weeks, but with the ‘83-‘91 example of strategic will and patience in mind, Tuesday night was a very good night for the West — if the Iranian regime reopens the Strait and ceases fire soon. If the Iranian regime cannot control its missile and drone forces because the leadership is dead or impotent, the war will resume. But freedom for the long suffering Iranian people and stability in the Middle East has never been closer since 1979.

Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show” heard weekday afternoons from 3 PM to 6 PM ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives Americans home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6 p..m ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996, where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting. This column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.

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A U.S. Air Force crew had only seconds to react after their F-15E Strike Eagle was hit by enemy fire over Iran Friday. Both airmen ejected.

The escape from the aircraft — triggered in an instant — set off a high-risk rescue mission deep inside hostile territory, as U.S. forces raced to recover the crew before Iranian forces could reach them.

In those few seconds, the ejection seat transforms from a last-resort safety system into an explosive escape mechanism — launching the crew out of the aircraft and into open air before a parachute deploys.

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That is the sequence the pilot and weapon systems officer aboard the F-15E over Iran would have experienced after their aircraft was struck Friday, forcing them to eject and triggering a high-risk rescue operation over the weekend. The incident — and the successful recovery of both airmen in recent days — offers a rare look at what happens in the split second a pilot ejects, and the extreme forces they endure to survive. 

“It’s a violent event,” Pete “Gunz” Gersten, a former F-16 pilot who flew special operations missions, told Fox News Digital. 

The moment a pilot pulls the ejection handle, the sequence begins almost instantly.

The canopy disappears in a fraction of a second. The seat rockets upward, forcing the body through intense acceleration.

When a pilot pulls the ejection handle, they are subjected to forces ranging from 14G to 20G (14 times to 20 times the force of gravity), according to military experts. For a 200-pound airman, this means their body feels as if it suddenly weighs 4,000 pounds.

“You’re no longer a decision-maker,” Gersten said, describing what happens to pilots who eject. “You’re a participant, and you’re on the ride.”

Within moments, the aircraft falls away behind them, while the crew is suspended in open air, waiting for the parachute to deploy.

That is the moment the two airmen over Iran would have faced after their aircraft was struck Friday, forcing them to eject and triggering a high-risk rescue operation over the weekend as U.S. forces worked to locate and recover them in hostile territory.

The successful recovery of both the pilot and the weapon systems officer in the F-15E in recent days underscored both the risks of operating in contested airspace and the importance of rapid rescue capabilities.

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Pilots never actually practice a real ejection.

Instead, they train for an emergency they hope never happens, relying on repetition, simulation and memorized procedures to prepare for a moment that unfolds in seconds.

“You’re relying on muscle memory for something you’ve never actually done,” Gersten said.

That training begins before pilots ever take their first flight.

“When they start flying, before they even get in the cockpit, they’ve been trained on how to get out of the aircraft in case something goes wrong,” Gersten said.

It starts in the classroom, where pilots learn how the ejection system works. From there, they move into simulators designed to replicate parts of the experience — without exposing them to the full force of a real escape.

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In one system, the ejection seat is mounted on a rail and launched upward, giving pilots a partial sense of the acceleration they would feel in an actual emergency.

But the training doesn’t stop once the seat “fires.”

Pilots are then strapped into harness systems that simulate a parachute descent, often using virtual reality to recreate the sensation of floating above the ground. There, they rehearse a strict sequence of actions — clearing their visor, checking their canopy, preparing their gear and steering toward a safe landing zone.

“There’s no checklist you can reference when you’re hanging in a parachute,” Gersten said. “You actually have to memorize them.”

At the end of the simulation, trainees are dropped to the ground to practice the final —and often the most dangerous — phase: landing.

“You have to be prepared, you have to be trained, otherwise you can hurt yourself,” Gersten said.

Before pulling the handle, pilots are trained to press their bodies straight back against the seat, keeping their spine rigid and aligned to reduce the risk of serious injury.

In two-seat aircraft like the F-15E, either the pilot or weapon systems officer can initiate an ejection. Once triggered, the system automatically ejects both airmen in rapid succession, separated by fractions of a second to prevent midair collision.

Even after the parachute deploys, the danger isn’t over.

“The biggest concern … is where am I going to land?” Gersten said.

Pilots are trained to prepare for a wide range of scenarios — from water landings to mountainous terrain — each carrying its own risks. Landing injuries are common, particularly if a pilot is not properly positioned or prepared for impact.

For the two airmen who ejected over Iran, that training helped make a violent, unpredictable escape survivable deep inside hostile territory.

The pilot of the F-15E was picked up by U.S. forces later Friday. But the weapon system officer had to hide out in enemy territory until he was spotted by the U.S. and rescued Sunday. 

“The second crew member — a heroic weapon system officer — was in tough shape after ejecting,” Trump said in a press conference. “He scaled cliff faces bleeding rather profusely, treated his own wounds, and contacted American forces. He was besieged by Iranian militia, but he managed to evade capture by scaling treacherous mountain terrain … he is a brave warrior.”

Modern systems have a survival rate of roughly 90% to 95%, according to military and medical studies, but injuries are common. Research shows that up to 30% of pilots suffer spinal fractures during ejection, while broader reviews have found major injuries in roughly one-third of cases. 

If a pilot’s arms or legs are out of position, the extreme wind blast can cause what are known as “flail injuries,” leading to fractures or dislocations.

The son of a former top-level Iranian official, who acted as the spokesperson for hostage takers occupying Tehran’s U.S. Embassy in 1979, is yet another relative of Iran’s hard-lined Islamist regime caught living a comfortable and affluent Western lifestyle in Los Angeles. 

Petitioners have been calling for Eissa Hashemi, 43, to be investigated and deported, arguing it is unfair for the relatives of these Iranian leaders to enjoy the freedom and privileges afforded to people in the West, and more particularly in the United States, while their government in Iran continues to oppress and restrict its people from exercising rights seen as basic within America.

In addition to Hashemi, the niece and grandniece of the late Iranian terror mastermind Qasem Soleimani, have also been living comfortably in Los Angeles until recently, when they were taken into custody by federal immigration officials and had their green cards taken away by the State Department. Sheila Nazarian, who fled Iran as a child, slammed the late-terror leader’s relatives for posting photos on social media of themselves in bikinis, on yachts, next to helicopters, and wearing other clothing that otherwise could get them killed in Iran.

Fox News Digital obtained photos of Hashemi at what the New York Post described as a “fancy” gym in Los Angeles, during which he reportedly brushed off a reporter’s questions. Hashemi is the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, dubbed by the American media as “Screaming Mary” amid her role acting as the spokesperson for the hostage takers who captured more than 50 American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 where they were held captive for over a year.

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Ebtekar also served in a formal role as Vice President of Women and Family Affairs in Iran between 2017 and 2021. PBS’s Frontline dubbed her “one of the highest-ranking women in the Muslim world” during an interview with the Muslim leader in 2002. 

Meanwhile, Ebtekar’s son appears to be living in the Los Angeles area while holding down a job as an adjunct psychology professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. 

According to the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe, his now-deleted LinkedIn page previously indicated in 2015 that he was a doctoral student at the Los Angeles branch of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. 

The outlet also indicated that his wife, Maryam Tahmasebi, also had her home listed in Los Angeles on her social media profiles, and added that the information had been confirmed through an anonymous source that Radio Free Liberty described as an “acquaintance” to the couple. A spokesperson identifying themselves as the administrator of Massumeh Ebtekar’s web pages reportedly indicated the couple made a “personal decision” to study abroad after completing their master’s programs in Iran.

The outlet also recounted a 2008 interview Hashemi conducted.

IRANIAN REGIME RELATIVES LIVING LARGE IN US AMID CONFLICT

“In an interview published in 2008, Hashemi provided a rare window into his views on the hostage crisis, saying he got a grasp of the reasons behind it after reading a book his mother published in Canada,” the outlet reported, adding a quote from Hashemi’s interview about his view on the hostage crisis his mom played a pivotal role in: “When mother’s book was translated from English, I understood the issue fully,” he said, according to PBS at the time. “The students then had a big move, an important cause.”

According to the New York Post, people have been protesting against Hashemi living in the United States for months. There are several petitions registered on Change.org calling on him to be investigated and deported, some of which have been put under review by the petition website, according to a Fox News Digital review of recent petitions on Change.org

The Post added that records show Hashemi is residing in Agoura Hills, inside Los Angeles County, with his fellow psychology professor wife Maryam Tahmasebi.

“The presence of these families often feels like a slap in the face to those advocating for freedom and justice in Iran. It is time to address this issue by taking a firm stance against hosting the families of those involved with a government that does not align with U.S. values,” one of the remaining petitions on Change.org states. “A concrete and actionable solution would be for immigration and Homeland Security officials to review and, where necessary, revoke visas or residency permits for families of officials complicit in human rights violations. This scrutiny would demonstrate the U.S.’s commitment to human rights and ensure its policies are consistent with its values.”