There are enemies who negotiate because they want peace and there are enemies who negotiate because they want time. Iran belongs to the second category. The rulers in Tehran do not think like Western diplomats sipping mineral water beneath chandeliers in Geneva. They think in a centuries-long generational blood code of vengeance. They think in martyrs, blood debts, sacred vendettas, proxy armies, hidden hands, patient knives, and revenge postponed but never abandoned. The American mind searches for closure. The Persian revolutionary mind searches for the next opening and has been for 1,000 years.

Operation Epic Fury did not merely wound the Iranian regime. It struck at the black heart of its revolutionary mythology. When the United States and Israel unleashed coordinated strikes against Iranian leadership, nuclear related sites, ballistic missile infrastructure, air defenses, and command centers, the blow was not just military. It was civilizational. The death of Ali Khamenei, along with senior regime figures, was not received in Tehran as the end of a conflict. It was received as the beginning of a blood account.

This is why every American should understand the nature of the enemy. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is not a normal army. It is not a defense ministry in uniform. It is a revolutionary mafia, a terror export machine, a clerical Praetorian Guard, and the central nervous system of a regime that has spent decades murdering Americans, Jews, dissidents, soldiers, diplomats, and civilians through proxies and cutouts. It does not lay down its weapons because a paper is signed. It does not forget because a president changes. It does not forgive because a diplomat smiles.

The West keeps pretending that Iran’s rulers can be coaxed into normal behavior. This is the great delusion of the seminar room. Iran has repeatedly told the world what it intends to do. When Qasem Soleimani was killed in 2020, Iranian officials vowed revenge. They did not mean an angry press conference. They meant plots. They meant assassinations. They meant operations against former American officials. They meant vengeance as policy. Soleimani was not a statesman. He was the butcher of the IRGC Quds Force (IRGC-QF), the commander of Iran’s external terror apparatus, and a man tied to the deaths and maiming of American service members across the Middle East. His network armed militias, trained killers, shipped explosives, orchestrated attacks, and extended Iranian power through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and beyond. President Donald Trump did not neutralize a philosopher. He removed a mass killer and in doing so, made the world a safer place; which is precisely why we must continue to forge forward and annihilate the IRGC.

The Iranian response was entirely predictable because the regime’s political religion is built around grievance, martyrdom, humiliation, and retribution. The Shiite memory of Karbala, the cult of martyrdom, and the revolutionary ideology of 1978 when the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile in Paris to cheering crowds in Theran fused into a modern state doctrine. That does not mean every Iranian shares this madness. The Iranian people are among the most historically sophisticated and culturally magnificent people on earth. The Persian civilization gave the world poetry, architecture, philosophy, science, and beauty. The regime gave the world hostage taking, assassinations, terror proxies, morality police, and drones. That distinction matters because America’s quarrel is not with the Persian people and innocent Iranian civilians. It is with the Khomeinist regime and the IRGC machine that blended and has hijacked a great civilization and turned it into a weapons platform for apocalyptic revenge.

For more than four decades, Iran has used patience as a weapon. It does not always attack directly. It builds networks. It recruits criminals. It cultivates proxies. It hides behind militias. It uses embassies, charities, cultural centers, commercial fronts, and illicit finance. It studies our laws, our media, our politics, our hesitation, and our obsession with process. Then it acts.

The recent reports about an alleged IRGC trained Iraqi operative targeting Ivanka Trump are not some isolated fever dream. They fit the pattern. Tehran’s revenge campaign for Soleimani has included alleged plots against American officials and Trump connected figures. The message is unmistakable. The regime believes time does not erase blood. It merely ripens it.

That is why Cuba now matters with terrifying urgency. Cuba is not merely a decaying communist island filled with antique cars and ration lines. It is a hostile platform 90 miles from Florida. It is the old Soviet dagger pointed at America’s throat, now sharpened by new technology and old enemies. Recent reporting says Cuba has acquired more than 300 military drones, with systems reportedly sourced from Russia and Iran. U.S. officials have reportedly assessed that Cuba discussed using drones against Guantanamo Bay, U.S. naval vessels, and potentially Key West. Iranian military advisers have also reportedly been present in Havana.

This is not nostalgia. This is not the Bay of Pigs. This is something more insidious. In 1962, missiles in Cuba required massive infrastructure, obvious deployments, and superpower brinkmanship. In 2026, drones can be dispersed, concealed, launched in swarms, flown low, and aimed at military sites, ports, energy infrastructure, vessels, and symbolic targets. The weapon has changed. The geography has not. A drone launched from Cuba does not need to cross an ocean. It does not need an aircraft carrier. It does not need a conventional invasion fleet. It needs a launch point, a target, guidance, and intent. Cuba provides the geography. Iran provides the doctrine. Russia provides the muscle. The IRGC provides the imagination of terror.

Florida is not an abstraction in this equation. Mar a Lago is not some distant palace on another continent. It is within the strategic imagination of America’s enemies. So are Miami, Key West, ports, bases, power systems, and naval assets. The same regime that has plotted revenge against Trump world figures cannot be treated as though it would never exploit a drone foothold in Cuba.

When your enemy says he is coming to kill you, believe him! America learned this lesson before. The first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 was treated by too many as a law enforcement matter, a contained case, an ugly episode that had been handled. Eight years later, the enemy returned and turned lower Manhattan into a graveyard on September 11, 2001. The lesson was written in smoke and ash. Fanatical enemies do not stop because we grow tired of noticing them. They stop only when they are deprived of the means to continue.

That is the central fact now. There is no Kumbaya moment with the IRGC. There never will be. There is no candlelit diplomatic epiphany in which the men who built a global revenge network suddenly become Rotarians. There is no peace agreement that can erase the ideological DNA of a regime that measures honor in retaliation and legitimacy in defiance of America. President Trump understands strength in a way the foreign policy clerisy despises because he is not hypnotized by their rituals. He knows that weakness invites predation. He knows that appeasement is not mercy. It is deferred bloodshed. Operation Epic Fury was not recklessness. It was recognition. The Iranian regime had to be struck because the alternative was to wait for Iran to grow stronger, deadlier, and more entrenched.

Now the United States must finish the strategic work. The IRGC’s operational capacity must be destroyed. Its drone networks must be dismantled. Its Cuban foothold must be exposed. Its advisers must be expelled or neutralized. Its supply chains must be severed. Its proxies must be hunted financially, politically, and operationally. Its ability to threaten Americans from Tehran, Baghdad, Beirut, Caracas, Havana, or anywhere else must be crushed. This is not a call for hatred. It is a call for clarity.

The Iranian people deserve liberation from the clerical gangsters who have imprisoned them. The Cuban people deserve liberation from the communist relics who have sold their island to every anti American power willing to keep the regime alive. The American people deserve a government that sees danger before the funeral, not after it.

Iran’s revenge doctrine is not folklore. It is not theater. It is the governing psychology of a revolutionary regime that has fused ancient grievance with modern technology. The old blood code now has drones. The vendetta now has satellite links, encrypted channels, proxy militias, and launch sites 90 miles from Florida. That is the nightmare.

The answer is not another agreement written in diplomatic perfume. The answer is strength. The answer is deterrence. The answer is the total dismantling of the IRGC terror architecture before it metastasizes further into the Western Hemisphere. History is merciless to nations that refuse to believe their enemies. Iran has spoken. Cuba has positioned itself. The drones are no longer theoretical. The blood debt is no longer ancient. It is airborne.

Brothers to the Rescue was established by Cuban exiles in Miami. The group’s humanitarian missions rescued thousands escaping Communist Cuba. On February 24, 1996, its members were deliberately attacked by the Cuban Air Force under the command of Fidel and Raúl Castro. Brothers to the Rescue founder José Basulto narrowly escaped.

This attack by Cuban MiG jets on two unarmed civilian planes killed four Cuban-American volunteers: Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales. Three of them were U.S. citizens. Confirmed by eyewitnesses and international investigations, the cold-blooded shootdown went unpunished for nearly 30 years because of weak U.S. politicians and timid policies.

The U.S. Department of Justice under President Donald J. Trump announced the unsealing of superseding charges. The filing names 94-year-old Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz of Holguín, Cuba, and five co-defendants: Lorenzo Alberto Perez-Perez, Emilio Jose Palacio Blanco, Jose Fidel Gual Barzaga, Raul Simanca Cardenas, and Luis Raul Gonzalez Pardo Rodriguez. They are accused of involvement in the fatal 1996 attack on two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue civilian aircraft over international waters

Trump’s DOJ has moved decisively where others hesitated. Raúl Castro, now 94, is accused of orchestrating state-sponsored murder. The announcement at Miami’s Freedom Tower honors the victims and signals that the United States will no longer turn a blind eye to Havana’s crimes.

Fidel and Raúl’s regime turned a once-prosperous nation into a repressive outpost of poverty, political prisoners, and support for international terrorism. Republicans have long warned that socialism breeds tyranny, and the Castro brothers’ Cuba remains a tragic example of failed socialist ideology.

The 1996 attack was part of a broader campaign of intimidation against Cuban exiles who sought a free Cuba. Holding Raúl Castro accountable reaffirms a simple truth. There is no statute of limitations on justice. No dictator no matter how old is beyond the reach of the law when American lives are taken.

Critics on the left may call this escalation or election-year politics, but the facts are clear. Cuba’s MiGs fired on civilians in cold blood over international waters, as documented by the International Civil Aviation Organization. The regime’s claims that the planes entered Cuban airspace were proven false.

This legal action under President Trump highlights a firm foreign policy that puts America and its allies first. Previous outreach to Cuba only emboldened the regime. Cuba continues to harbor terrorists, spy on the U.S., and partner with adversaries like Russia, China, and Iran, just 90 miles from our shores.

Raúl Castro’s advanced age does not absolve him. He remained the de facto power behind the throne even after retiring and bears responsibility for the blood on the regime’s hands. This legal action increases pressure on the dictatorship, honors the memory of the four fallen heroes, and brings us one step closer to a free Cuba.

The Brothers to the Rescue martyrs did not die in vain. Their sacrifice has now been formally recognized by the U.S. government. As the Trump administration confronts socialist strongmen around the world, these formal charges reflect decisive action by the United States. President Clinton failed to deliver after the deadly 1996 shootdown.

Michael R. Caputo is not merely a veteran of political warfare. He is a patriot, a communicator of rare skill, a loyal friend, and a man who has paid an obscene personal price for the crime of supporting Donald J. Trump. Mike is also a good personal friend of mine. In fact, when he was a very young man he was at one point my driver. I have known him long enough to know the measure of the man. Beneath the armor of a tough political operative is a devoted husband, a loving father, a man of deep faith, and an American who has endured the machinery of a weaponized government with uncommon courage.

Now Michael Caputo has become the first known American to publicly file a claim with the new Anti Weaponization Fund established by the Department of Justice. His claim seeks $2.7 million in restitution and reimbursement for the ruinous legal, financial, professional, medical, and emotional damage inflicted upon him and his family by years of politically motivated federal scrutiny. His words are simple and devastating. “They found nothing; we lost everything”, he posted on X. That sentence should be engraved on the marble walls of every federal courthouse in America.

When I reached Mike this afternoon for comment he stated plainly and directly, “Strzok and Page spent their careers sneaking extra-small condoms into FBI headquarters betraying their spouses. But they also met regularly with other demons in Director Robert Mueller’s Seventh Floor conference room to plot the ruin of innocent souls – betraying their country. Here’s an idea to help bring Democrats and their media along with normal Americans on the President’s path of mercy and healing: use this same compensation process to fund desperately needed mental health care for those still suffering from advanced Trump Derangement Syndrome. They clearly need heavy drugs.” That comment initially caused me to chuckle, but when one looks at the gravity of this situation, the many lives which have been impacted by the weaponization of government, and how deep the Deep State has truly devolved it is nothing less that sobering.

Caputo’s story is not an abstraction. It is not a legal footnote. It is not another disposable headline in the fetid swamp of Washington gossip. It is the anatomy of lawfare in its purest and ugliest form. Begin with a political target. Attach suspicion to him through innuendo. Drag him through investigations, subpoenas, interrogations, legal bills, public humiliation, and professional annihilation. Then, when no charges are filed and no crime is found, shrug and pretend the process itself was not the punishment.

Mike Caputo was swept into the Russia collusion hoax because he was associated with Donald Trump. That was his real offense. He worked on Trump’s campaign. He knew me, Roger Stone. He had lived and worked abroad. He had a colorful resume that the vultures of the administrative state could twist into something sinister. He was not targeted because of evidence he was targeted because he stood too close to the man the permanent political class had decided must be destroyed.

Caputo’s career is remarkable by any honest standard. A Buffalo native, a military veteran, a Republican strategist, a communications professional, and a longtime Trump ally, he worked in Republican politics for decades before serving President Trump as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services during the first Trump administration. He has advised campaigns, worked internationally, produced hard hitting political media, and taken the blows that come with fighting on the front lines of American politics. His enemies now pretend his experience is a liability. In truth, it is precisely why they feared him.

The left and its media confederates have tried to reduce Caputo to a caricature. They obsess over Russia, Ukraine, Trump, and old controversies because they do not want to discuss the central fact. Michael Caputo was investigated, harassed, financially drained, reputationally battered, and no criminal case against him emerged from the wreckage. That is the point. The state does not need to convict a man to destroy him. It only needs to make survival expensive enough.

His family paid the price. Savings were drained. Peace of mind was shattered. His children saw what happens when the government places a target on a father’s back. His health suffered gravely, including a cancer diagnosis during the same dark period in which public pressure and federal scrutiny converged like storm clouds over his life. Those who sneer at his claim should explain why a man’s children should be collateral damage in a political war waged by bureaucrats with badges, subpoenas, and unlimited taxpayer money.

The Anti-Weaponization Fund was created as part of the settlement of President Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS and Treasury over the leak of his tax returns. The Department of Justice (DOJ) says the fund will receive $1.776 billion and will provide a process for Americans who suffered political weaponization and lawfare to seek redress. Critics call it a slush fund. Of course they do. The same people who applauded the weaponization now object to restitution for its victims.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has said the machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American. That is not a partisan slogan. That is supposed to be the operating principle of a constitutional republic. When the Justice Department becomes an instrument of political pressure, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) becomes a praetorian guard for one faction, when prosecutors become political assassins in tailored suits liberty itself begins to rot from the inside.

Michael Caputo recently told Catherine Herridge, one of the few remaining serious investigative journalists in America, on her show “Straight to the Point” that “the process is the punishment.” He is exactly right. Herridge allowed Caputo to speak without condescension, without distortion, and without the theatrical sneer that now passes for journalism in most corporate newsrooms. She understands, perhaps because she has experienced it herself, what happens when powerful institutions punish people for pursuing inconvenient truths.

The Caputo family, like many families across this nation, has been victimized by a weaponized government. I know this personally because my family and I went through the same thing. The raids, the threats, the legal bills, the smears, the attempt to isolate you from friends, donors, colleagues, and even family. It is not justice. It is psychological siege warfare. It is East Germany with better tailoring and cable news accomplices.

Caputo deserves restitution. So do many others. The victims of lawfare are not asking for charity. They are asking for a measure of justice from a government that abused its power and then expected applause from the press gallery. Thank goodness Donald J. Trump is once again leading this nation and confronting the weaponization of government not as a theory, but as a national emergency.

Michael Caputo is the first man through the gate. He will not be the last. His claim is more than a request for reimbursement. It is a declaration that the victims of lawfare will no longer suffer in silence while the architects of their ruin write memoirs, collect pensions, and lecture the rest of us about democracy. America must decide whether justice belongs to the people or to the permanent regime. Mike Caputo has forced that question into the open, and every honest American should be grateful that he did.