After just over one month in office, President Biden ordered his first military strike early Friday, an F-15 assault on an Iranian-backed militia in Syria. This was in retaliation for recent attacks on American and coalition personnel in Iraq, and “intended to deter Iran and its militia from launching rockets at U.S. forces in the region.” Other ways to deter Iran might include to keep sanctions on them, not grovel to them, not collude with them to undermine US policy and not give them planeloads of cash to fund terrorism and their nuclear program. But I digress.

Biden is taking a lot of heat over this from the left and right. The left is accusing him of being a warmonger and violating the sovereignty of Syria, while the right is blasting him for hypocrisy. In 2017, when Trump launched a similar retaliatory strike on Iranian-backed forces in Syria, Biden’s now-spokesperson Jen Psaki called Syria a sovereign nation and demanded to know Trump’s legal authority for the attack. And Biden himself tweeted that Trump’s “erratic, impulsive decisions endanger our troops and make us all less safe.” Later, in a speech, he said the strike shows with “devastating clarity”…“just how dangerous this President is.”

Biden also put out tweets saying Americans don’t want another war in the Middle East, and that he would only use military power “responsibly and as a last resort” (for the record, Trump was the first President in 40 years who started no new wars.)

Once again, this is an example of my prediction that Biden’s biggest problem once in office wouldn’t be Republicans but reality. For four years, the Democrats and their media handmaidens constructed a scary straw man version of Donald Trump and flailed wildly at it every day, accusing it of being dumb, evil and WRONG about everything, even as the economy was booming and peace was breaking out all over.

Biden had a choice once in office of bowing to reality, admitting Trump was right and keeping his policies, or rescinding them and screwing everything up. So far, he’s opted for the latter. If he actually yields to reality in this one area and it helps protect our troops, then I’m not going to criticize him too much over it. I don’t know if this strike was justified or necessary, but if it was, I’d rather he be a flagrant hypocrite and act to protect our troops than try to save face by leaving them hanging. And who knows? Maybe if he yields to reality in this one situation, he’ll eventually try doing it somewhere else.