Franklin Roosevelt was always a politically astute observer of the American public. That understanding was one of the foundations of his success as a leader and one of the reasons he was elected four times. He understood well what Abraham Lincoln meant when he wrote that "Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions."
Moving America from isolationism to a war footing was a herculean task. Mobilization required more than factories and ships. It required shaping public will. Roosevelt accomplished it incrementally through a long campaign of persuasion: a fireside chat here, a warning there, a patient explanation of gathering dangers abroad. He spoke to Americans with intimacy and confidence. There was little braggadocio, little exaggeration, and no obvious effort at self-glorification. Most importantly, the public generally believed he was telling the truth.
Events in Europe certainly helped his case. Britain was being blitzed nightly. France had fallen. Much of Eastern Europe already lay in ruins beneath the Nazi boot. The threat was becoming harder to ignore.
Yet Americans remained deeply reluctant. Barely twenty years earlier they had endured the slaughter of the First World War. The mud of the trenches, the bloodshed, and the Spanish influenza pandemic remained vivid memories. The prevailing sentiment was simple: no more foreign wars.
Roosevelt therefore moved step by step. Rearmament. Cash-and-carry. The first peacetime draft in American history. The destroyers-for-bases agreement. Lend-Lease, which he famously compared to lending a neighbor a garden hose to extinguish a fire without demanding payment in advance. Each measure would have been politically impossible had he attempted it all at once.
The present administration has done none of this with respect to Iran. It has not undertaken a sustained effort to explain the Iranian threat to the American people. It has not sought congressional support. It has not articulated a coherent strategic vision. As a result, many Americans believe the United States is merely being dragged into another Middle Eastern conflict on behalf of Israel rather than confronting a threat that affects Western interests more broadly.
Iran's rulers seek regional dominance. They aspire to exercise influence or control through proxies and client forces stretching from Lebanon and Syria to Yemen and beyond. They seek a nuclear umbrella beneath which that influence could expand further. They have repeatedly threatened Israel, challenged freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf, and used disruption of maritime commerce as leverage against the world economy.
The economic implications are not abstract. A closure or serious disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has reverberated through global energy markets and affected consumers far removed from the Middle East. The resulting instability has not stopped at the region's borders.
Nor is the problem purely economic. The regime's ideology is fundamentally hostile to liberal democracy. As Douglas Murray has observed, it is animated by a revolutionary religious zeal that is difficult for secular Western societies to comprehend. When political leaders repeatedly proclaim their intentions, prudence suggests we should take them seriously.
Iran must not acquire a nuclear weapon. On that point there appears to be broad agreement across much of the American political spectrum. President Trump likely understands this. Yet understanding a danger and persuading a nation to confront it are two different things.
Roosevelt understood that the cost of confronting a threat early is often less than the cost of confronting it later. He recognized that free citizens had to be persuaded that a distant threat would eventually become their own. A Nazi-dominated Europe, he believed, would ultimately threaten American security and prosperity.
Iran is not Nazi Germany. Historical analogies always break down if pressed too far. Yet Roosevelt never had to contemplate a Nazi regime on the threshold of acquiring nuclear weapons. But the lesson Roosevelt taught was not about Germany. It was about leadership. Democracies do not automatically mobilize in response to distant dangers. Their leaders must explain, persuade, educate, and prepare.
Despite placing himself rhetorically alongside Lincoln, President Trump has yet to demonstrate Roosevelt's understanding of broad public sentiment. Leadership requires more than declarations, slogans, or social-media posts. It requires building a durable public consensus behind difficult decisions.
Whether this president possesses that capacity remains an open question. The stakes are high enough that Americans deserve a clear answer.
