DETROIT (TNS) — One of my early reporting assignments at The Detroit News was to wait for a couple of frigid January days in 1981 outside the Redford Township home of Staff Sgt. Joseph Subic, who had just been released by Iran, along with 64 other American hostages, after 444 days of captivity.

Forty-four years have passed since America suffered that great humiliation at the hands of the fanatical Islamic regime. For all that time, Iran has remained a constant scourge, a threat to the security of the United States, an existential danger to its ally Israel, and the world’s most prolific funder of terror.

Yet the U.S. approach has been to appease the insane mullah posse, pretending we could negotiate productively with those who wake up every morning chanting “Death to America.”

The impotence ended Saturday, when President Donald Trump made good on his warning to drop a series of 30,000-pound bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.

I’m guessing those bunker busters sent a more powerful message than the $1.7 billion in cash former President Barack Obama delivered on wooden pallets to the ayatollahs in hopes of deterring their bloody mischief-making.

Iran must understand now America is done making deals it knows won’t be honored and isn’t willing to enforce.

Hopes are this boldest U.S. air mission since World War II will reshape the Middle East, removing an irritant that has helped keep the region from peace and prosperity for decades. At the very least, Iran is no longer a looming nuclear threat.

Had it been allowed to produce an atomic bomb, the world would have become a much more dangerous place. Iran is not a country that can be trusted with that sort of devastating capability.

It has been the chief sponsor of Hezbollah, which destroyed Lebanon. And of the Houthis, which ruined Yemen. And of Hamas, which brought hell to the Palestinians.

Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Iran’s proxies have terrorized nearly every part of the world, from the Americas to Europe. It has given paychecks and shelter to the worst killers on the globe and helped them carry out their heinous attacks.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard trained and funded the Hamas murderers who raided Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, triggering what promises to be the beginning of the end for Iran. Israel responded by dismantling Hezbollah and the Iranian-backed Assad regime in Syria, greatly diminishing the Houthis and nearly wiping out Hamas.

Now it is cutting off the head of the snake. Israel controls Iran’s air space and is using it to take apart Iran with a relentless missile barrage.

Trump’s decision to join the effort by bombing the nuclear sites at Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz was opposed by many in his own Republican Party. But Israel couldn’t complete neutralization of Iran without those U.S. bunker busters.

Whether the move sparks a wider war that draws in the United States depends on how Tehran responds. If it comes to the negotiating table, as Trump has demanded, it has a chance to survive. If it retaliates against U.S. targets, Trump promised “there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days.”

Iran made a poor choice in ignoring Trump’s first warning. It would be suicidal for it to disregard this one.

Barring a provocation, there’s no reason for the U.S. to involve itself further in direct confrontation with Iran. This could and should be a one-and-done for the U.S. Israel has been doing just fine in prosecuting the war it started a little more than a week ago.

It needed America’s help with this specific objective. It should be able to finish the job itself, and hopefully will.

Iran, the great international bully, is in its weakest and most vulnerable position ever. It would be a disservice to the cause of peace not to crush it.

(Reach Nolan Finley at nfinley@detroitnews.com and find him on X @NolanFinleyDN.)