Iranian nuclear facilities are burning, “totally obliterated,” President Trump says, after the “spectacular military success” of “massive precision strikes.” The president is making clear that, rather than start a new war, he’s hoping to end the one that Tehran has been waging against America for decades.

Mr. Trump called Iran “the bully of the Middle East,” and said they “must now make peace” or “future attacks would be greater — and a lot easier.” He noted that, for 40 years, Iran has been saying “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” while killing and maiming innocents.

Military strikes are always a gamble. Yet Mr. Trump, a former casino mogul, stacked the deck in the house’s favor. As Iran defied the international community and refined uranium toward weapons grade purity, the president decided that he couldn’t roll the dice that Iran’s intentions were peaceful.

Saturday’s counterattack is one that Americans have hoped for since 1979 when Iranians stormed the American embassy at Tehran and took 52 members of its staff hostage. It’s relevant to predicting what comes next that Iran only released the Americans when the hawkish President Reagan entered office.

“We lost over 1,000 people,” Mr. Trump said, “and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world and that is a direct result of” Iran’s “hate” and “it will not continue.” An hour before the speech, he laid out details of the operation to the Premiere Radio host, Sean Hannity.

Iran’s atomic dreams died and were buried at the Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan facilities. The GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator delivers 30,000 pounds of explosives. Mr. Trump didn’t name the GBU-57, but no one can accuse him of pulling his punch.

Rather, Mr. Trump seems to have followed the advice of President Theodore Roosevelt. “Don’t hit a man if you can possibly avoid it,” the former college boxer told his sons. “But if you do hit him, put him to sleep.”

On August 6, 1945, President Truman announced that he had made another unavoidable choice by dropping a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. He reminded the empire “began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor” and had “been repaid many fold.”

Japan, like Iran this week, rejected an American president’s demands for “unconditional surrender.” The atomic bombs crushed that resistance and led to peace. Mr. Trump posted the hopes that his military action would have a similar result. “Now is the time for peace,” he posted on Truth Social after the strikes.

Last week, Ayatollah Khamenei threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. His move came in response the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency’s resolution condemning Iran for not complying with its nonproliferation obligations.

Now those issues are moot. With the ayatollahs bloodied, the use of force is as likely to end the long-conflict as it is to expand it. In Japan, dealing a decisive blow gives peace a chance to sprout as the poppies did in Flanders Field after the horrors of World War I.

Mr. Trump’s Truth Social post on Tuesday helped tilt the odds against an Iranian counterstrike. The president said he knows “exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader,’” Ayatollah Khamenei, “is hiding,” but is “not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.”

That’s a strong incentive for Iran to beat what’s left of its swords into plowshares. Combined with Israel’s military success, Tehran would be wise to avoid a two-front war, knowing it’s proxies have been decimated and its position has become isolated. Even President Putin of Russia has refused to help.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan was the closest the ayatollahs had to an ally against Israel. But America is another matter. On Friday, Islamabad posted on X that it was nominating Mr. Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for his “pivotal leadership during the recent India-Pakistan crisis” earlier this year.

Iranian TV is announcing that all Americans in the region are a “target” after Saturday’s strikes. “Any retaliation by Iran,” Mr. Trump posted on Truth an hour after his statement to the nation, “any retaliation by Iran against the United States of America will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed tonight.” He typed in all caps to emphasize his meaning.

No one can predict where unleashing the military option leads. Mr. Trump judged it a risk worth taking to deny Iran atomic weapons. Now the world can hope that, as in Japan, throwing a strong punch will give peace a chance to grow from the ashes.