What is Trump’s objective in Iran?
First published in Arabic at Al-Quds al-Arabi. Translation from Gilbert Achcar's blog.
As we predicted a week ago, and in light of the Iranian regime’s continued intransigence — its refusal to commit to ending uranium enrichment and to negotiate limits on its ballistic missile programme — it faced “the risk of a military strike that could create a situation threatening the entire regime, and which might ultimately lead to Khamenei’s removal from power in one way or another.” We concluded that the impending US strike was “planned to target Ali Khamenei specifically, along with the heads of the hardliners in the Iranian regime, in the hope that their removal would pave the way for Tehran’s submission to Washington’s desiderata.” (“A Game of Chicken Between Washington and Tehran?” [in Arabic], Al-Quds Al-Arabi, 24 February 2026).
We also explained how Donald Trump’s approach to Iran falls within the framework of the strategy he successfully implemented in Venezuela, which focuses on “changing the regime’s behaviour” rather than “changing the regime” itself, as the George W. Bush administration sought to do by invading Iraq in 2003 (see “US: an old-new imperial doctrine”, Le Monde diplomatique, February 2026). A significant difference between Venezuela and Iran, however, is that Washington had connections with key figures within the Venezuelan regime and believed they would comply with its demands once subjected to intense pressure and after the removal of their president, Nicolás Maduro, through his abduction. In Iran, by contrast, the regime exercises far tighter control and oversight over its leading figures, making the risk of any of them reaching a behind-the-scenes accommodation with Washington far lower. Moreover, kidnapping the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran was not a feasible option, and eliminating him alone would in any case have been insufficient to alter the regime’s trajectory.
For this reason, the American operation against Iran is far larger and more complex than the one that targeted Venezuela. What, then, is the Trump administration’s objective in Iran? It bears repeating that it is not “regime change,” despite the insistence of those who fail to grasp the vast difference between that policy — as exemplified by the occupation of Iraq — and large-scale military operations. The current onslaught is not accompanied by any intention to occupy Iran (even assuming such an occupation were possible, given that it would require a military effort more akin to the Korean and Vietnam Wars than to the occupation of a much-weakened Iraq in 2003 — something the US administration is neither politically capable of nor willing to undertake). Everything Trump has done thus far appears consistent with the approach described above, even to the point of reassuring the backbone of the Iranian regime — the Revolutionary Guard Corps — that he guarantees them “total immunity” if they halt the war and submit to Washington’s will.
This suggests that Washington’s wager in Iran rests on hope rather than certainty, unlike its calculations in Venezuela. The Trump administration is betting that overwhelming military pressure, combined with the elimination of several leaders — including the head of state — will tip the balance in favour of pragmatic, non-ideological “moderates”. These are figures who believe that preserving the mullahs’ regime now requires abandoning the posture of “resistance” and “steadfastness”, relinquishing regional expansionist ambitions, and pursuing political and economic openness toward the United States. Such a shift, they believe, would return Iran to a path of economic development for which it possesses considerable potential. It would also prolong the regime’s lifespan and diminish popular opposition, especially if accompanied by a significant easing of the repression that weighs on daily life, particularly for women. The noose has tightened around the mullahs’ regime to the point that it can no longer continue along its previous course — unless the hardliners opt to transform the country into an absolute, isolated, and impoverished dictatorship akin to North Korea. That scenario cannot be ruled out, of course, although the Iranian people have shown themselves far less susceptible to indoctrination and submission than the population of that unfortunate country.
Here lies the fundamental difference between the Trump administration’s objectives in Iran and those of the Zionist government — indeed of the Zionist state. Netanyahu has repeatedly called on the Iranian people to overthrow the regime and has openly expressed his desire for the restoration of the Pahlavi dynasty, which was overthrown by the 1979 Iranian Revolution, as represented by Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed Shah. Washington, however, has not backed the Shah’s son, just as it did not support the Venezuelan opposition leader, judging both incapable of governing their respective countries. Its primary objective is for the Iranian regime, with its core structures intact, to cooperate with the United States along the lines of Washington’s other regional allies. It fears the regime’s collapse, recognizing that such an outcome would likely lead to armed chaos and fragmentation, producing extreme instability in the Gulf region — an outcome entirely contrary to Washington’s interests, and even to Trump’s personal and familial interests (not to mention those of the Kushner and Witkoff families).
By contrast, the Zionist government favours such a collapse, which aligns with the longstanding Zionist plan to fragment the entire Middle East (see “Reviving the Zionist Project to Fragment the Arab East”, 22 July 2025) and would reinforce the image of the State of Israel as “a villa in the jungle”, as former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak once described it — echoing the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, who promised that the “State of the Jews” he envisioned would be “an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism”, borrowing from the colonial lexicon. Meanwhile, the Zionist state has surpassed all other regional states in barbarity through the genocidal war it has waged — and continues to wage — in Gaza.
First published in Arabic at Al-Quds al-Arabi. Translation from Gilbert Achcar's blog.
As we predicted a week ago, and in light of the Iranian regime’s continued intransigence — its refusal to commit to ending uranium enrichment and to negotiate limits on its ballistic missile programme — it faced “the risk of a military strike that could create a situation threatening the entire regime, and which might ultimately lead to Khamenei’s removal from power in one way or another.” We concluded that the impending US strike was “planned to target Ali Khamenei specifically, along with the heads of the hardliners in the Iranian regime, in the hope that their removal would pave the way for Tehran’s submission to Washington’s desiderata.” (“A Game of Chicken Between Washington and Tehran?” [in Arabic], Al-Quds Al-Arabi, 24 February 2026).
We also explained how Donald Trump’s approach to Iran falls within the framework of the strategy he successfully implemented in Venezuela, which focuses on “changing the regime’s behaviour” rather than “changing the regime” itself, as the George W. Bush administration sought to do by invading Iraq in 2003 (see “US: an old-new imperial doctrine”, Le Monde diplomatique, February 2026). A significant difference between Venezuela and Iran, however, is that Washington had connections with key figures within the Venezuelan regime and believed they would comply with its demands once subjected to intense pressure and after the removal of their president, Nicolás Maduro, through his abduction. In Iran, by contrast, the regime exercises far tighter control and oversight over its leading figures, making the risk of any of them reaching a behind-the-scenes accommodation with Washington far lower. Moreover, kidnapping the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran was not a feasible option, and eliminating him alone would in any case have been insufficient to alter the regime’s trajectory.
For this reason, the American operation against Iran is far larger and more complex than the one that targeted Venezuela. What, then, is the Trump administration’s objective in Iran? It bears repeating that it is not “regime change,” despite the insistence of those who fail to grasp the vast difference between that policy — as exemplified by the occupation of Iraq — and large-scale military operations. The current onslaught is not accompanied by any intention to occupy Iran (even assuming such an occupation were possible, given that it would require a military effort more akin to the Korean and Vietnam Wars than to the occupation of a much-weakened Iraq in 2003 — something the US administration is neither politically capable of nor willing to undertake). Everything Trump has done thus far appears consistent with the approach described above, even to the point of reassuring the backbone of the Iranian regime — the Revolutionary Guard Corps — that he guarantees them “total immunity” if they halt the war and submit to Washington’s will.
This suggests that Washington’s wager in Iran rests on hope rather than certainty, unlike its calculations in Venezuela. The Trump administration is betting that overwhelming military pressure, combined with the elimination of several leaders — including the head of state — will tip the balance in favour of pragmatic, non-ideological “moderates”. These are figures who believe that preserving the mullahs’ regime now requires abandoning the posture of “resistance” and “steadfastness”, relinquishing regional expansionist ambitions, and pursuing political and economic openness toward the United States. Such a shift, they believe, would return Iran to a path of economic development for which it possesses considerable potential. It would also prolong the regime’s lifespan and diminish popular opposition, especially if accompanied by a significant easing of the repression that weighs on daily life, particularly for women. The noose has tightened around the mullahs’ regime to the point that it can no longer continue along its previous course — unless the hardliners opt to transform the country into an absolute, isolated, and impoverished dictatorship akin to North Korea. That scenario cannot be ruled out, of course, although the Iranian people have shown themselves far less susceptible to indoctrination and submission than the population of that unfortunate country.
Here lies the fundamental difference between the Trump administration’s objectives in Iran and those of the Zionist government — indeed of the Zionist state. Netanyahu has repeatedly called on the Iranian people to overthrow the regime and has openly expressed his desire for the restoration of the Pahlavi dynasty, which was overthrown by the 1979 Iranian Revolution, as represented by Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed Shah. Washington, however, has not backed the Shah’s son, just as it did not support the Venezuelan opposition leader, judging both incapable of governing their respective countries. Its primary objective is for the Iranian regime, with its core structures intact, to cooperate with the United States along the lines of Washington’s other regional allies. It fears the regime’s collapse, recognizing that such an outcome would likely lead to armed chaos and fragmentation, producing extreme instability in the Gulf region — an outcome entirely contrary to Washington’s interests, and even to Trump’s personal and familial interests (not to mention those of the Kushner and Witkoff families).
By contrast, the Zionist government favours such a collapse, which aligns with the longstanding Zionist plan to fragment the entire Middle East (see “Reviving the Zionist Project to Fragment the Arab East”, 22 July 2025) and would reinforce the image of the State of Israel as “a villa in the jungle”, as former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak once described it — echoing the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, who promised that the “State of the Jews” he envisioned would be “an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism”, borrowing from the colonial lexicon. Meanwhile, the Zionist state has surpassed all other regional states in barbarity through the genocidal war it has waged — and continues to wage — in Gaza.
Lies and Doublespeak on Iran
March 6, 2026
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
If you’re confused about why the United States is at war with Iran, you are not alone. Earlier this week, on Monday, Secretary of State Rubio suggested that Israel had led the U.S. into this war, stating that Israel was planning to attack Iran and thus that American military assets in the region would have been at risk whether we joined or not.
Secretary Rubio, who also serves as national security advisor, suggested that the fact of Israel’s planned strikes ultimately determined the timing of American involvement: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties….”
This is what a lawless empire wants: total confusion not only about the rules that govern when we go to war, but about the objectives themselves and, indeed, the question of whether or not particular military actions against another sovereign state are even regarded as “war.”
As Andrew Roth wrote in The Guardian,
There were two corollaries from that bombshell behind the largest US military intervention in a generation. First, that senior US officials had misled the public on Saturday when they warned of intelligence about Iran’s plans to launch a preemptive strike. And second, that Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu played a far larger role in prompting the US to launch strikes against Iran than was previously admitted.
The lies have apparently gotten a lot lazier since the catastrophic George W. Bush years gave us long, enormously costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump, Rubio, Hegseth and the gang barely bother to try.
On Tuesday, during a meeting with German Chancellor Merz at the White House, President Trump appeared to contradict Rubio directly, saying, “No, I might have forced their [Israel’s] hand,” adding that it was his opinion that Iran planned on preemptively attacking U.S. assets first. Trump’s remark was an attempt to revive the lie the administration had delivered over the weekend, that they had credible intelligence of a preemptive Iranian attack. If the reasons for this new war have not been made clear, what is much clearer is that Donald Trump and his cabinet neither care about the reasons or have any respect for the people.
Similar contradictory and confusing statements have characterized the administration’s reasons for waging war against Iran. The administration, to say nothing of various Republican members of Congress, has gone back and forth on whether the goal is regime change or to permanently disarm the country’s military, and what indeed that would mean. Rubio also said on Monday that no law requires the president to obtain permission from Congress to go to war, and that “no presidential administration has ever accepted the War Power Act as constitutional.” That law begins in part by stating,
The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.
It took effect in the fall of 1973, after the House and the Senate overrode an attempted veto by President Nixon. In the absence of a congressional declaration of war – the clear requirement of the Constitution itself – the law requires a report to Congress within 48 hours of a military engagement (the full text of the reporting requirement is here). For his part, Trump’s wet rag, House Speaker Mike Johnson, has said that there should be no vote and that subjecting Donald Trump’s war to any congressional test would unnecessarily tie his hands.
The U.S. government has taken hundreds of aggressive military actions around the world since the last time Congress declared war during World War II, many if not most of which were clearly acts of war under any reasonable or commonsense definition. Some Republican members of Congress now even point to this long history of illegal wars as evidence of the fact that their job is to sit on their hands and do nothing, aligning with Rubio’s attempt to brush aside any substantive congressional role.
Without a clearly defined goal, it is hard to see how or when this war could end, and Secretary Hegseth has said that we’re just getting started. The administration’s claims notwithstanding, an issue brief published this week by the Arms Control Association restates what experts have repeated again and again: that Iran’s nuclear and missile programs did not pose an imminent threat, and that “the Trump administration did not engage in good-faith negotiations with Iran over the past several weeks and exhaust diplomatic options to reach an agreement to limit future risks posed by the nuclear and missile programs.”
This is another American war of choice for spurious and ill-defined reasons, another violation of both international law and the Constitution. Six American soldiers have already lost their lives to this war (the names of four have now been released: Cody A. Khork, Noah L. Tietjens, Nicole M. Amor, and Declan J. Coady), and thousands of Americans are stranded in the region. This is to say nothing of the hundreds of innocents killed in Iran, whose lives are no less intrinsically precious than ours as Americans.
For all the talk of Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs, it is their low-cost, one-way drones that have been remarkably difficult for the United States’ expensive defense systems to stop. During a briefing earlier this week, Defense Secretary Hegseth and General Caine, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted, according to reports, that Iran’s Shahed drones “are posing a bigger problem than anticipated.” These are the very drones that the U.S. military reverse-engineered to create its LUCAS copycat. The Pentagon has clearly been surprised by the strength and endurance of the Iranian response, but it is not at all clear why Iran’s retaliations should have caught them so flat-footed. This asymmetric dynamic has been a known factor for years, and “while the price of one Shahed is estimated to be $30,000 to $50,000, one interceptor can cost 10 times that or more while exhausting already dwindling stockpiles.” While the military-industrial complex, which has never been designed to keep Americans safe, is optimized for extremely expensive, high-tech and high-margin weapons systems, the Pentagon has had to race to catch up to cheap and disposable Iranian drones.
The Iranian government correctly sees this moment as an existential crisis, the end of the line, and the regime in Tehran shares Washington’s lack of regard for civilian life. Ultimately, what emerges from the Trump administration’s feckless flood of lies and contradictions is clarity on at least one thing. The U.S. government has abandoned even the thinnest notion of legal or democratic accountability around its decision to start yet another war of choice.
None of this, from the ever-shifting rationales, to the open contempt for the people’s representatives to the apparent surprise at Iran’s counterattacks, should any longer surprise us, and it follows directly from our experiences with past presidents.
Trump’s Strategic Disaster in Tehran
March 6, 2026
Photograph Source: Mohammadhossein Movahedinejad – CC BY 4.0
The smoldering wreckage of an American F-15 fighter jet in the Kuwaiti desert offers a grim, physical testament to the escalating costs of President Donald Trump’s latest Middle Eastern venture. Just 48 hours into Operation Epic Fury, the loss of advanced American hardware—and the precarious safety of its pilots—signals that the air campaign against Iran is not the one-sided surgical strike many in Washington had anticipated.
Instead, the images of smoke rising over Tehran and the orange glow of interceptors over the Persian Gulf suggest a familiar script: a high-stakes military gamble intended to reshape the region through sheer force now meeting a reality of sophisticated, asymmetric resistance. As the conflict enters its third day, the most consequential drama is not occurring in the Iranian skies but in the corridors of power in Washington, Jerusalem, and New Delhi.
For decades, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that a “maximum pressure” campaign, if pushed to its logical conclusion, would cause the Iranian clerical establishment to shatter along its internal fault lines. On February 28, 2026, President Trump, acting in close coordination with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attempted to prove this theory by authorizing strikes that resulted in the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The strategic calculation was clear: decapitate the leadership, exploit internal dissent, and trigger a spontaneous domestic collapse.
However, that calculation appears fundamentally flawed. The Iranian leadership had clearly prepared for this eventuality, swiftly activating a pre-arranged interim council—comprising President Masoud Pezeshkian, Chief Justice Mohseni-Eje’i, and the cleric Alireza Arafi—that has kept the security apparatus loyal and the streets under tight control. Although Washington may have expected a popular revolt, the immediate reaction on the ground has been a surge of nationalist indignation. State media reports and growing crowds in Tehran suggest that the killing of Khamenei has triggered a “rally-around-the-flag” effect. Many Iranians who are otherwise critical of the government now view the strikes as a violation of national sovereignty, vowing revenge rather than seeking liberation.
Domestic reactions in Tehran remain a complex tapestry of grief and cold pragmatism. Although state-run media broadcasts massive crowds mourning Khamenei in Enqelab Square, the reality is more fractured. Though the January 2026 protests had already pushed the regime’s legitimacy to a breaking point, the presence of American B-2s over Iranian soil has, for the moment, complicated the opposition’s narrative. Many citizens who were chanting against the IRGC just weeks ago now find themselves in the uncomfortable position of defending a sovereign territory under foreign bombardment, fearing that “liberation” by F-35s will only mirror the chaotic aftermath of Baghdad or Kabul.
The swiftness of Tehran’s succession suggests a regime that had already stress-tested its survival. By early March 3, the newly formed Interim Leadership Council had not only assumed control but issued a unified call for “sacred retaliation.” Washington bet on a vacuum, but the Council has effectively neutralized immediate power struggles by framing the strikes as an assault on the Persian nation itself, rather than just the clerical elite.
The fundamental flaw in the current strategy is the assumption that airpower alone can induce a stable political transition. The administration’s rhetoric suggests a dangerous overconfidence in the speed of this collapse. Even General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has signaled the need to “finish this war quickly and decisively” to avoid a protracted regional meltdown.
Yet, this push for a rapid conclusion ignores the reality of Iranian resilience. Decapitation strikes often lead to fragmentation and regional chaos rather than a stable transition to democracy. As Iranian proxies mobilize and the interim leadership in Tehran continues to target U.S. assets and Gulf neighbors, the “ultimate victory” promised by the White House seems increasingly distant.
This resilience puts President Trump in a precarious position, both internationally and domestically. By launching a major military campaign without the mandatory approval of Congress, he has bypassed the constitutional norms that govern American war-making. There is no evidence of an imminent Iranian threat to the U.S. mainland that would justify such unilateral action. Consequently, a bipartisan coalition led by Senator Tim Kaine is already moving to invoke the War Powers Resolution. If this conflict persists for another two weeks without a clear political resolution, the president may find himself fighting a constitutional battle at home that is just as fierce as the military one abroad.
The fallout is already being felt in global markets, where oil prices have surged following threats to the Strait of Hormuz. For the Gulf monarchs, the initial silence has turned into quiet panic as they realize that the American security umbrella may now be a lightning rod for Iranian missiles. They find themselves caught between a revisionist Iran with nothing left to lose and a Trump administration that appears to have launched a war without a “day after” plan. In Jerusalem, Netanyahu may see a strategic opening, but for Washington, the lack of a clear successor in Tehran and the absence of a domestic uprising suggest that Epic Fury has achieved tactical success at the cost of strategic disaster.
The coming days will test the limits of Trump’s “America First” doctrine. If the president prioritizes his domestic narrative of “total victory” over the stability of his regional alliances, the Middle East could face a decade of vacuum and violence. For now, the silence in Tehran is not the silence of a collapsed state, but the quiet preparation for a long and expensive retaliation.
This first appeared on FPIF.
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
If you’re confused about why the United States is at war with Iran, you are not alone. Earlier this week, on Monday, Secretary of State Rubio suggested that Israel had led the U.S. into this war, stating that Israel was planning to attack Iran and thus that American military assets in the region would have been at risk whether we joined or not.
Secretary Rubio, who also serves as national security advisor, suggested that the fact of Israel’s planned strikes ultimately determined the timing of American involvement: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties….”
This is what a lawless empire wants: total confusion not only about the rules that govern when we go to war, but about the objectives themselves and, indeed, the question of whether or not particular military actions against another sovereign state are even regarded as “war.”
As Andrew Roth wrote in The Guardian,
There were two corollaries from that bombshell behind the largest US military intervention in a generation. First, that senior US officials had misled the public on Saturday when they warned of intelligence about Iran’s plans to launch a preemptive strike. And second, that Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu played a far larger role in prompting the US to launch strikes against Iran than was previously admitted.
The lies have apparently gotten a lot lazier since the catastrophic George W. Bush years gave us long, enormously costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump, Rubio, Hegseth and the gang barely bother to try.
On Tuesday, during a meeting with German Chancellor Merz at the White House, President Trump appeared to contradict Rubio directly, saying, “No, I might have forced their [Israel’s] hand,” adding that it was his opinion that Iran planned on preemptively attacking U.S. assets first. Trump’s remark was an attempt to revive the lie the administration had delivered over the weekend, that they had credible intelligence of a preemptive Iranian attack. If the reasons for this new war have not been made clear, what is much clearer is that Donald Trump and his cabinet neither care about the reasons or have any respect for the people.
Similar contradictory and confusing statements have characterized the administration’s reasons for waging war against Iran. The administration, to say nothing of various Republican members of Congress, has gone back and forth on whether the goal is regime change or to permanently disarm the country’s military, and what indeed that would mean. Rubio also said on Monday that no law requires the president to obtain permission from Congress to go to war, and that “no presidential administration has ever accepted the War Power Act as constitutional.” That law begins in part by stating,
The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.
It took effect in the fall of 1973, after the House and the Senate overrode an attempted veto by President Nixon. In the absence of a congressional declaration of war – the clear requirement of the Constitution itself – the law requires a report to Congress within 48 hours of a military engagement (the full text of the reporting requirement is here). For his part, Trump’s wet rag, House Speaker Mike Johnson, has said that there should be no vote and that subjecting Donald Trump’s war to any congressional test would unnecessarily tie his hands.
The U.S. government has taken hundreds of aggressive military actions around the world since the last time Congress declared war during World War II, many if not most of which were clearly acts of war under any reasonable or commonsense definition. Some Republican members of Congress now even point to this long history of illegal wars as evidence of the fact that their job is to sit on their hands and do nothing, aligning with Rubio’s attempt to brush aside any substantive congressional role.
Without a clearly defined goal, it is hard to see how or when this war could end, and Secretary Hegseth has said that we’re just getting started. The administration’s claims notwithstanding, an issue brief published this week by the Arms Control Association restates what experts have repeated again and again: that Iran’s nuclear and missile programs did not pose an imminent threat, and that “the Trump administration did not engage in good-faith negotiations with Iran over the past several weeks and exhaust diplomatic options to reach an agreement to limit future risks posed by the nuclear and missile programs.”
This is another American war of choice for spurious and ill-defined reasons, another violation of both international law and the Constitution. Six American soldiers have already lost their lives to this war (the names of four have now been released: Cody A. Khork, Noah L. Tietjens, Nicole M. Amor, and Declan J. Coady), and thousands of Americans are stranded in the region. This is to say nothing of the hundreds of innocents killed in Iran, whose lives are no less intrinsically precious than ours as Americans.
For all the talk of Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs, it is their low-cost, one-way drones that have been remarkably difficult for the United States’ expensive defense systems to stop. During a briefing earlier this week, Defense Secretary Hegseth and General Caine, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted, according to reports, that Iran’s Shahed drones “are posing a bigger problem than anticipated.” These are the very drones that the U.S. military reverse-engineered to create its LUCAS copycat. The Pentagon has clearly been surprised by the strength and endurance of the Iranian response, but it is not at all clear why Iran’s retaliations should have caught them so flat-footed. This asymmetric dynamic has been a known factor for years, and “while the price of one Shahed is estimated to be $30,000 to $50,000, one interceptor can cost 10 times that or more while exhausting already dwindling stockpiles.” While the military-industrial complex, which has never been designed to keep Americans safe, is optimized for extremely expensive, high-tech and high-margin weapons systems, the Pentagon has had to race to catch up to cheap and disposable Iranian drones.
The Iranian government correctly sees this moment as an existential crisis, the end of the line, and the regime in Tehran shares Washington’s lack of regard for civilian life. Ultimately, what emerges from the Trump administration’s feckless flood of lies and contradictions is clarity on at least one thing. The U.S. government has abandoned even the thinnest notion of legal or democratic accountability around its decision to start yet another war of choice.
None of this, from the ever-shifting rationales, to the open contempt for the people’s representatives to the apparent surprise at Iran’s counterattacks, should any longer surprise us, and it follows directly from our experiences with past presidents.
Trump’s Strategic Disaster in Tehran
March 6, 2026
Photograph Source: Mohammadhossein Movahedinejad – CC BY 4.0
The smoldering wreckage of an American F-15 fighter jet in the Kuwaiti desert offers a grim, physical testament to the escalating costs of President Donald Trump’s latest Middle Eastern venture. Just 48 hours into Operation Epic Fury, the loss of advanced American hardware—and the precarious safety of its pilots—signals that the air campaign against Iran is not the one-sided surgical strike many in Washington had anticipated.
Instead, the images of smoke rising over Tehran and the orange glow of interceptors over the Persian Gulf suggest a familiar script: a high-stakes military gamble intended to reshape the region through sheer force now meeting a reality of sophisticated, asymmetric resistance. As the conflict enters its third day, the most consequential drama is not occurring in the Iranian skies but in the corridors of power in Washington, Jerusalem, and New Delhi.
For decades, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that a “maximum pressure” campaign, if pushed to its logical conclusion, would cause the Iranian clerical establishment to shatter along its internal fault lines. On February 28, 2026, President Trump, acting in close coordination with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attempted to prove this theory by authorizing strikes that resulted in the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The strategic calculation was clear: decapitate the leadership, exploit internal dissent, and trigger a spontaneous domestic collapse.
However, that calculation appears fundamentally flawed. The Iranian leadership had clearly prepared for this eventuality, swiftly activating a pre-arranged interim council—comprising President Masoud Pezeshkian, Chief Justice Mohseni-Eje’i, and the cleric Alireza Arafi—that has kept the security apparatus loyal and the streets under tight control. Although Washington may have expected a popular revolt, the immediate reaction on the ground has been a surge of nationalist indignation. State media reports and growing crowds in Tehran suggest that the killing of Khamenei has triggered a “rally-around-the-flag” effect. Many Iranians who are otherwise critical of the government now view the strikes as a violation of national sovereignty, vowing revenge rather than seeking liberation.
Domestic reactions in Tehran remain a complex tapestry of grief and cold pragmatism. Although state-run media broadcasts massive crowds mourning Khamenei in Enqelab Square, the reality is more fractured. Though the January 2026 protests had already pushed the regime’s legitimacy to a breaking point, the presence of American B-2s over Iranian soil has, for the moment, complicated the opposition’s narrative. Many citizens who were chanting against the IRGC just weeks ago now find themselves in the uncomfortable position of defending a sovereign territory under foreign bombardment, fearing that “liberation” by F-35s will only mirror the chaotic aftermath of Baghdad or Kabul.
The swiftness of Tehran’s succession suggests a regime that had already stress-tested its survival. By early March 3, the newly formed Interim Leadership Council had not only assumed control but issued a unified call for “sacred retaliation.” Washington bet on a vacuum, but the Council has effectively neutralized immediate power struggles by framing the strikes as an assault on the Persian nation itself, rather than just the clerical elite.
The fundamental flaw in the current strategy is the assumption that airpower alone can induce a stable political transition. The administration’s rhetoric suggests a dangerous overconfidence in the speed of this collapse. Even General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has signaled the need to “finish this war quickly and decisively” to avoid a protracted regional meltdown.
Yet, this push for a rapid conclusion ignores the reality of Iranian resilience. Decapitation strikes often lead to fragmentation and regional chaos rather than a stable transition to democracy. As Iranian proxies mobilize and the interim leadership in Tehran continues to target U.S. assets and Gulf neighbors, the “ultimate victory” promised by the White House seems increasingly distant.
This resilience puts President Trump in a precarious position, both internationally and domestically. By launching a major military campaign without the mandatory approval of Congress, he has bypassed the constitutional norms that govern American war-making. There is no evidence of an imminent Iranian threat to the U.S. mainland that would justify such unilateral action. Consequently, a bipartisan coalition led by Senator Tim Kaine is already moving to invoke the War Powers Resolution. If this conflict persists for another two weeks without a clear political resolution, the president may find himself fighting a constitutional battle at home that is just as fierce as the military one abroad.
The fallout is already being felt in global markets, where oil prices have surged following threats to the Strait of Hormuz. For the Gulf monarchs, the initial silence has turned into quiet panic as they realize that the American security umbrella may now be a lightning rod for Iranian missiles. They find themselves caught between a revisionist Iran with nothing left to lose and a Trump administration that appears to have launched a war without a “day after” plan. In Jerusalem, Netanyahu may see a strategic opening, but for Washington, the lack of a clear successor in Tehran and the absence of a domestic uprising suggest that Epic Fury has achieved tactical success at the cost of strategic disaster.
The coming days will test the limits of Trump’s “America First” doctrine. If the president prioritizes his domestic narrative of “total victory” over the stability of his regional alliances, the Middle East could face a decade of vacuum and violence. For now, the silence in Tehran is not the silence of a collapsed state, but the quiet preparation for a long and expensive retaliation.
This first appeared on FPIF.
America’s War on Iran Has Always Been a Bipartisan Effort
Reprinted with permission from The Screeching Kettle at Substack.
American bombs are now falling on Tehran, and while Donald Trump ultimately pulled the trigger, administrations before him – Republican and Democrat alike – constructed the gun, and even loaded it.
In 1995, US president Bill Clinton issued executive orders banning US investment tied to Iran’s petroleum sector and, soon after, most US trade with and investment in Iran. His administration justified the sanctions with an accusation that would later be used against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq not even a decade later: “Iran’s efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction” and their alleged support for terrorism.
The International Atomic Energy Agency – which had visited Iran a few years prior to inspect their nuclear activity – reported no evidence of nuclear weapons.
In 1996, Congress followed up with the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act – which passed 415-0 in the House, and by unanimous consent in the Senate – targeting foreign and US companies investing more than $20 million a year in Iran’s energy sector.
Much like embargoes on Iraq, which were linked to catastrophic civilian deaths, over time, American sanctions on Iran decimated the economy and its people by devaluing currency, shrinking living standards, and limiting access to food and medicine.
In 2000, a report by a neoconservative think-tank called Project for the New American Century warned that even if Saddam Hussein were removed, “the need for a substantial American force presence” in the region would remain because “Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests in the Gulf” as Iraq has.
Several prominent figures involved with the think-tank later joined the Bush administration, including Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and John Bolton.
In 2001, shortly after 9/11, Iran offered counter-terrorism assistance to the US, but instead, President Bush lumped them in with Iraq and North Korea under an umbrella he termed the “Axis of Evil”. Clinton-era sanctions were kept in place, new ones were added, and covert measures began to undermine the Iranian establishment.
That same year, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force by a vote of 420-1 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate, granting the president sweeping authority to use military action against those connected to the 9/11 attacks. Although Iran had no connection to 9/11, the deliberately broad language of the bill created a permanent legal framework for military action across the Middle East without requiring new congressional approval.
Towards the end of Bush’s final term in office, a 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate (a comprehensive report involving all US intelligence agencies) concluded with “high confidence” that Iran was not currently building a nuclear weapon.
Still, Barack Obama’s policies continued beating the drums of war.
In 2010, he significantly expanded financial sanctions on Iran’s oil, gas, and banking sectors – measures that severely restricted access to essential medicines in Iran – which passed the House 408–8 and the Senate 99–0.
At the same time, his administration intensified Bush-era cyber operations against Iranian nuclear facilities. The Stuxnet computer worm – reportedly developed by the US and Israel – was credited with disabling hundreds of centrifuges and delaying enrichment efforts, even though the nuclear program continued to show no signs of weaponization.
In 2015, Obama concluded a nuclear deal that imposed strict limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. But its premise was a masterclass in propaganda that worked to build further consensus for war, first by painting Iran as an aggressor, and second by continuing to perpetuate a narrative that it was interested in pursuing nuclear weapons, despite continued evidence to the contrary.
Meanwhile, far more aggressive American allies in the region – namely, Israel – were exempt from such scrutiny, with their own nuclear stockpile shrouded in secrecy and tucked away from international oversight of any kind.
After the nuclear deal lifted certain sanctions in 2016, Iran’s economy rebounded. And yet at the same time, US and Israeli hawks continued to fret, alternating their fearmongering and moving the goalpost away from Iran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons and instead towards their regional influence and ballistic missile program.
Republicans and Democrats joined together the following year to pass new sanctions on Iran’s missile program, along with entities tied to the Revolutionary Guard. These measures were approved with a vote of 419-3 in the House, 98-2 in the Senate.
Fortunately for the many warmongers adorning both major political parties, the arrangement with Iran had been signed late into Obama’s second term, paving the way for a new president to conveniently overturn it.
In 2018, Donald Trump did exactly that. His administration unilaterally withdrew from the deal and reimposed sanctions. In April 2019, the US designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Iran’s most powerful military and political force – as a foreign terrorist organization. The following year, Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, head of the Guard Corps’ Quds Force, a dramatic escalation.
Taking office in January 2021, the administration of Joe Biden largely maintained Trump’s “maximum pressure” framework, leaving existing sanctions in place, along with Trump’s designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
And while Biden campaigned on rejoining the nuclear deal, once in office, he demanded Iranian compliance as a prelude to sanction relief, which effectively made it impossible given growing Iranian distrust for the US.
In late 2022, after being asked about the nuclear deal by a woman appearing to wear a hair ribbon in Iran’s flag colors, Biden reportedly responded that the deal was “dead”, adding, “I know they don’t represent you, but they will have a nuclear weapon.”
Two years later, an assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence found that Iran “has undertaken activities that better position it to produce one, if it so chooses” but added that “the Intelligence Community continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.”
Even so, in October 2024, when asked who she thought America’s “greatest adversary” was, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris replied: “I think there’s an obvious one in mind, which is Iran.”
Harris, like Trump, repeated the lie that Iran was in the business of pursuing nukes, saying the US “will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. Period.” And like Trump, she maintained that “all options” remained on the table to keep them from obtaining nuclear weapons, including military force.
In 2025, a majority of Democrats voted with Republicans to hand the Trump administration $900 billion in military spending, which provided funding for Pentagon operations, weapons procurement, overseas deployments, and military readiness programs for the upcoming fiscal year.
At nearly every stage, Republicans and Democrats in Congress – along with presidents from both major parties – have laid the foundation for a war on Iran.
The Bush administration lied its way into an invasion of Iraq, but nobody was held accountable. The Obama administration expanded the Bush-era Authorization for Use of Military Force to include drone-bombings in at least seven different countries, along with the targeting of US citizens accused of terrorism, and again, nobody was held accountable. Trump built on these precedents during his first term not only by amping up Obama’s drone strikes, but also by assassinating an Iranian commander. Again, no accountability. The Biden administration funded Israel’s flattening of the Gaza Strip while also shielding it from repercussions at the United Nations and International Criminal Court, effectively demonstrating that the so-called rules of international law were never fair, but instead, selectively applied.
Over time, escalation itself became normalized.
Economic warfare became cyber sabotage. Cyber sabotage became targeted assassinations. What were once extraordinary war powers became permanent executive authorities. By the time Trump entered the White House for his second term, the framework for America’s long-awaited war on Iran was already in place.
All he had to do was pull the trigger.
Jon Reynolds is a freelance journalist covering a wide range of topics with a primary focus on the labor movement and collapsing US empire. He writes at The Screeching Kettle at Substack.
The Middle Power Dilemma: Europe, the U.S. and the Iran War
March 6, 2026
The bombardment of Iran exposed a central dilemma for Europe’s middle powers: condemn Tehran, yet resist joining a U.S.–Israeli offensive that violates international law. Though they reject Tehran’s human-rights abuses and support for terrorism, the U.K., France, Germany, and Spain hesitated to aid or condone the bombing. As the saying goes: “The strong use force; the weak rely on law.” What, then, were they to do? Iran’s escalatory retaliation — striking neighboring states and military bases — shifted the equation, pushing some governments toward limited support for Washington and Israel.
The bombing of Iran is unlawful. In an address to the French nation, President Macron clearly said that the attacks were “outside the framework of international law.” Under the U.N. Charter, to which the United States is a party, attacking another country can only be done in self-defense when a country is under imminent threat or with the authorization of the United Nations Security Council. Neither condition was met: there was no imminent threat and no Security Council authorization.
European middle powers are drifting strategically away from Washington amid recent tariff disputes. Uncertainty over U.S. commitment to NATO’s collective defense — particularly regarding Article 5 — has further pushed Europe to reconsider its reliance on American security guarantees. Washington’s hesitation to provide consistent support for Ukraine has further weakened transatlantic securitycohesion as well as Trump’s threats to annex Greenland.
Middle Powers’ Responses
The leaders of three of the middle powers, the U.K., France, and Germany, issued a joint European statement on February 28:
We call on Iran to stop these reckless attacks immediately. We will take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies in the region, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source. We have agreed to work together with the United States and our allies in the region on this matter.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer put it best when he emphasized defensive cooperation, refusing participation in offensive strikes. To Starmer, the U.S.–Israeli strikes were offensive. Therefore, Starmer would not allow the U.S. to use British bases for attacking Iran. Once Iran expanded its retaliation, including a drone strike on the British Royal Air Force base at Akrotiri on Cyprus, Britain’s position shifted, from refusing offensive support to enabling defensive cooperation.
Starmer described the shift as follows: “This decision is about safeguarding our national security and fulfilling our obligations to our allies.”
Trump said he was “very disappointed” in Starmer for initially refusing to allow American forces to use British military bases, such as Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford, to launch strikes on Iranian targets. He told The Telegraph that the delay in granting permission “took far too long” and was unlike anything seen before in the U.S.–UK relationship.
At the joint press conference/interview with Donald Trump and German Chancellor Merz in Washington on March 3, 2026, Trump criticized Starmer for the U.K.’s initial refusal to let the United States use British military bases for the first wave of airstrikes against Iran. “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump mockingly said of the current British prime minister.
French President Emmanuel Macron took a similar line to Starmer: supporting collective self-defense and allied protection, but avoiding offensive action. Unlike Britain, France has not opened its bases for operations against Iran.
Macron stressed diplomatic channels over unilateral actions. “France was neither informed nor involved,” he said about the strikes. “We must increase our efforts to resolve the issue through diplomatic channels.” Macron called for an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council when the bombings started.
Germany framed its response more in strategic than legal terms. Berlin backed efforts to curb Iran’s missile and nuclear capabilities while stressing transatlantic unity and stability.
“Questions of international law will not be the primary driver of Germany’s response. Our priority is strategic stability and the security of our partners,” declared Chancellor Merz.
Trump praised Merz and Germany at their recent meeting. “They’re letting us land in certain areas, and we appreciate it, and they’re just making it comfortable. We’re not asking them to put boots on the ground,” Trump said.
German officials clarified that this does not mean Germany has authorized offensive operations against Iran from German territory or bases. Any actual German involvement in strikes would require parliamentary approval.
Spain’s center-left government adopted the most restrictive legalist stance. Madrid condemned the strikes as “unilateral military action” and refused U.S. use of the Rota and Morón bases for operations against Iran. Officials stressed that base access must comply with existing agreements and international law. Following that decision, at least 15 U.S. aircraft — mostly aerial refuelers — departed Spanish territory. Spanish leaders repeatedly invoked the U.N. Charter and rejected participation in offensive operations lacking international backing.
Referring to Spain’s refusal to allow U.S. military use of its bases, Trump said: “Spain has been terrible … we’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain.”
No European consensus
The Iran bombardment revealed the structural dilemma of European middle powers: balancing alliance solidarity with legal legitimacy and political restraint. The U.K., France, Germany, and Spain each navigated this tension differently. The U.K. will be sending a defense destroyer and helicopters to Cyprus. France sent Rafale aircraft and a frigate to the region as well as deploying the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to the Mediterranean Sea. German forces in the region would only act defensively to protect German troops if attacked directly. All three countries are acting in the name of defense and protecting national interests in the region. None claim to be participating offensively.
In a world where great-power conflict increasingly challenges international norms, middle powers must reconcile security dependence with the defense of the legal order they rely upon. They cannot abandon the law — yet they cannot afford to ignore power and the United States, above all, to help support Ukraine.
Is it Un-Patriotic to Want Your Country to Lose a War?
March 6, 2026
Kate Smith singing “God Bless America,” The Ed Sullivan Show, Oct 6, 1963. (Screenshot: The Author)
The emerging liberal consensus
You may have heard politicians in the U.S. and Europe, as well as liberal commentators state some version of the following:
I’m opposed to Trump’s war on Iran. He should have sought Congressional authorization. But I’m glad the tyrant Ali Khamenei [Iran’s 86 y.o. supreme leader] is dead and hope Iran’s capacity to build a nuclear weapon is ended. Naturally, my thoughts and prayers are with the brave U.S. soldiers sent to the Middle East and I wish them Godspeed.
Here’s another expression of the emerging consensus:
Under what authority is Trump conducting this war? I’m worried about mission-creep. He needs to immediately come before Congress and provide a rationale for his bombing campaign and a plan for its successful completion.
The sentiments above are hypocritical if not non-sensical. If a war is illegally waged, there’s no point demanding a rationale or hoping for a successful outcome. That’s like condemning a burglar but hoping he makes a big score!
There are many reasons to oppose the president’s actions. Here’s ten:
1) Iran is an independent state and U.N. member that has never waged war against the U.S. Therefore, the U.S. attack was an “act of aggression,” according to the Charter of the United Nations. The Charter was approved by the U.S. Senate (89-3) in 1945 making its provisions binding under U.S. law (Constitution, Article VI, Clause 2).
2) The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war. The U.S. War Powers Act (1973) further requires that absent such a declaration, the President must: a) consult with Congress before sending armed forces into combat; b) submit to House and Senate leaders within 48 hours a rationale for the deployment; c) halt military intervention after 60 days unless there is formal approval by Congress to continue.
There has been no Congressional declaration of war against Iran, minimal consultation with Congress, and no coherent rationale submitted. What justifications have been given are contradictory. Last week, Defense Secretary Pate Hegseth said he wouldn’t speculate about what “we will or will not do” in the war, adding however: “This is not a so-called ‘regime change war’, but the regime sure did change.” This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Rubio said the war was launched in support of Israel; then, contradicted by his boss, said it was because of Iran’s weapons stockpile. Trump in the meantime said it was because Iran was a “global threat.”
3) Assassinating foreign military or civilian leaders, however noxious they may be, is a violation of U.S. Executive Order 12333 signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981. “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in or conspire to engage in assassination.” Though Trump could overturn the Executive Order, he has not, so it remains binding on the Executive branch. Assassination of a foreign leader is also a violation of international law.
4) Thousands of people of people in Iran and nearby countries – most of them civilians – have already been killed by U.S. and Israeli bombings. (The U.S. bombed a school, killing over 175 children and teachers.) If the bombardment of Iran lasts for months, or is followed by civil unrest, thousands (potentially millions) of people in the region may be displaced from their homes and become refugees.
5) The expenditure of U.S. lives and treasure in an illegal war is senseless. Money and labor are better spent protecting American health and safety and conserving the environment. The president and Congress are already planning a supplemental appropriation to pay for the war, despite a projected 2026 structural deficit of nearly $2 trillion, about 6% of GDP.
6) War in the Middle East is exacerbating tensions with China, India and Russia making a wider war (even nuclear war) more likely.
7) The attack against Iran was launched beneath the cloak of peace negotiations. The U.S. and Israel decided the date they would attack before the negotiations with Iran even began. During the subsequent faux talks, Iran agreed to limitations on its nuclear program more stringent than those worked out in the effective pact negotiated with the Obama administration which Trump abrogated in 2018. The implications are profound, and not just for Iran: Why would any nation undertake good faith peace negotiations with the U.S. when the latter may already have decided upon a plan of attack? Why would any country trust in negotiating with the U.S?
8) Most nations quietly oppose U.S. and Israeli actions, with even traditional U.S. allies expressing lukewarm support at best. The U.K. Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, true to form, opposed military support for the Americans before he was for it. He stands resolutely in both pro and antiwar camps.
9) Suggesting Iranian security forces surrender their arms, as the Trump administration has done, makes no sense because there is no occupying power to surrender them to. Encouraging Iranian citizens to seize state power – though they lack weapons and organization — is bad faith. Trump and Secretary of State Rubio have no intention of sending in U.S. troops to support student or other freedom fighters. Indeed, they have no interest in popular sovereignty at home or abroad.
10) The U.S. attacks on a non-nuclear Iran – and its accommodating approach to North Korea – indicate that the only countries in the world safe from U.S. imperialism are nuclear-armed ones. Far from reducing the likelihood of nuclear proliferation, the war on Iran makes it a certainty.
The politicians and commentators who whisper opposition but shout accommodation to Trump’s war are both cowards and fools. They know the war is illegal and immoral but fail to offer full throated dissent out of fear of seeming unpatriotic while their country is at war. They think they can win over voters by being on both side of the issue – in fact, they will alienate all constituencies.
True patriots must hope the U.S. loses its war against Iran to stymie Trump’s imperial aggression. Since taking office in 2025, his administration has bombed Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, and Nigeria. It has also blown-up supposed drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Pacific killing sone 200. While wishing for U.S. failure in Iran, American patriots should support the formation of a democratic Iranian government that is unallied with – indeed, opposed to — the current U.S. administration.
Patriotism = nationalism + camp
American patriotism is unfit for purpose and has been for some time. That’s because it’s comprised of two unstable compounds: nationalism + camp.
The nation, according to Benedict Anderson, its chief modern theorist, is an imagined political community. No modern state is an organic development from an ancient nation. None share with their supposed progenitors common ethnicity, language and traditions. Nations are instead, hybrid entanglements, unfixed and volatile, whose populations may nevertheless be persuaded to believe – to imagine – they possess a unity. Citizens of a modern state in thrall to nationalism, often make huge sacrifices – including life itself – on behalf of that myth. Nationalism is often the font of war.
As an adjective, “camp” has for more than 100 years signified, according to the OED: “mannerisms, speech, etc. [that is] flamboyant, arch, or theatrical, esp. in a way stereotypically associated with some gay men.” That original meaning has broadened significantly in recent decades. In Susan Sontag’s famous essay “Notes on Camp” (1964), she describes it as a “sensibility…a certain mode of aestheticism.” She continues: “It is one way of seeing the world as an aesthetic phenomenon. That way, the way of Camp, is not in terms of beauty, but in terms of artifice, of stylization….It goes without saying that the Camp sensibility is disengaged, depoliticized, or at least apolitical.”
Since at least the end of World War II, the combination nationalism + camp has permeated American political culture in the form of a “depoliticized” patriotism. When I was growing up – during the era of the Vietnam War – patriotic slogans included “America, love it or leave it,” “my country right or wrong,” and the ominous “law and order.” These and other expressions of patriotism are truculent, tautological, and mischievous. They are to be taken both seriously and parodically — as “stylization.” If somebody said to a ‘60s civil rights or anti-war protester (as was regularly said to me): “If things are so bad here, why don’t you go back to Russia?” both the speaker and hearer would know it wasn’t a serious question; it was performative more than interrogative, theatrical more than political.
American patriots of 1960s and ‘70s had their own, peculiarly camp styles. Men cut their hair in crewcuts while women wore bouffants. To signal they were hawks (pro-war) men wore American flag pins on their lapels, saluted any soldiers they saw, and sang the national anthem with gusto (if they remembered the words) every chance they had.
Patriotism had its own camp musical and cinema styles. Here’s an example of each: On Sunday night, Oct. 6, 1963, Kate Smith sang “God Bless America” on The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS TV. (It made more of an impression on me than the Beatles’ appearance on the show a few months later.) The song was sung low, in the key of B, as if by a male tenor, conveying some of its transvestic origin. It was written by Irving Berlin in 1919 for a show called Yip, Yip, Yahank and performed by soldiers returned from the war, some dressed in drag and others in blackface.
John Wayne, whose performance of cowboy masculinity fueled a queer culture of leather and chaps, announced his support for the Vietnam War in 1965, and three years later starred in a film, The Green Berets (1968) that celebrated the American combatants. In one scene, the Japanese American actor George Takei (Sulu in the original Star Trek), playing a South Vietnamese Captain, says to Wayne’s Colonel Mike Kirby: “”I go home too some day. You see. First kill all stinking Cong. Then go home.” American patriotism relied upon stereotypes, role playing and masquerade.
Today, MAGA patriotism is also camp. The Trump industry pitches baseball caps, gold coins, bitcoins (faux money), medallions, watches, t-shirts, belt buckles and other swag to fleece and organize its followers. The White House itself, especially the Oval Office, has become a veritable Liberace stage set with gilt cherubs, moldings, candelabras, and other neo-Versailles-style embellishments. It’s no wonder MAG is fracturing – can such ostentatiously camp patriotism compel conviction for long?
Defeat the Americans, democratize Iran
Patriotism wasn’t always thus. In the 18th century, when the word begins to appear frequently, it meant embrace of civic virtue, not blind love of country. In France, La Patrie signified support for the common good above any parochial interests. When Benjamin Franklin visited the French court, he wore a simple brown suit, rough, coonskin cap, and bi-focals (almost never worn in public) to project simplicity, modesty and honesty as patriotic virtues.
Thomas Jefferson likewise understood patriotism as self-sacrifice, civic duty, and rejection of unjust laws. Rebellion against the nation-state itself was contenanced. In the U.S. Declaration of Independence, he wrote:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness….That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.
Opposition to one’s own government – to its unjust wars, imperial aggression, corruption and cruelty — is fundamental to the Enlightenment conception of patriotism that the U.S. was founded on.
The first fate that befalls the apprehended criminal is seizure of ill-gotten gain. The U.S. was criminally wrong to go to war against Iran. Justice demands it be deprived of the fruits of that violence. The best we can hope for is that rising commodity prices resulting from the war, combined with moral outrage at the bombing of schools, the sinking of ships in the open ocean, and wanton killing of potential Iranian leaders, will quickly stop the American bombardment and drive the electorate away from Trump and the party of fascism.
American opponents of the war in the meantime, can hope that a young generation of patriots will emerge in Iran, seize power and drive out the conservative and murderous clerics, Revolutionary Guard, army, and volunteer, Basji militia that together have governed and terrorized the people of Iran for two generations. The alternative – assuming leading clerics and Revolutionary Guard officers are all killed or kept from power — is a complete fracturing of Iranian society as occurred in Iraq, Libya, and Syria after U.S militarily interventions. That would of course, represent another American failure or defeat, but one so terrible that no one could ever wish for it.
Trump’s Reasons for War on Iran: Fact Check
In building his case for his war on Iran, U.S. President Donald Trump says he asked his team for a list of Iranian attacks on the U.S. and U.S. interests: “Over the last 47 years. I said, ‘give me all of the attacks.’ If I told you all of them I’d still be talking.”
Trump has a short memory. He asked for and recited a similar list when he delivered his 2017 speech decertifying the 2015 JCPOA Iran nuclear deal, an illegal decision that helped pave the way to the current crisis and conflict. At the time, then Iranian President Hassan Rouhani suggested that Trump re-read his history books.
Trump recited a long list of charges against Iran; some of them historical, some of them contemporary, and many of them false.
Trump began his eight-minute video with the opening remark that “For 47 years, the Iranian regime has… waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States [and] our troops.” He then itemizes the charges.
The first “was to back a violent takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, holding dozens of American hostages for 444 days.” Iran is guilty of this charge, and there is no defense for the taking of hostages. But there is a context.
Vali Nasr, Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, has explained that “In the popular mind, the hostage crisis was seen as justified by what happened in 1953.”
What happened in 1953, that Trump leaves out, is that the U.S. and Britain took out Mohammad Mosaddeq, the democratically elected leader of Iran, in a coup. They placed the Shah back on the throne, thwarting the will of the Iranian people and ushering in years of savage and repressive dictatorship; this included the repression of opposition media, political parties and unions by the Shah, as well as his murderous SAVAK secret police and their notorious torture chambers.
When the students took over the U.S. embassy in the hostage taking, they were able to piece together shredded documents. They would discover that there were CIA offices in SAVAK headquarters, and that the CIA had been involved in the training of SAVAK officers. Stephen Kizner tells the story of the U.S. hostage who complained to his Iranian captor about his imprisonment. “You have nothing to complain about,” said his captor. “The United States took our whole country hostage in 1953.”
The hostage taking was wrong. But it was a response to an earlier wrong. In 1953, the Iranians chased out the Shah only to have the U.S. intervene and put him back on the throne; in 1979, the Iranians finally chased him out again, only to have the U.S. take him in and provide him with sanctuary. The Iranians saw the hostage taking as an attempt to prevent American midwifery from delivering the same fate again.
Trump then moves forward four years, charging that “In 1983, Iran’s proxies carried out the marine barracks bombing in Beirut that killed 241 American military personnel.” Again, true; but again, without context. The 1983 Hezbollah bombing was an attack on a military base in Beirut belonging to a foreign invader that was actively and currently bombing Lebanon. The bombing is plausibly seen more as an act of war than an act of terrorism.
Trump then jumps forward seventeen years and says that “In 2000, they knew and were probably involved with the attack on the USS Cole.” The attack on the USS Cole, an American destroyer that was taking on fuel in Yemen on its way to the Persian Gulf to help enforce UN sanctions on Iraq, killed seventeen sailors. But it was not Iran that attacked the Cole – it was al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack, and the official FBI website says that “The extensive FBI investigation ultimately determined that members of the al Qaeda terrorist network planned and carried out the bombing.”
Finally, Trump says that “Iran is the world’s number one state sponsor of terror.” The U.S. has long known this is not true. The 2024 Global Terrorism Index states that the “deadliest terrorist groups in the world… were Islamic State (IS) and its affiliates, followed by Jamaat Nusrat Al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), Hamas, and al-Shabaab.” None of these groups is Shiite, and none, with the exception of Hamas, is affiliated with Iran. The U.S. has long known that many of these organizations are supported by Saudi Arabia. Iran has sided with the U.S. against some of these groups and has itself been the victim of attacks by them.
Trump then moved from historical grievances to contemporary ones. The most important thing is that Iran “can never have a nuclear weapon…. They’ve rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore.” Trump has repeatedly said that “They want to make a deal, but we haven’t heard those secret words, ‘We will never have a nuclear weapon’.”
That’s not true. It was Iran who signed and honored the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement that closed all paths to a nuclear weapon; it was Trump, in his first term, who illegally blew the agreement up. Since then, the U.S. has continued to assess that Iran is not on a quest for a nuclear weapon. And Iran has continued to negotiate a guarantee against military enrichment that preserves the legal right to civilian enrichment. Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who was mediating talks between the U.S. and Iran, said hours before bombs began to fall on Iran that “A peace deal is within our reach.”
As for the secret words, Iran uttered them multiple times. As recently as February 24, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, declared that Iran’s “fundamental convictions are crystal clear: Iran will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon; neither will we Iranians ever forgo our right to harness the dividends of peaceful nuclear technology for our people.” Those were the exact words, and they were far from secret.
Trump then moved from illegal nuclear weapons to legal missiles. Iran, Trump claimed, “continue[s] developing the long range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland.”
It is not true that Iran will soon be able to strike the U.S. with missiles. Iran has no intercontinental ballistic missiles, and has stuck to a self-imposed limit of making missiles with a range of no more than 2,000 km. A May 2025 report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency stated that “Iran has space launch vehicles it could use to develop a militarily-viable ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] by 2035 should Tehran decide to pursue the capability.” That’s nine years away, and that’s if they decide to pursue the required technology–hardly the imminent threat the U.S. was citing as a justification for war.
Elsewhere, Trump has cited the need for a preemptive strike because of an imminent threat Iran was about to strike first. But there was no imminent threat. In a mandated letter to Congress in which laid out the justification for the war, there was no mention of any imminent threat. In private meetings, the Trump administration told congressional staff that “U.S. intelligence did not suggest Iran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against the U.S.”
On March 2, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked if “there was an imminent threat.” He said there “absolutely was.” But there wasn’t. “[t]he imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked – and we believe they would be attacked – that they would immediately come after us.” But striking back after you are struck is neither preemptive nor imminent.
The U.S. has yet to lay out a case for a war that is clearly in violation of the UN charter and international law. There was no Security Council approval, and there was no imminent threat to defend against. Trump laid out a litany of reasons, both historical and contemporary, but none of them justify the war.
The ‘Empire of Lies’ Comes for Iran
Benjamin Franklin said it best: “There never was a good war, or a bad peace.”
Now that war is again underway – the third attack on Iran in two years – people of healthy human consciousness must pray that the destruction and carnage is limited.
Yet the trajectory appears to be grim.
Wars often progress in unexpected ways. The Persian Gulf region is a tangled spaghetti plate of interests including economic, religious, cultural, and geopolitical. None of our politicians have proved capable of comprehending those interests and foreseeing the consequences of their elective wars. President George W. Bush was stunningly uninformed about the existence of Sunni and Shia factions when he invaded Iraq, a war that inadvertently empowered Iran. Officials who assured us that they knew where the phantom Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were, were quite wrong. Just as they were wrong when they foolishly assured us that the war would last “six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.”
Similarly, as many quipped after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Washington took twenty years, trillions of dollars, and four presidents to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.
Nor can it be allowed to slip down the memory hole that only a year ago the Deep State installed Ahmed al-Sharaa, the terrorist head chopper formerly known as al-Julani, as the president of Syria. It must not be forgotten that until recently al-Sharaa carried a $10 million dollar bounty on his head placed by the U.S. government. He was a State Department “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.” But now the new president of Syria, having been sanitized and empowered by the Deep State, is fêted by Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
The U.S. global military empire – the Empire of Lies – is capable of exerting force, but utterly incapable of understanding the consequences of its regime change wars.
That is but one reason that the Constitution, often cited but seldom adhered to, lodged warmaking authority with the people’s representatives. The Founders knew from historical precedent that heads of states and executive branches have a propensity to make needless war. Thus they provided that the people who pay for it with their lives, limbs, and prosperity, would make the decision to go to war. Those decisions are to be made through their elected representatives who become more judicious about engaging in needless wars since they know they can be held accountable for their judgement and their votes.
No one – I repeat, no one – knows how events will unfold from here. Already President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are talking about the prospect of American soldiers – “boot on the ground” – in Iran, while Israel has clearly threatened the use of nuclear weapons. As reports, spin jobs, and chest-thumping proceed, the proverbial wisdom that the first casualty of war is the truth should be borne in mind. Despite the escalation that we are seeing, people of healthy human consciousness must pray that the destruction and carnage is limited. Our voices must be heard and echo throughout the marbled palaces of Washington.
This originally appeared on The Libertarian Institute.
New York Times bestselling author Charles Goyette’s new book THE EMPIRE OF LIES: Fragments from the Memory Hole is available on Amazon. The publisher describes it as “The Sorrowful Story of the Deep State’s Warlords, War Lies, and Failed Foreign Interventions.” Charles can be contacted at EMPIREofLIES.com.
Eric Draitser
March 6, 2026
Eric Draitser is an independent political analyst and longtime CounterPuncher. You can find his exclusive content including video interviews and analyses, articles, podcasts, commentaries, poetry and more at patreon.com/ericdraitser and on Substack @ericdraitser.
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