All posts tagged "foreign policy"

Trump's idiot just gave a massive gift to jihadi recruiters

Two weeks in, the Trump administration continues to give conflicting assessments on Iran. Contradicting himself repeatedly in the span of hours, Donald Trump claimed on Monday the war was “very complete.” That calmed the markets. Later that afternoon, the Department of Defense said the opposite, posting on X that the U.S. had “only just begun to fight,” and promising “no mercy” from Secretary Pete Hegseth’s non- politically correct, rules-eschewing “lethality warriors.”

Aside from fueling the scary impression that children are in charge of the arsenal, Hegseth’s continuing obsession with lethality blunts any strategic objectives the war was supposed to serve, not that those have ever been clear. The only certainty is that Trump, who doesn’t care about polls, does care about the price of oil. Once it passed $120 a barrel, a flashing red light to economists, Trump stopped chest thumping long enough to focus on keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, describing the war as “limited” to cushion the financial fallout from his own poor judgment.

It’s too early to know whether the potential nightmare scenario — closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran controls — will happen, pushing oil prices high enough to trigger a world recession. But while Hegseth continues to strut like a rooster with an AK-47, recession is the least of our worries.

Lethality over objectives

Hegseth says victory is all about lethality, or killing the enemy. It’s like watching a caveman trying to play chess.

Long-term geopolitical success requires achieving realistic and sustainable political objectives at a reasonable cost. Neither Hegseth nor Trump comprehends that the U.S. did not lose in Iraq and Afghanistan because we lacked “lethality.” We lost because the objectives we sought were unattainable given political realities on the ground.

Those same political realities are rampant in Iran, including:

Extreme sectarian and tribal divisions.
Worsening fragmentation among ethnic minority groups like the Kurds, Baluchis, and Azeris.
A growing humanitarian crisis, including insufficient water, that will trigger massive refugee movements and overwhelm regional resources.
Ideological, religious paramilitary fighting forces like the Basij and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Trump’s focus on oil while Hegseth obsesses over lethality exposes the folly: They’ll never navigate geopolitical complexities they can’t understand.

A game until someone gets hurt

In his book The War on Warriors, Hegseth complained that American troops are too wedded to rules.

“Modern war-fighters,” he urged, shouldn’t worry about rules of engagement. Instead, Hegseth counseled, “America should fight by its own rules.”

Hegseth’s own rules serve up death and destruction as entertainment. One official government account depicted the war in Iran with Call of Duty gameplay interspersed with real footage of Iranians being killed. As if war were a video game, the post showed a player racking up a string of kills. Another social media post interspersed clips from Braveheart, Gladiator, Superman and Top Gun with real kill-shot footage from Iran.

Hegseth may think he’s still a Fox News personality whose job is to turn tragedy into entertainment, but for serious military strategists, the messaging is appalling and dangerous.

Hegseth endangers Americans

Hegseth’s strutting displays of manosphere bluster may attract basement incels and Fox News viewers, but over the long haul, they are dangerous.

Gaining the upper hand on an enemy’s morale is a valid objective; it can be decisive in competitive contexts to create “a contagion of despair.” Napoleon Bonaparte said morale “is to the material as three is to one.” But you have to know your enemy first.

Trump and Hegseth don’t seem to understand that vast cultural differences sent us home from Iraq and Afghanistan with our tails between our legs. A fundamental ignorance of those societies led to U.S. failures in both wars — the U.S. never adapted to local dynamics, leading to increased insurgencies, alienation of the people, and the inability to build stable local governments.

Boots on the ground

Trump has said he is open to putting boots on the ground in Iran, which would mean our troops encountering Islamic fighters who sincerely believe that “death to Americans” will get them into heaven.

Iran’s primary military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), acts as an expeditionary force through its Quds Force, and manages a vast network of regional proxies including Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthis. The IRCG acts as the hub among Islamist militant groups throughout the Middle East, motivating terrorists who are violently opposed to the United States.

These Muslim forces believe “jihad,” or armed struggle, is the highest form of religious devotion, one that offers a guaranteed path to salvation and atonement, which the IRGC reinforces through steady indoctrination. The IRGC will likely use Hegseth’s rhetoric and video game posts as recruitment tools: Look how the Great Satan is slaughtering our children and laughing.

Hegseth’s videos will be useful to Iran as the IRGC exploits nationalistic and religious sentiments among terrorists. Iran will use Hegseth’s hubris against us, and the danger will not be limited to war zones. As we learned on 9/11, jihadist groups are the main perpetrators of suicide attacks worldwide. Hegseth is goading them into action.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

GOP senator uncorks crude ultimatum to Europe: 'Take the skirts off!'

WASHINGTON — A Republican U.S. senator used insulting and sexist language to demand European countries join America and Israel’s war against Iran, saying NATO allies should “take their skirts off, maybe put some boots on and help the rest of the world out.”

“I gave up on Europe helping us years ago,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) told reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday.

“They're all talking,” Marshall continued, citing President Donald Trump’s long-held grievance over defense spending levels among the NATO alliance.

“They told us they would get to 2 percent of GDP, and they never did. Half of them never did. Now they're probably 5 percent. They're all talk.”

While the U.S. clearly contributes most, analysts contest claims that NATO countries don’t pay their fair share, especially after most European nations increased spending since Trump threatened the fate of NATO at the start of his second term in the White House.

Since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran late last month, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and leaders of other traditional U.S. allies have grappled with how to deal with the Trump administration's demands that they support a war that remains unpopular across the globe.

On Thursday, Sen. Marshall reached back into 20th-century history to dismiss the Marshall Plan under which U.S. aid helped revive and rebuild Europe in the aftermath of World War Two.

“You know, World War II is over with,” Marshall said. “The Marshall Plan is over with.

“It's time for Europe to put some jeans on, take their skirts off, maybe put some boots on and help the rest of the world out.”

Marshall’s committee assignments do not include roles on panels dealing with foreign or military affairs.

His official Senate website highlights the seven years he served in the Army Reserves, while also painting him as a traditional conservative family man, “a physician, devoted father, [and] grandfather” and OB/GYN who “delivered more than 5,000 babies.”

'I was wrong'

Marshall already made news this week over errant Iran comments.

Appearing on CNN on Tuesday, the senator was asked whether, with seven Americans dead and 140 wounded, and a climbing death toll in Iran, he stood by comments to Fox News last June about U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear program.

“I think it will take them years to restart their nuclear program,” Marshall said then.

“I think that they can’t control their airspace; they don’t have the will to do it. From what I’ve seen, I’m in shock and awe. You know, it’s just, it’s shocking how much damage we did to their facilities.”

Back then, Trump claimed Iran’s nuclear program had been obliterated, even as he says new strikes were necessary to stop work on nuclear weapons.

Asked if he had seen intelligence to back up the president’s change of tune, Marshall told CNN: “Look, I was wrong. They were restarting their nuclear program.”

Marshall also said, “I hate war,” and saluted U.S. service members killed or injured.

Pressed on why he had changed his view about the effect of last summer’s strikes, the senator said: “I believe that we obliterated those particular nuclear facilities, but now they were starting nuclear programs in other places.

“And just their willingness to do that was just thumbing their nose at us.”

Trump utterly hates this everyday thing — and it could be what crushes him

My hearing is lousy, so I recently decided to buy some hearing aids — very special advanced AI hearing aids that let me hear compliments extremely clearly but screen out all negative criticisms.

I’m joking, of course, to make the point that if such hearing aids were ever available, the people who bought them would discover they’re more disabled than they were when they couldn’t hear well. That’s because while we all love praise, the most important feedback we get tells us what we’re doing wrong.

Without this critical feedback, we might inadvertently insult friends, drive into oncoming traffic, walk off cliffs, make dumb mistakes on the job, or even (if we’re President), get the United States into a war without obvious end.

In other words, without critical feedback, we would totally f--- up.

But critical feedback is difficult to get even under the best of circumstances. You’re lucky if your best friend or spouse tells you your breath smells or you need a shower or you’ve got snot hanging out your nose, because almost no one else will.

The higher you go in any hierarchy or power structure, the more difficult it is to get critical feedback because you’re surrounded by people who want to please you and dare not displease.

When you have power to promote or fire them, make their lives happy or miserable, give them their heart’s desire or cast them into living hell, they’re not going to tell you that you just made a fool of yourself with a client or that your joke was tasteless or you’re behaving like an a--hole. They’ll tell you that you’re wonderfully clever, funny, charming, and perfect.

This is why many people in positions of authority in effect wear my advanced AI hearing aids that amplify compliments and screen out criticisms — which makes them vulnerable to making big mistakes.

So, if you’re a CEO or chairman or director or president of anything, you need to make a special effort to get critical feedback — soliciting it, rewarding it, showing that you value it by changing your mistaken views or asinine behavior.

When I was secretary of labor, I made a point of promoting staff who gave me constructive criticism. Even so, it was still hard to get honest feedback.

One day after a television interview, when I was heading back to the office surrounded by people telling me how well I looked and how cogent and thoughtful I sounded, one young staff member said very quietly, “Mr. Secretary, you used your hands so much that you blocked your face.”

I stopped. The others seemed horrified. I asked the young staffer, “What else did you notice?”

“Well,” she said, hesitatingly, “you kept using terms like ‘Earned Income Tax Credit’ and ‘discretionary budget’ that no one outside official Washington understands. You need to use everyday English.”

“Thank you!” I said, and a few days later made her a special assistant for communications. For the next several years, she gave me some of the most valuable feedback I’ve ever received.

Which brings me to Trump.

Not only does he love and solicit praise — if you can bear them, watch his sycophantic cabinet meetings — he absolutely, utterly, passionately, hates criticism.

He goes ballistic on anyone who gives him negative feedback. He punishes journalists who write bad stories about him. He fired the then head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics who told him and the rest of the world how badly the economy was doing.

He explodes in fury at staffers who give him bad news. When former Attorney General William P. Barr said there was no evidence that the 2020 election was stolen, Trump flung his lunch across the room and smashed his plate in a fit of anger as ketchup dripped down the wall.

“I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has lost contact with — he’s become detached from reality,” Barr testified to the January 6 committee.

All this may explain his decision to go to war in Iran, without a clear objective or an exit strategy.

According to the New York Times, White House officials have become pessimistic about the lack of a clear strategy to finish the war, but “they have been careful not to express that directly to the president, who has repeatedly declared that the military operation is a complete success.”

If they’re careful not to express their pessimism to Trump, how the hell is he going to see the depth of the hole he’s dug for himself and the United States?

Privately, aides say they’re “frustrated over Trump’s lack of discipline in communicating the objectives of the military campaign to the public.”

But there’s no chance in hell they’ve expressed their frustration to Trump.

All of which means Trump isn’t getting the feedback he needs. He remains sealed in his cocoon — wearing the equivalent of my advanced AI hearing aids — oblivious to the dangers he’s creating for you, me, and everyone else.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Trump made a catastrophic miscalculation — and the worst ones are still ahead

Donald Trump has always been the king of the colossal miscalculation, and 99 percent of the time not because of errors in strategy — because that word doesn’t exist in Trump’s brain. In there, miscalculations occur because of grotesque arrogance.

He miscalculated the New York real estate market badly enough to go bankrupt six times. He miscalculated the casino business, his business partners, his wives, and his friends, the heinous Jeffrey Epstein among them.

And now he may have miscalculated his approach to an entire civilization. Let’s call it what it is: a fury of epic miscalculations.

Trump’s decision to launch Operation Epic Fury (You see what I did there?) against Iran may go down as the most contemptible miscalculation of his long career, possibly in U.S. history.

The New York Times has reported in detail on the alarming breadth and depth of the miscalculations behind this war with Iran. It shows Trump, whose career is defined by a belief that he is always the smartest man in the room, now leading a room full of people who appear to have no idea what they’re doing.

The group that cooked up “Epic Fury” isn’t a room of seasoned strategists. It’s a room of yes men, blindly led by the would-be author of The Art of Miscalculation.

The absolute worst of the worst is Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of “War,” an in-over-his-empty-head TV personality whose favorite words appear to be “warrior” and “kill.”

Hegseth has never commanded a large contingent of soldiers in combat and has never run anything remotely resembling the Pentagon’s global war machine.

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, has never negotiated a major international treaty or intervened in a war. He’s also serving as Trump’s National Security Adviser but he appears to have a third job: nodding yes every time Trump makes a boneheaded, critical miscalculation.

And who exactly is Energy Secretary Chris Wright? He spent his career in the oil industry making money first, second, and third. He is now out of his league. That became glaringly obvious when he said U.S. strikes against Iran would not cause long-term disruptions to global oil markets, according to the Times.

Collectively, Trump's advisers are the “Misanthropes of Miscalculation” — a brainless trust who clearly lack even a basic understanding of Iranian humanity and whose ignorance has led to disastrous assumptions.

Trump and his inner circle appear to have believed that a few airstrikes would somehow trigger the collapse of the Iranian government, and that the Iranian people would greet American bombs as celebratory liberation balloons.

Instead, Iran did what nations tend to do when attacked. It closed ranks, lashed out, and turned the war into a regional firestorm.

Iran has been ruled by religious fanatics for almost 50 years. That ideology is embedded in its political and social fabric. It doesn’t suddenly disappear because Trump thinks it should.

None of this should have been surprising.

Iran’s identity is built on resisting foreign intervention. The Islamic Republic has spent decades telling its people the United States is an imperial aggressor. With a bombs-away miscalculation, Trump handed them that narrative.

This is what happens when foreign policy is conducted by reckless people who treat history like something skimmed through CliffsNotes — if that.

To ignore the deep history of the region, its religious factions, and the extreme diversity of its people is to guarantee catastrophic miscalculation.

For nearly two weeks, the administration has struggled to explain what this war was supposed to accomplish. One day it was about nuclear weapons. The next, regime change. Then nukes again. Then “sending a message.” Then protecting Israel. Then an “imminent threat.”

Whatever the cause du jour is, Rubio usually says the opposite. Nobody knows what the hell is going on.

Meanwhile, the consequences have been exactly what any sober strategist would have feared, and what the miscalculator-in-chief apparently dismissed.

Iran responded not just by striking Israel and U.S. forces but by expanding the battlefield across the Middle East. American bases, embassies, and allies suddenly found themselves targets of Iranian missiles and drones.

Trump didn’t just miscalculate Iran. He miscalculated the entire region.

Did he think Iran would simply play dead? That it would not unleash retaliation across the Middle East? The assumption borders on strategic delusion.

And then there’s the global economy.

Iran’s threat to the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow artery through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil flows, sent energy markets into panic.

The world, not just America, is now laughing at Trump’s promises to lower prices on “Day One” and end wars on “Day One.” Instead, he has delivered Day 11, and counting, of a war with costs far beyond Iran’s borders.

Trump promised there would be no American boots on the ground. But wars have an ominous way of ignoring false assurances, and already the language coming out of Washington has begun to shift.

The American public is rapidly losing patience. Polling shows a historic majority against this war, and it’s only going to get worse.

They see gas prices climbing. They see lives lost. They see incredible incompetence, and they are p—ed as hell. And they haven’t seen anything yet.

When Trump miscalculates this badly, he doesn’t reassess. He doubles down. He escalates. He looks for the next dramatic move that will prove he was right all along.

Every failure becomes someone else’s fault. Every setback demands a bigger gamble. If Trump’s past is any guide, the worst miscalculations are ahead.

John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”

The one thing missing from Trump's Iran war that doomed every unpopular war before it

By Charles Walldorf, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Wake Forest University.

It’s clear that regime change is among the biggest objectives of the U.S. war in Iran.

“I have to be involved in the appointment” of Iran’s next leader, President Donald Trump said on March 5, 2026.

Trump has also said he might put U.S. boots on the ground to get the job done.

Trump now joins a long list of modern U.S. presidents – from Franklin Roosevelt to Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, George W. Bush and Barack Obama – who started wars to either overthrow hostile regimes or support embattled friendly governments abroad.

For all the parallels to history, though, Trump’s Iran war is historically unique in one critically important way: In its early stages, the war is not popular with the American public.

A recent CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans oppose the war — a trend found in poll after poll since the war began.

As an expert on U.S. foreign policy and regime change wars, my research shows that what’s likely generating public opposition to the Iran war today is the absence of a big story with a grand purpose that has bolstered public support for just about every major U.S.-promoted regime change war since 1900. These broad, purpose-filled narratives generate public buy-in to support the costs of war, which are often high in terms of money spent and lives lost when regime change is at stake.

Two historical examples

In the 1930s and 40s, a widely accepted – and largely true – story about the dangers of fascism spreading and democracies falling galvanized national support in the United States to enter and then take on the high costs of fighting in World War II.

Likewise, in the 2000s a dominant narrative about preventing a repeat of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and stopping terrorism brought strong initial public support for the war in Afghanistan, with 88 percent support in 2001, and the war in Iraq, with 70 percent support in 2003.

With no comparable narrative around Iran today, Trump and Republicans could face big problems, especially as costs continue to rise.

No anti-Iran narrative

Iran has been a thorn in the side of many American presidents for a long time. So, what’s missing? Why no grand-purpose narrative at the start of this war?

Two things.

First, grand-purpose narratives are rooted in major geopolitical gains by a rival regime — the danger to the U.S. For the anti-fascism narrative, those events were German troops plowing across Europe and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. For the anti-terrorism narrative, it was planes crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Gains like these by rivals prove traumatic to the nation. They also dislodge the status quo and provide the opportunity for new grand-purpose narratives with new policy directions to emerge.

Today, most Americans see no existential danger around Iran. A Marist poll from March 3, 2026, found that 55 percent of Americans view Iran as a minor threat or no threat at all. And the number who see Iran as a major threat, 44 percent, is down from 48 percent in July 2025.

By contrast, 64 percent of Americans saw Iraq as a “considerable threat” prior to the 2003 U.S. war in Iraq.

The poll numbers on Iran aren’t surprising. Iran is far from a geopolitical menace to the United States today. To the contrary, it’s been in geopolitical retreat in the Middle East in recent years.

In the summer of 2025, Iran’s nuclear nuclear enrichment facilities were significantly damaged — “completely and totally obliterated,” according to Trump, though there is no confirmation of that claim — during the 12-Day war between Iran and Israel.

And in recent years, Tehran has lost a major ally in Syria and witnessed its proxy network all but collapse. Iran has also faced crippling economic conditions and historic protests at home.

As the polls show, none of that has sparked a grand-purpose narrative.

Missing a good story

The second missing factor for narrative formation today is any strong messaging from the White House.

In the months prior to World War II, Roosevelt used his position of authority as president to give speech after speech, setting the context of the traumatic events of the 1930s, explaining the dangers at hand and outlining a course going forward. Though less truthful in its content, Bush did the same for nearly two years before the Iraq War.

Trump did almost none of this storytelling leading up to the Iran war. Five days before the war started, the president devoted three minutes to Iran in a nearly two-hour State of the Union Address.

Prior to that, he made a comment here and there to the press about Iran, but no storytelling preparing the nation for war. Likewise, since the war began, the administration’s stated reasons for military action keep shifting.

No wonder 54 percent of Americans polled disapprove of Trump’s handling of Iran and 60 percent of Americans say Trump has no clear plan for Iran. Also, 60 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of foreign policy in general.

By comparison, Americans approved of Bush’s handling of foreign policy by 63 percent in early 2003.

Absent a cohesive, unifying story, it’s also no surprise there is lots of political fracturing today.

Partisan divides run deep — Democrats and independent voters strongly oppose the war. But Trump’s MAGA coalition is cracking too, with people like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene sharply criticizing the war.

The way out

If he opts for it, there is an off-ramp for Trump from the Iran war. It’s one he knows well.

When U.S. leaders get caught up in costly regime change wars that outrun national support, they tend to back down, often with far fewer political costs than if they’d continued their unpopular war.

When the disaster referred to as Black Hawk Down hit in Somalia in 1993, killing 18 U.S. Marines, President Bill Clinton opted to end the mission to topple the warlords that ruled the country. Troops came home six months later.

Likewise, after the Benghazi attack killed four Americans in Libya in 2012, Obama pulled out all U.S. personnel working in Libya on nation-building operations.

And just last year, when Trump realized that U.S. ground troops would be necessary to topple the Houthi militant group in Yemen, he negotiated a ceasefire and ended his air war in that country with no significant political fallout.

With Trump’s Iran war, gas prices keep rising, more soldiers are likely to die, and stocks are highly volatile.

Backing down makes a lot of sense. History confirms that.

This Trump move pushed us to the brink — but there's still a way to put things right

As we reach the 12th day of the war in Iran — with death and destruction rippling throughout the Middle East — it’s important to bear in mind where the real failure of this lies.

So far, at least 2,000 people have been killed, including 175 Iranian schoolchildren, and seven American service members. At least 140 U.S. service members have been wounded, several critically. The final tallies on both sides will almost certainly be far higher.

Soaring oil and gas prices in the U.S. are inevitably hitting the poor and working class much harder than the affluent.

We’re spending huge resources on this war — roughly $1 billion per day, or $41,666,667 per hour, $11,574 per second.

These are resources that could be better spent improving the lives of the American people.

Americans need health care. Affordable housing. Child care and elder care. Better schools. We want our basic needs met. But the government has said we “can’t afford” these things.

Yet supposedly we can afford nearly $1 trillion for the Pentagon. Trump now says the Pentagon needs $500 billion more.

The tragic failure at the center of this devastation is not that most Americans have succumbed to war fever. To the contrary, poll after poll shows that most Americans do not support this war.

In fact, this is the first war America has entered in modern times without a majority in support.

The real failure is that the richest and most powerful nation in the world — the nation that has led the world since World War II and that established the postwar international order emphasizing multilateralism, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law — is now being led by a rogue president who rejects all these values.

One man has decided for himself to make this war. One lone person has initiated this mayhem without gaining Congress’s approval, without getting the approval of allies, without even articulating a clear reason for it.

The lone person who sits in the Oval Office has no endgame for this war, hasn’t given a consistent answer for what “victory” will require, and doesn’t appear to know what he’s doing.

One single individual is now wreaking havoc — lives lost, energy prices soaring, our treasury being emptied, our own needs overlooked, and potential future terrorism unleashed on this and other lands for years to come.

This war marks an overwhelming failure of American democracy. It is ultimately our failure.

What can we do now?

On March 28 — two weeks from this coming Saturday — we march across America in the largest demonstration in the nation’s history.

In coming weeks and months, we harden our elections systems so they cannot be overridden by the despot in the White House.

In November, we turn out the largest numbers ever recorded for a midterm election, to take back leadership of Congress from those who have enabled this rogue president.

Meanwhile, we continue to defend our communities, protect our immigrant friends and neighbors from state violence, and defend our universities and schools, our museums and libraries, and our media and newspapers from state despotism.

The best way for us to respond to the devastation of this war, in other words, is to strengthen the mechanisms that should never have allowed it to occur in the first place.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Trump's disastrous incompetence exposed with 5 obvious questions he never answered

Minimally competent leaders would have considered at least five obvious questions before launching the nation into war. President Donald Trump considered none of them.

1: What’s the objective?

It’s not surprising that more than half of all Americans oppose Trump’s War. From the outset, his administration has offered numerous and contradictory justifications for it.

February 28: Trump cited 47 years of grievances, a desire to destroy Iran’s missiles, and a message that the Iranian people should “seize the moment” because now was their chance to “be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country.”

But he also said that the attack was a campaign to “eliminate the imminent nuclear threat,” although he had boasted in June that the United States had already accomplished that goal.

The same day, Trump told the Washington Post, “All I want if freedom for the people.”

United Nations Ambassador Mike Walz claimed to the UN Security Council that the US was invoking the right of self-defense in response to Iran’s imminent threat.

But the next day, Pentagon officials told congressional staff members that no intelligence supported the notion that Iran was planning to attack the US first.

March 2: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told the press that the objective was retaliation for decades of Iranian behavior, destruction of their missiles, and providing an opportunity for Iranians to “take advantage of this incredible opportunity.”

But only hours later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a new justification for the war: Israel was going to attack Iran and, if that happened, Iran would then attack US interests in the region. He made it sound as if Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had maneuvered Trump into a corner.

The next day, Trump contradicted Rubio, saying: “It was my opinion that they [Iran] were going to attack first. They were going to attack if we didn’t do it.” Rebutting any impression that Netanyahu had manipulated him, Trump added, “If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”

Rubio complained that his earlier remarks had been taken out of context and the operation “had to happen anyway.”

March 6: Trump posted on social media that only “unconditional surrender” would end the war.

2: How long will it last?

March 1: Trump told the New York Times the operation could take “four to five weeks.” He didn’t mention the Pentagon’s concerns that the war could further deplete reserves that military strategists have said are critical for scenarios such as a conflict over Taiwan or Russian incursions into Europe.

March 2: Trump said that the war could go on longer than four to five weeks.

March 4: Hegseth said that the Iran war is “far from over” and has “only just begun.”

March 6: Trump told the New York Post he hadn’t ruled out putting “boots on the ground, if necessary.”

3: Who will lead Iran after its Supreme Leader is killed?

March 1: Trump told the New York Times he had “three very good choices” for who could lead Iran.

March 3: Trump admitted: “Most of the people we had in mind are dead… Now we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports. So I guess you have a third wave coming. Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.” Asked about the worst-case scenario for the war, Trump said, “I guess the worst case would be we do this and somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person.”

More than a dozen Middle East countries are now embroiled in Trump’s war, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

March 5: Trump told Axios, “I have to be involved in the appointment [of Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s successor], like with Delcy in Venezuela” — referring to Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who remained in charge of Nicolás Maduro’s corrupt and repressive regime after the US abducted him. Trump said that Khamenei’s son — then rumored to be a leading candidate as successor — was “unacceptable to me” and “a light weight.”

The same day, he told NBC News, “We have some people who I think would do a good job.”

March 7: The Washington Post reported that a classified National Intelligence Committee study issued prior to the war found that even if the US launched a large-scale assault on Iran, it likely would not oust the Islamic republic’s entrenched military and clerical establishment.

March 9: Iran chose Khamenei’s son, a cleric expected to continue his father’s hardline policies, as the country’s Supreme Leader.

4: How would a war affect the Middle East?

Before US bombs began to fall, thousands of American citizens were in the war zone. But ahead of the strikes, the State Department didn’t issue official alerts advising Americans that the risk of travel in the region had increased.

Yael Lempert, who helped organize the evacuation of Americans in Libya in 2011, observed, “It is stunning there were no orders for authorized departure for nonessential US government employees and family members in almost all the affected diplomatic missions in the region — nor public recommendations to American citizens to depart — until days into the war.”

After attacks and counterattacks closed airspace and airports throughout the region, on Wednesday, March 4 — four days into the war — the State Department finally began evacuations by charter flight. The following day, the New York Times reported:

Until midweek, the State Department had mainly provided stranded travelers with basic information about security conditions and commercial travel options via a telephone hotline and text messages. Before Wednesday, desperate people calling the hotline got an automated message that said the US government could not help get them out of the region.

5: Could the war lead to humanitarian, economic, or geopolitical crises?

Only a week into the war, the UN humanitarian chief warned, “This is a moment of grave, grave peril.”

Iran is a country of 90 million people. US-Israel bombing has already displaced more than 100,000 of them.

Israel’s companion attack on Lebanon has displaced more than 300,000 residents.

More than a dozen countries are now embroiled in Trump’s war, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

The ripple effects span the globe as oil prices spike and Iran disrupts tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz — through which one-fifth of the world’s oil flows. During his state of the union message, Trump boasted that the price of gasoline was down to $2,00 per gallon in some states. Last week, the national average price in the US was $3.41 per gallon.

Ominously, on March 6 the Washington Post reported that Russia is providing intelligence assistance to the Iranian military attacking US targets. But Hegseth is “not concerned about that.”

Asked to rate his Iran war performance on a scale of one to 10, Trump gave himself a “15.”

Introspection rarely accompanies incompetence.

Steven J. Harper is an attorney, adjunct professor at Northwestern University Law School, and author of several books, including Crossing Hoffa: A Teamster's Story and The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis. He has been a regular columnist for Moyers on Democracy, Dan Rather's News and Guts, and The American Lawyer. Follow him at thelawyerbubble.com.

A murderous thug has dirt on Trump. Nothing else explains this madness

I never thought I’d see the day when an American president showed greater loyalty to a foreign adversary than to his own people, in a time of war.

But this is where we’re at with Donald John Trump and his mysterious adoration for, and apparent shrinking fear of, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. It’s one of those love affairs that continues to defy logic yet is no longer questioned.

Trump won’t say a nasty word about Russia and certainly not about Putin. What could Putin have on Trump that turned him into such an unquestioning kowtowing toady, submitting to his leader’s every whim, defending his every position?

Trump somehow trusts the word of a murderous, deceitful thug, an international pariah, over any nonpartisan body in his own country.

The suspicion is that whatever Putin has on Trump is very, very bad. Epstein-related, maybe. It has to be something serious, because it’s not as if Trump is the kind of guy who just turns and grovels in the presence of any old brute.

I don’t buy the argument that it’s about respect, or fanboy support, even as Trump regularly calls Putin “strong,” “smart,” and “a genius.” No, this feels much more like persistent menace.

But not only is Trump’s behavior surrounding Putin pathetic and maddening: it’s grown increasingly dangerous.

This has become clear now that credible reports have surfaced about how Russia is sharing intelligence with Iran, to help it target U.S. military personnel and assets in the Middle East, providing locations of warships and aircraft.

It isn’t that this is a surprise. Far from it. Russia is perhaps Iran’s strongest ally. Putin’s aides acknowledge they are on Iran’s side. It makes sense Russia would be doing all it can to help Iran vanquish its enemy.

No, the only part that doesn’t easily compute is the reaction of the Trump administration. Instead of even pretending to be concerned by the news it has soft-peddled it, as if having been told that the countries are merely sharing opinions on their soccer teams.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to this news with a shrug and the head-scratching words, “It does not really matter.”

What? It “does not really matter” that an enemy is feeding intel to a nation you are fighting, and the chief executive of the United States continues to treat that enemy’s leader like a treasured pal?

She later expounded, “It clearly is not making any difference with respect to the military operation in Iran, because we are completely decimating them.”

Here's the reality: The thing that actually does not really matter is how well America may or may not be doing in the war with Iran. That isn’t the point. The point is that Russia is doing this, and this administration is continuing to treat it as an ally.

Of course, any flippant retort must be seen in light of the reality that Trump is and has always been Putin’s bitch. Everyone associated has gotten the memo and understands that Dear Leader will tolerate no dissing of Vladimir even if he is putting our troops directly in harm’s way.

It’s even worse than that, actually. Since Trump (via the U.S. Treasury) issued a temporary waiver this month, allowing India to purchase embargoed Russian crude oil and petroleum products, the president is helping line Russia's pockets with money it can use to help gather information that will lead to endangering our troops.

In effect, Trump is paying Russia to help Iran attack the U.S.

Let that sink in.

There’s a word for this: treason.

How much more evidence do people need that for whatever reason Trump cares more about Russia than he does the nation he serves as president? This isn’t hyperbole. It’s right there to see.

You have to imagine Russia might not be restricting its intel to the Middle East. It could be feeding Iran info on where we might be vulnerable to a 9/11-style attack.

If that happens, I doubt the Trump response would be, “Doesn’t matter. It’s war, and innocent people are going to get hurt. If it weren’t Russia, it would have been somebody else.”

But here is what Trump actually said about Russia over the weekend, onboard Air Force One: “If you take a look at what’s happened in Iran in the last week, if they’re getting information, it’s not helping that much.”

Again, this is essentially a confirmation that reports of Russian assistance to Iran may be accurate. Everyone associated with Trump, including Trump, understands that this read on the situation is senseless, but saying anything even remotely negative about Russia and Putin is out of bounds.

As usual, what Trump cares about most is taking care of Trump. During Saturday’s dignified transfer returning the remains of six U.S. soldiers killed in the conflict with Iran, he wore a white USA baseball cap, on sale for $55 in his campaign store.

If you’re Trump, there is no such thing as demonstrating class or even the thinnest volume of compassion for people who die for their country. Unless, of course, the country in question is Russia.

Ray Richmond is a longtime journalist/author and an adjunct professor at Chapman University in Orange, CA.

Here's how the Iran war is becoming very dangerous indeed

By Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, Clinton Institute, University College Dublin.

The conflict in the Middle East continues, and is showing no sign of letting up. Israeli and US warplanes have continued to strike targets inside Iran, which has prompted retaliatory attacks throughout the region. An American submarine has also sunk an Iranian navy ship off the coast of Sri Lanka, killing at least 80 people, while Nato defences intercepted a missile heading towards Turkey.

US officials, who initially envisioned the conflict in Iran lasting four to five weeks, are now warning it may go on far longer. “We are accelerating, not decelerating,” Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters on March 4, adding that “more bombers and more fighters are arriving just today”. We asked Middle East expert Scott Lucas how dangerous the situation has become.

You’ve called this ‘uncontained war’. What do you mean by that?

Once the Iranian regime retaliated, hours after initial US-Israel airstrikes that it was later revealed killed Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, this was no longer just an American-Israeli war on Iran. Tehran, which had refrained from retaliation beyond Israel in the 12-day war in 2025, was taking this across the region.

This was a war in the Gulf states, where Iran fired not only on American bases but also industrial areas, ports and tankers. This was a war in Lebanon, where Israel responded to Hezbollah rocket fire with airstrikes and an expansion of its occupation in the south of the country. This was the possibility of war spreading to Iraq, where the US military and CIA may be supporting Iranian Kurds for a cross-border incursion.

It is now possibly also a war beyond the Middle East. A drone attacked the UK’s RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus and an Iranian missile has been intercepted flying towards Turkey. Drones have struck an airport and school in Azerbaijan. Iran has denied responsibility but the Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, has put his armed forces on high readiness.

How dangerous a moment is this?

War is always dangerous, of course, but this conflict is compounded by the shattering of any international “rules of the game”. The US and Israel have blatantly violated international law. They have assassinated the head of another country and his senior officials.

The United Nations can condemn the strikes, but this will be easily disregarded by Israel and the US. Donald Trump has historically taken little notice of UN criticism, and said in January that his power is limited only by his “own morality”. European countries can call for deescalation, but almost all have now prioritized working with the US on the defense of positions threatened by the Iranians.

China is maintaining a cautious position and Russia will be grateful that attention is being taken away from its invasion of Ukraine. If the Iranian regime does not surrender, there does not appear to be anyone or anything capable of checking the US and Israeli attacks — and thus the retaliatory shocks across the region and beyond.

Is there a risk that Nato will be drawn in?

Nato is already drawn in. Once Iran went beyond the Middle East to threaten Cyprus and Turkey, then the bloc had to take action. However, while Nato forces downed the missile heading towards Turkish airspace, the alliance is not yet discussing invoking Article 5 (the agreement that an attack on one Nato member is considered an attack on all).

The alliance has also become involved in the conflict verbally to ensure the Trump camp does not abandon Ukrainian and European security at a sensitive point in talks to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, already known for calling Trump “daddy”, has given fulsome praise to the war even as some Nato members like Spain condemn it.

In a recent interview with a German television channel, Rutte said: “It’s really important what the US is doing here, together with Israel, because it is taking out, degrading the capacity of Iran to get its hands on nuclear capability.”

Where are the Gulf states in this? What happened to Qatar’s attempts to mediate?

The Gulf states are likely to be happy that Iran’s supreme leader and others in his circle have been assassinated. For decades, Khamenei had pursued a strategy of expanding Iran’s influence across the Middle East — directly threatening Gulf monarchies. However, they are loathe to see regime change, fearing the disorder and instability that marked Iraq after the 2003 US invasion.

They have been trying to pull back the Trump administration — an initiative by Qatar to persuade Trump into finding an off-ramp is notable — but they have to do so quietly. Open opposition to the US president risks even more serious disruption of the political and economic situation, with no guarantee that a triggered Trump will listen.

There is a further complication because of division among the Gulf states. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait put some of the blame for the rising hostilities in the Middle East on the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, for their policy of normalising relations with Israel. They claim this has emboldened the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

So far, the quiet push for deescalation does not appear to have succeeded. Without naming Qatar or another Gulf partner, Trump said on March 3 there will be no talks with Tehran.

The US and Israel are reportedly arming Kurdish groups. How could that change things?

With Plan A for regime surrender not succeeding so far, the Trump camp has had to consider what to do next. More bombing and an incursion by ground forces are two options, as is supporting an insurrection by Iranian Kurds.

It appears the US president and his senior advisers (along with their Israeli allies) may opt for the Kurdish option. According to reports, Trump has in recent days called Kurdish minority leaders to offer them “extensive US air cover” and other backing if they enter the conflict.

But the Iranian regime will undoubtedly unleash its military against the insurgents, throwing the west of the country into further turmoil. And it will have a justification to rally Iranians around the nation, despite the mass protests that were crushed in January.

Even if the US can support the insurgency in splitting off part of Iran, what happens to the rest of the country? What does Plan B offer other than instability and fragmentation that could parallel post-2003 Iraq?

This does not bring an assurance that the regime’s retaliation will be halted soon. Meanwhile, the US military is facing a shortage of interceptors which — if Iran’s firepower has not been expended — maintains the threat facing the Gulf states.

Scott Lucas joined University College Dublin in 2022 as Professor of International Politics, having been on the staff of the University of Birmingham since 1989. He began his career as a specialist in US and British foreign policy, but his research interests now also cover current international affairs — especially North Africa, the Middle East, and Iran – New Media, and Intelligence Services. A professional journalist since 1979, Professor Lucas is the founder and editor of EA WorldView, a leading website in daily news and analysis of Iran, Turkey, Syria, and the wider Middle East, as well as US foreign policy.

Trump is about to get a brutal history lesson

On Monday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth held a press briefing to justify the war in Iran. Praising Donald Trump’s lawlessness, he said, “America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history … No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win.”

Aside from such dangerous hubris befitting a 12-year-old boy, the most shocking aspect of Trump bombing Iran without Constitutional or Congressional authority is that the administration’s “planning” does not seem to match or even appreciate the risks involved.

Many security analysts agree with Sen. Mark Kelly (R-AZ) and Trump that Iran should never be allowed to have nuclear weapons, because no state that exports jihadist martyrdom should have nuclear weapons.

But the precarity of attacking a nation allegedly only one week away from nuclear capacity demands precision and sober objectives, not saber-rattling or changing rationales tweeted at two in the morning. The Trump administration’s lax and lawless messaging suggests either chilling indifference, lack of discipline, or rogue intentions, all dangerous characteristics in the context of nuclear weapons.

Trump has not offered clear political or military objectives, nor explained how the use of force, at this time, is in our best national interest. Instead, Trump’s rationale for war keeps shifting, from immediate national security threats, to humanitarian concerns, to regime change, suggesting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played Trump to do what no other president was reckless enough to do in service to Israel’s interests, not our own.

Even the laudable goal of eliminating Iran’s nuclear capacity becomes suspect in light of Trump’s worldwide victory tour last June, declaring that airstrikes then had “totally eradicated” Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium.

On June 25, 2025, the White House released an official statement titled “Iran's Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated — and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News.” Either Trump was lying then or he is lying now. It’s never smart to trust liars on matters of life and death.

Anti-American sentiment

Human rights organizations reported that tens of thousands of Iranian civilians were executed in January for protesting their repressive governance under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He is now dead. Other than an estimated 15 percent of Iranians who support the Islamic Republic theocracy, no one will miss him, least of all families of people he tortured and slaughtered.

But for everyone involved, in the absence of a clear strategy, purpose, method, or plan for what comes next, the only reliable predictor of outcome is the recent past.

This is not the first time the U.S. has gone to war in the Middle East, seeking regime change. We’ve tried it multiple times, and in every case we have learned that the initial success of ousting a leader is not followed by the establishment of a long-term, stable, or Western-friendly alternative.

Instead, just the opposite happens. When we create a power vacuum, someone even more dangerous, more radical, and more antagonistic rises to power. In fact, Khamenei came to power as a direct result of the last time the US sought regime change in Iran.

Regime change efforts

Americans now slave to algorithms may have forgotten that we were responsible for putting the Islamic Revolution in motion. In 1953, the CIA and British intelligence organized a coup to overthrow Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who was democratically elected, because he nationalized the Iranian oil industry. (Sound familiar?)

After the overthrow, the U.S. reinstated Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who implemented such increasingly autocratic rule that the Iranians began to hate both him and the U.S., for putting him in power. Hatred of the Shah led to intense anti-American sentiment. The 1979 Islamic Revolution to get rid of the Shah ended with a new Islamic Republic empowering Ayatollah Khomeini and his extremist, stone-women-to-death-for-showing-their-hair clerics. We are now bombing Iran to topple the regime we caused.

History suggests we are also repeating mistakes from other Middle East interventions:

Iraq: In 2003, the US invaded Iraq under the color of a claim that it was developing weapons of mass destruction. The invasion removed Saddam Hussein, which lead to a power vacuum, sectarian violence and the rise of extremist groups like ISIS. More than 20 years later, Iraq remains destabilized.
Afghanistan: Following 9/11, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power. After a 20-year occupation and US-led efforts at nation-building, the Taliban returned to power in 2021, after Joe Biden withdrew U.S. forces.
Libya: In 2011, a U.S.-led NATO intervention was meant to protect civilians by removing Muammar al-Qaddafi. As in Iran today, there was no post-regime plan, which left a power vacuum and transformed Libya into a failed state of widespread misery, a current training ground for militant extremists.
Syria: Also in 2011, the U.S. provided aid and military assistance to opposition groups in the Syrian Civil War with the stated objective of pressuring Bashar al-Assad to leave office. He remained in control of much of the country until 2024, even using chemical agents against his own citizens.

The results are clear and consistent: toppling Middle East authoritarians has, in every case, led to the emergence of even more radicalized factions, resulting in more danger and unintended national security consequences for America.

In just over a year, while seeking praise as a “peacemaker,” Trump has authorized military action in seven nations. In Iran, we are once again ignoring history, this time under an administration that can’t seem to comprehend laws, norms, or nuance.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the Substack, The Haake Take.