My Honest Take On The War In Iran

Today, of course, I want to examine the military operation in Iran. It will not surprise any of my followers to learn that I am skeptical of this operation, as I am usually skeptical of military interventions in far-off countries on the other side of the globe. That’s my position, and I’m not going to abandon it now, even as certain segments of the base become inflamed with war fever and demand that the rest of us fall in line.

But I am also an American patriot. I love my country, and I want it to succeed. Which means that I am not rooting for this war to be a failure, obviously, nor am I weeping over the poor Iranian regime and its leaders who are now scattered, in many pieces, across the desert sand. Good riddance to them, as far as I’m concerned. You wouldn’t know it based on what you see on social media, especially X over the weekend, but there is actually a lane for people in this camp, my camp.

There is a lane for people who are skeptical of military intervention and regime change wars, but also aren’t siding with the Iranian regime and actively rooting for America to fail.

Not only does the lane exist in real life, but it’s where, I would estimate, a great majority of normal Americans live.

With that in mind, I want to examine this issue as fairly and objectively as I can. One thing we know for sure is that it is never more difficult to recognize the limits of what you know — and to ask honest and good-faith questions about what you don’t know — than it is during a once-in-a-generation war in which millions of lives, including American lives, will potentially be changed. It’s not natural for a political commentator or a politician to admit this, but it’s true.

For decades, Democrats have pursued a policy of appeasing Iran, on the theory that money and diplomatic concessions would forestall the development of a nuclear bomb.

On the other hand, Republicans have been split between two factions: The neocon “axis of Evil” hardliners who chant “bomb Iran” on the one hand, and the “America First” proponents on the other — many of whom voted for Donald Trump because he promised to keep the United States out of needless regime change wars.

America and Israel are currently bombing internal suppression targets all across Iran.

The goal is to have the right conditions in place for the Iranian people to overthrow this regime forever.

Stand with Iran.pic.twitter.com/nITqsKuSFZ

— 𝐍𝐢𝐨𝐡 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐠 🇮🇷 ✡︎ (@NiohBerg) March 1, 2026

Source: @NiohBerg/X.com

Every single one of these factions, at the moment, has reason to be furious. And therefore, they have an incentive to confuse the public about what’s happening in Iran.

Democrats didn’t get their peace treaty, where the mullahs and the Supreme Leader hold hands and announce that they’ll never attempt to build a dirty bomb ever again.

The neocons didn’t get their full-scale ground invasion, complete with “boots on the ground,” a new democratic Iranian Constitution drafted by the United States, and lucrative nation-building contracts — at least not yet.

And many “America First” voters, myself included, are wondering how, exactly, the invasion of Iran will advance the interests of the United States. We should not do anything at all outside the borders of our country, or within them, unless it will first and foremost benefit Americans. And the benefit must be a net gain, which means the reward for Americans is greater than the cost we must pay to procure it.

Is that the case here?

Well, other than a 3:00 am address from Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday night, which broadly argued that Iran has been a threat to the United States for many decades, that case simply wasn’t sufficiently made in the lead-up to this operation. It still hasn’t been made. And it certainly hasn’t been subjected to any kind of rigorous scrutiny.

You can make the argument that, because the beginning of the war in Iran was a highly sensitive military operation involving classified intelligence that could change at a moment’s notice, it’s not prudent for the White House to lay out its case in detail ahead of time. After all, the president is the commander-in-chief of the military for a reason, and he’s entitled to deference when it comes to national security.

But there are two major problems with this argument.

First of all, U.S. military deployments to the Persian Gulf over the past few weeks have been extensive and obvious. This was not a surprise attack, or anything close to it. There’s no reason why the president couldn’t have addressed Congress, explained the status of the negotiations with Iran, and then outlined a plan of action in case those negotiations failed — including some suggestion of what would happen after Iran’s government was toppled. That didn’t happen, even though the president had a chance to do so, during the State of the Union.

But even if you give the administration a pass on this, you still have to wonder why the silence from the White House has persisted. No senior administration official, or Cabinet member, appeared on any of the Sunday shows the other day, more than 24 hours after the attacks began. They don’t seem interested in explaining how the war is going, why they felt they had to strike at this moment, or what Iran will look like in five months or five years.

Over the weekend, information solely came through press releases and Truth Social posts. This morning, War Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine held the first press conference to discuss the mission, more than 48 hours after the start of the war.

When asked if the United States would put boots on the ground, this is how Caine replied:

Source: ABC 7 News WJLA/YouTube.com

So what is our objective? Is it regime change? Here’s what Hegseth actually said:

“This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change”

The term “Orwellian” can be overused and cliched… but it was invented for utterances like this pic.twitter.com/cCiCJavTin

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) March 2, 2026

Source: @mtracey/X.com

Secretary Hegseth said, “This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change.”

A lot of people on the internet are saying this is the Iraq War 2.0. The administration and War Hawks are saying it isn’t.

It’s important to lay out some historical context for those of you who don’t remember what happened in 2003, or weren’t born yet. Back then, the Bush administration would often use the Sunday shows to make the case for regime change in Iraq. They would fabricate information on occasions, as it turned out. But they were also grilled, over and over again. They knew that NBC’s “Meet the Press” wasn’t friendly territory for them. They knew that the Sunday shows were biased in favor of the Left. But the Bush administration still felt compelled to make its case before a hostile and skeptical audience, one way or another.

Just days before the invasion, Vice President Dick Cheney went on one of those shows and said, “I think [the invasion] will go relatively quickly… weeks rather than months.”

A few weeks later, after the situation spiraled out of control, the Washington Post reported that “[Deputy Secretary of Defense] Paul D. Wolfowitz, told reporters that defense officials made assumptions that ‘turned out to underestimate the problem,’ beginning with the belief that removing Saddam Hussein from power would also remove the threat posed by his Baath Party. In addition, they erred in assuming that significant numbers of Iraqi army units, and large numbers of Iraqi police, would quickly join the U.S. military and its civilian partners in rebuilding Iraq, he said.”

Now back in the present day, yesterday, the Washington Post reported that “inside the Pentagon, and among some members of the Trump administration, there was deepening concern Sunday that the Iran conflict could spiral out of control.”

Iran and Iraq are two different countries, that’s true. And a lot of things about those two situations are different. But they aren’t as different as the proponents of this war would have you believe. It is definitely not unreasonable to wonder if, and to worry that, the early days of this conflict — and the stated reason for it — resemble those events in 2003.

So the reasoning we’re hearing, so far, simply is not good enough. I acknowledge that the White House has access to all kinds of information that I don’t have. They could have reasons for doing what they’re doing that I don’t know about or understand. But that’s an argument we’ve heard before. Not just during Iraq. I mean much more recently. It’s what we heard during COVID, when all of the people with more information chose a course of action that was disastrous for the country, and we still haven’t recovered. The “trust the experts” logic died with COVID and it’s never coming back.

From now on and forever more, the experts will need to make their case clearly and coherently, explain exactly what they’re doing and why they’re doing it and what the end game is and what information justifies whatever course of action they’ve chosen. Just simply trusting that they have it all under control is not going to work anymore — at least for those of us with a memory that stretches back farther than last week.

To the extent that an objective has been clearly laid out, stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons appears to be the primary one. But the problem is that we were told that Iran’s nuclear program was obliterated — that’s the White House’s own phrasing — just a few months ago. So how could Iran’s nuclear program go from total obliteration and annihilation to a matter so urgent that we have to go to war over it, all in the span of seven or eight months? This is a question that still has not been even close to coherently answered. It is a fundamental hole in the logic behind this entire thing.

The question about the endgame, on the other hand, is very important. It’s by far the most important question. What exactly is the endgame? “The Iranian people rise up and take control of their government,” is what we’ve heard. That’s what Trump called for in his address on Saturday night. Well, okay, but what does that mean exactly? Which people? How are they taking control? What happens after they do take control? Are we sure the new people, whoever they are, will be better than the old people? How are we going to make sure of that? How are we going to make sure of it while also not putting boots on the ground? This has not been explained. It needs to be.

It’s just a basic fact of life that, generally speaking, the most ruthless and violent forces will be the ones who seize the crown. What exactly is the mechanism by which we plan to ensure that the secular “pro-western” factions in Iran, who are by definition not barbaric killers, somehow manage to fill the power vacuum and prevail over the factions that are barbaric killers?

I’m not a foreign policy expert. I admit that. I’m just a common-sense guy and a student of history. So, someone explain it to me. If you blow up the government, how is it not very likely that militant killers who are as bad or worse than the old regime fill the void?

However much trust you may have in Donald Trump and his administration, this is the reality he must contend with. It’s perfectly reasonable for Americans to be skeptical of regime change wars in the Middle East. Trump himself was skeptical of them. The idea that we are obligated to just assume it’s a good move because Trump decided to do it is asinine, not to mention un-American. And that’s especially true since, at the moment, powerful voices in the conservative movement are calling for a long war in Iran — which is explicitly contrary to what most of Trump’s voters want.

Here’s the Wall Street Journal editorial board, for example.

It’s too soon for Iran off-ramps. … The first two days of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran have been a striking success, but the response of the Iranian regime has also revealed the reason it was necessary. The biggest mistake President Trump could make now would be to end the war too soon, before Iran’s military and its domestic terror forces have been more thoroughly destroyed.

Yes, the biggest mistake would be ending the war “too soon.” We can’t have a short and contained conflict, like the operation in Venezuela. Instead, we need an open-ended war. We need to stay until we eliminate their capability of engaging in acts of terrorism. Where have we heard this before? It sounds a lot like the argument that got us stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq for an entire generation.

So before that happens, the Trump administration needs to answer some questions.

In addition to clearly establishing a timeline, they need to tell us: Is it true, as some anonymous sources have claimed, that Iran was beginning to work on dirty bombs that could kill American citizens? Here’s one of the posts I’m talking about.

This is from Andrew Kolvet of Turning Point USA, in response to something I wrote on X:

In calling around a number of contacts today, it was clear there was growing urgency and concern in DC, even among the most stridently anti-war voices, that Iran was beginning to work on dirty bombs while making urgent appeals to China for hypersonics, which can sink US carriers in the region (which carry 5,000 servicemen).

While I don’t fault Andrew for sharing what he’s hearing, the problem with this kind of information is that it’s totally useless for the rest of us. There’s no one going on the record who’s saying this. In fact, we have some reporting that suggests a different posture from Iran.

This is from CNN, which isn’t a trustworthy source of information. But here it is:

Pentagon briefers acknowledged to congressional staff in a briefing Sunday that Iran was not planning to strike US forces or bases in the Middle East unless Israel attacked Iran first, [according to] multiple sources… This undercuts Trump admin’s argument on Saturday that Iran was planning to potentially strike the US preemptively & posed an imminent threat.

None of these claims, in any direction, are reliable because no one is answering these questions “on the record” with any specificity. In that sense, these reports are even less reliable than the narrative that led us into the Iraq War.

In 2003, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld went out in public and told the United Nations and “Meet the Press” that Iraq had WMD and that we knew precisely where those WMD were located. If they could lie on-camera, then there’s absolutely no reason to trust anonymous sources who tell Turning Point USA that Iran was on the verge of acquiring a dirty bomb, or “hypersonics.” Nor is there evidence that Iran wasn’t going to attack first. We need to actually see the evidence. And someone in the administration needs to explain it to us.

It does appear that, as Trump suggested at Mar-a-Lago, Iranians are happy that their Supreme Leader has been killed.

Watch:

MASSIVE Iranian, Pro-USA demonstration shutting down Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles just took a moment of silence for American service members who have died and then chanted “USA! USA!” Predominant pro-Trump sentiment. pic.twitter.com/euO8F6YRf9

— Matt Finn (@MattFinnFNC) March 1, 2026

Source: @MattFinn/X.com

Iranians living in Los Angeles — who shouldn’t even be in this country — took to the streets in celebration. So maybe they can go back home after this is over. 

And there were similar scenes in Tehran, as the New York Times reported.

Large crowds of men and women dancing and cheering, shouting, “Woohoo, hurrah.” Drivers passing by honked their car horns. Fireworks lit up the sky and loud Persian dance music filled the streets. Many residents, from their windows and balconies, joined in a chant of “freedom, freedom.’

Well, that’s good. But we don’t fight wars for the “freedom” of Iranians. Their freedom is not relevant to us. It may sound cruel, but to put it as frankly as possible, the question of whether or not Iranians are “free” should be of no concern to us whatsoever. That is their own issue to sort out. What’s relevant, in terms of mission objectives, is whether these people — I mean the right people among those people, whoever the right people are, which hasn’t been explained — will rise up and, as Trump suggested, complete our mission in Iran, whoever that is exactly. Is that going to materialize? How sure are we about this?

We need the administration to answer those questions. They also need to provide assurances — if they can — that this new power vacuum in the Middle East will actually be filled by pro-Western secular leaders. Has it worked that way at any point in the last 40 years, when we’ve overthrown a Muslim state? We all know what happened when the Obama administration, along with France and the UK, overthrew the government of Libya. More than a decade later, that war has produced millions of refugees, many of whom ended up in Europe. The economy of Libya — which was once a relatively bright spot in Africa — has been destroyed. Militia violence is commonplace. Slave markets returned.

Maybe that would be considered a success in Iran. I’m not being sarcastic; that could genuinely be the goal. It could be the case that the United States has decided that, if Iran is reduced to a dysfunctional, violent hellscape, with no functioning leadership, then America will be safer. After all, dysfunctional third-world countries typically aren’t capable of building nuclear weapons. But if that’s the goal, someone in the administration should tell us. And then we should debate the pros and cons of that rather risky approach. We should ensure that refugees from Iran won’t end up in Europe and the United States, where they can commit terrorist attacks. We should have some way of determining whether Iran’s “dirty bombs” — or the material to make them — will end up in the hands of terrorists. And, by the way, what happens if Israel is not on board with our approach? Because right now, they don’t appear to be. Instead, Israel is currently vowing to use the full weight of their military to go after Iran, which leaves open the possibility of a ground invasion. What happens then? Would the Trump administration assist in that kind of operation? Right now, we have no idea. Would Russia and China get involved? So far, they’ve shown no interest in the conflict, which is a good sign. It means World War III probably isn’t about to start. Will that continue if ground forces are involved?

And maybe the most important unanswered question — the one that has immediate ramifications for every American — is whether or not Iran has sleeper cells in the United States that could activate at any moment. We have no real guidance on this point whatsoever. The administration hasn’t shared any intelligence with us, one way or another.

Of course, our Muslim politicians like Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani shared their thoughts on the conflict.

Tlaib wrote the following post on social media in response to the attack on Iran:

Both the U.S. and genocidal Israel doesn’t care about the laws. This is who they are.

So she’s referring to the United States as “they.” This is who “they are.” She doesn’t even pretend that she’s an American, and why would she? The people who elected her despise this country. She’s giving them exactly what they want. So is Zohran Mamdani, the Muslim socialist who’s now in charge of New York — where a quarter of the population can’t even speak English anymore.

Here’s what Mamdani wrote.

Today’s military strikes on Iran — carried out by the United States and Israel — mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression. Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war. Americans do not want this. They do not want another war in pursuit of regime change. They want relief from the affordability crisis. They want peace.

So it’s not that we do not want another war when he’s talking about Americans. Instead, Mamdani says they do not want another war.” Again, he doesn’t see himself as an American, because he knows he isn’t one.

And pay attention to the other languages that Tlaib and Mamdani use. They call this an “illegal war,” as if international law actually exists. This is not a genuine, good-faith objection. It’s meaningless. Americans — people who actually care about this country — aren’t interested in talking about “international law.” 

We need to know how this war might benefit the United States. We’re open to the possibility that this war might, in fact, be the right course of action. Lacking information, as we’ve discussed, nobody can make an absolutely definitive proclamation with any credibility.

But we’re also open to the possibility that the war might undermine everything the Trump administration has achieved to this point. Yes, if this conflict ends up as a major success, with a minimal loss of life and a new, pro-Western Iran, then Donald Trump will go down as a hero. It’s certainly a possible outcome. Is it likely? Right now, we have no idea. We’re nine months from the midterms. Some polls show that the overwhelming number of Americans opposed going to war with Iran (although you’ll also find some mainstream polls showing that Americans support the war, if it means eliminating Iran’s nuclear capability — so to some extent, it depends on how you ask the question). But really, the polls aren’t the best indicator. People are generally supportive of invasions in the early days. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were popular at first. They ended up destroying Bush’s presidency, and led to eight years of Obama. Which means that, most likely, this operation in Iran is, right now, as popular as it will ever be. And no matter which poll you look at, it’s not that popular. That’s a bad sign, politically.

So what happens if this war becomes a quagmire and gives the Democratic Party a new platform to run on? What happens if the Wall Street Journal gets what they want — a war that continues for years and years, until Iran is incapable of committing acts of “terrorism,” however that’s defined? Right now, according to most generic congressional ballots, Republicans are roughly even with Democrats in the congressional races. That could change very quickly. And if this war costs Republicans the midterms and then the presidency, it will not have been worth it. Almost no matter how it turns out in Iran, it will not be worth it for us. Democrat rule here at home means tyranny for our people. Freedom for Iran in exchange for oppression for Americans is not a good trade. That would be just about the worst deal of the century. So it’s not enough for the president to talk about the USS Cole bombing, which took place more than 25 years ago. It’s not enough for him to talk about the attack on Israel in October of 2023, either. Why do we need to do this, for us, for our country, right now?

Whatever the answer, we are, right now, staring down the possibility of another indefinite conflict in the Middle East — one that could cost trillions of dollars, result in the deaths of more Americans, and accomplish nothing. It won’t necessarily turn out that way, but it could. And, to me, based on what we know right now, that does not seem to be a risk worth taking.

Less than a year ago, we were told that Iran’s nuclear capacity was decimated and totally obliterated. Those reassurances didn’t last long. So how do we know that this time, despite recent history, everything will be different? The answer is that we don’t know. We have no idea. And before the administration escalates this war even further, and before any more Americans die, they have an obligation to tell us.