Iran War Monthly Summaries: Month 1 (March 2026)

The current Iran War began on Febuary 28, a month ago, with the military attack by the US and Israel on Iran.

Trump, 10/09/2025 on the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas: “I think it’s going to be a lasting peace, hopefully an everlasting peace.” (1) [my emphasis]

Since then, Netanyahu’s government has continued to bomb, shoot and displace Palestinians in Gaza pretty much on a daily basis and is supporting a violent, murderous campaign of stealing land from Palestinians in the illegally occupied West Bank. And now driving out 700,000 or more Lebanese from their homes in what looks very much like a plan to annex a big piece of southern Lebanon. (2) Israel occupied southern Lebanon from 1982-2000, a period also known as the First Lebanon War. It was not a happy experience for either side.

Trump, March 12:

The US president made the comments before a speech and press conference in Florida where he sought to emphasise that the US military campaign would be ending soon amid mounting concerns from Republican allies. “I think the war is very complete, pretty much,” he said in a phone call with CBS News. “They have no navy, no communications, they’ve got no air force.”

During the press conference, in which he delivered a contradictory and confusing forecast for the war, he evaded a reporter’s question about whether that meant the war could end this week. “No, but soon. I think soon. Very soon.”

When reporters asked him to clarify whether the war was “very complete”, or, as the US defense secretary said, “this is just the beginning”, Trump told reporters: “I think you could say both … It’s the beginning of building a new country.” [my emphasis] (3)

So the war then was very complete – kinda, sorta. It wasn’t going to end that week but sometime very soon. Now wait, it was both very complete and also just the beginning.

The current Iran War began in February 28 with the US and Israeli bombing of Iran, thus beginning an illegal war of aggression whose end is not likely to come soon.

Western views tend to stereotype Iran’s clerical regime as a fanatical theocracy. They do have a theocracy. But it has shown itself to be capable of some adroit pragmatic diplomacy.

The US and Israel are both operating on reckless aspirations that are cheered on by serious Jewish-Zionist extremists in Israel and Christian nationalists in America.

Scott Lucas gave this assessment of how clueless the initial US-Israeli assumptions looked to be as of March 9, just over a week into the war, reflecting on how clueless the goal of regime change seemed to be: (4)

This is an update from Mr. Establishment-Foreign-Policy-Figure Richard Haass from March 13, expressing astonishment about how unprepared the Trump regime seemed to have been for the very foreseeable negative consequences of the US-Israel attack. He also talks with his interviewer Katie Couric about the surprising lack of preparation of US public opinion by the regime for this invasion. (5)

It continues to be one of the most surprising things about this war that their was no visible surge in support for it in the US at the start. Before now, even the dumbest and most illegitimate wars got an initial upward blip. Not this one.

Netanyahu’s authoritarian regime in Israel doesn’t seem to have any problem with public support for the war. The well-informed gadfly Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote on March 12:

The media is not only in the service of the Israel Defense Forces spokesperson but also in the service of the military censor.

With this kind of media, there's no point in fighting for a free press, because the media itself is not on the side of freedom. The fact is that no one ordered it to hide what was really happening in the Gaza Strip for 2 1/2 years, and no one ordered it to be proudly obedient. [my emphasis] (6)

In an earlier column during this war’s first week, Levy reflected on how Israeli society, in his view, has become essentially a state constantly at war:

It's wartime again, with the war, yet again, coming to solve Israel's existential problems once and for all.

It will again be declared a stunning victory at first, with everyone applauding, with [even opposition leader] Yair Lapid writing that we are a strong and united nation and with analysts competing over who can laud Israel's brave feats more, all of this until the next satisfying venture.

Again, almost all Israelis are convinced that there is no war more justified or successful than this one, and "what choice did we have?" and "what do you propose?" as in all of Israel's wars. This cheering could already be heard in TV panels on Friday evening, with salivating panelists eagerly waiting for this moment as if they were waiting for the Messiah. The release came Saturday, lasting only until the next round of pleasure, which will arrive earlier than expected. (7)

Israel is clearly aiming to turn Iran into a fragmented “failed state,” a decades-long ambition of Bibi Netanyahu’s. Lubna Masarwa wrote during the war’s first week:

Many Israeli media sites have also wondered whether history was repeating itself. Avri Gilad, a veteran television personality on Channel 12 News, hosted his programme on Tuesday dressed as a pilot.

Gilad said a new chapter was being written in the Book of Esther: “It’s amazing that it comes after 2,000 years, and it’s really the same thing… the whole story closing on an astonishing historical scale.”

Bit by bit, Israel is changing the narrative that it exists because of the Holocaust. A new language is emerging that uses biblical stories to justify a vision of Greater Israel. ...

To western audiences, Israel still manages to present itself as a western democracy. It claims the religious fanatics are Hamas and Iran. But increasingly, Israel itself is fighting a religious war. [my emphasis] (8)

The war opened with a “decapitation strike” against Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. This is a highly dubious practice, both in terms of international law – which the Trump regime despises – and practicality. There’s never a guarantee that the new leader that comes to power after the one assassinated will be preferably for the attacking parties.

As David Ignatius observed in Foreign Policy:

“Decapitation” is emerging as the American way of war, after two frustrating decades of unsuccessful “nation building” in Iraq and Afghanistan. A week into the Iran campaign with Israel, the United States’ goal seems to be destruction of Iran’s leadership and military infrastructure—with an ill-defined hope that a better regime will rise from the rubble.

It’s the strategic equivalent of a “fire and forget” missile. The goal is to destroy the Iranian regime’s leadership and structure of repression. Building a new Iran is an afterthought. “Maybe we’ll get lucky,” one key member of Congress mused to me. But U.S. intelligence analysts have assessed that this campaign has a low likelihood of creating a stable, modernizing government, according to people who have read the intelligence reports. (9)

Also from Juan Cole’s Informed Comment blog: Exit Strategy? We ain’t got no exit strategy! We don’t need no *stinking* exit strategy!! (10)

Jianlu Bi warned on the war’s fourth day:

… Washington has signaled a total divorce from the rules-based international order it once claimed to lead. The war in Iran is no not about preventing a nuclear breakout. Rather, it is about the systematic dismantling of a sovereign state’s leadership. However, the tactical success of these strikes may mask a strategic catastrophe. Although the United States hopes that striking the head will kill the snake, history suggests that in the Middle East, such vacuums are filled not by democratic reformers but by the most radicalized elements of the mid-level military cadre, now unmoored from any rational centralized control. [my emphasis] (11)

Two weeks into the war, Dahlia Scheindlin observed a sharp diversion of public opinion in Israel and the US:

Unlike the Gaza war, which was catastrophic for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's image, the majority of Israelis give him high marks over Iran. Over 60 percent of Israelis in the Israel Democracy Institute poll say they trust his handling of the war.

Americans, by contrast, have been asking themselves just why America is going to war, and the lack of clear answers has left the majority skeptical. A poll by NPR, PBS news and Marist last week (March 2-4) found that 56 percent of Americans were against the U.S. military action in Iran (as per the question wording), with just 44 percent for it. (12)

And she made this comment on the militarization of Israeli public opinion: “In the Israeli view, diplomacy is for amateurs and bleeding hearts – the only solution is war.”

She also calls attention to this opinion phenomenon among the supposed “isolationist” and “antiwar” Trump cult:

An NBC poll found 77 percent support for the U.S. military action in Iran, but the kicker there was that among self-identified MAGA Republicans (as opposed to conservatives or neoconservatives), support was highest, at 90 percent. Only 5 percent of MAGA respondents were opposed.

This is no MAGA split. Rather, it's a transnational convergence of support between U.S. Republicans, Israeli Jews and, surely, many in pro-Israel communities and their leaders around the world. [my emphasis]

Meron Rappoport at the end of the war’s first week made an interesting comparison of the present to 1956, when Israel, Britain, and France teamed up to try to seize the Suez Canal from Egypt:

[I]t marked the beginning of a war that Israel launched together with Britain and France, the major imperial powers of the time. As Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion put it just before the assault, the aim was to “reorganize the Middle East” and bring about the downfall of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose policies threatened British, French, and Israeli interests alike. (13)

He links that to the February war of aggression by the US and Israel against Iran: “ For the first time since 1956, Israel has gone to war alongside a major Western power — indeed, the world’s largest — whose secretary of state recently lauded the West’s imperial legacy at the Munich Security Conference.”

US President Dwight Eisenhower blew the whistle on that stunt. It had a long-lasting impact on Britain, which has tried hard not to find itself on the opposite side of an international conflict with the US. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s somewhat dodgy stance on the current Iran War is a reflection of that lasting reorientation.

This time, the US doesn’t look nearly so cautious as it did in the Suez crisis back then:

The Israeli army has described the joint assault with the U.S. military [against Iran] as a “preemptive strike,” but, as in 1956, this too is a lie. Few seriously believe Iran was on the verge of attacking. The current war is a war of choice, initiated by the United States and Israel, just as the Sinai campaign was decided in advance by Israeli, French, and British leaders.

 In the fourth week of the war, Mouin Rabbani did this nearly hour-long interview with Middle East Monitor on the situation with the Iran War and how the toxic relationship between Israel and the US under the Trump regime has developed into a real mess for the US and the Middle East. (14)

Although he’s being too generous to the Trump regime when he comments, “Yes, this is an Israeli war. Let’s not pretend the Israelis haven’t done everything within their power for decades to bring about precisely the situation we’re in today. And they bear full responsibility for it.” But he does go on to talk about US responsibility, as well.

Israel does bear full responsibility for their actions which Rabbani describes correctly there. But let’s not let the US and the current regime off the hook for our major responsibility. This is an illegal war of aggression initiated by Israel and the United States. The US also bears full responsibility for its actions, too.

Ilan Pappé noted on March 12 that he current war, Israel is “a power not acting according to a ‘Western’ rational and humanist approach to politics but a fanatical ideology. Those determining the present Israeli strategy are explicit about its roots in the teaching of messianic Zionism and their vision of the present war as divine fulfilment.” (15)

Notes:

(1) Taft, Robert (2025): Trump dreams of ‘everlasting peace’ as acolytes drop heavy hints to Nobel committee. Guardian 10/09/2025. <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/09/trump-nobel-peace-prize-gaza> (Accessed: 2026-25-03).

(2) Israel’s renewed war on Lebanon is about more than just Hezbollah. +972 Magazine 03/11/2026. <https://www.972mag.com/israels-renewed-war-on-lebanon-is-about-more-than-just-hezbollah/> (Accessed: 2026-252-03).

Kubovich, Yaniv(2026): Israel to Hold Southern Lebanon, Block Residents' Return, Defense Minister Says. Haaretz 03/24/2026. Full link: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-03-24/ty-article/israel-to-hold-southern-lebanon-block-residents-return-defense-minister-says/0000019d-1f6a-d7c1-a59f-df7b2cd60000?gift=884f5b6bb20949a1b844a5d0fcbf4074> (Accessed: 2026-252-03).

(3) Skopeliti, Clea (2026): Trump says Iran war is ‘very complete, pretty much’ as economic toll rises. Guardian 03/12/2026. <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/10/first-thing-trump-iran-war-very-complete-pretty-much-economic-toll> (Accessed: 2026-17-03).

(4) Trump is ‘panicking’ - and now risking his own demise - Scott Lucas. The Trump Report YouTube channel 03/09/2026. <https://youtu.be/Q1B1Biwpge0?si=slFYtesQwVr4DFaC> (Accessed: 2026-09-03).

(5) War of Choice: Iran Latest. Katie Couric YouTube channel 03/13/2026. <https://youtu.be/o42Sh6MgCJk?si=4gRET4Aux2xbPYRs> (Accessed: 2026-29-03).

(6) Levy, Gideon (2026): The Israeli Media Are First and Foremost IDF Soldiers. Haaretz 03/04/2026. Full link: <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2026-03-12/ty-article-opinion/.premium/the-israeli-media-are-first-and-foremost-idf-soldiers/0000019c-de91-d3d8-afdf-ffbb61590000> (Accessed: 2026-14-03).

(7) Levy, Gideon (2026): War Is the Opiate of the Israeli Masses. Haaretz 03/01/2026. Full link: <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2026-03-01/ty-article-opinion/.premium/war-is-the-opiate-of-the-israeli-masses/0000019c-a5ed-db6a-a7bc-efff7e690000> (Accessed: 2026-14-03).

(9) Ignatius, David (2026): The Dangerous Rise of Decapitation Warfare. Foreign Policy online 03/06/2026. <https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/06/iran-war-united-states-military-decapitation-warfare-middle-east/> (Accessed: 2026-09-03).

(10) Benjamin, Medea and Davies, Nicholas (2026); The War on Iran - and Washington’s Missing Exit Strategy. Informed Comment 03/08/2026. <https://www.juancole.com/2026/03/washingtons-missing-strategy.html> (Accessed: 2026-26-03).

(11) Bi, Jianlu (2026): Tehran’s Decapitation and the End of an Era. Foreign Policy in Focus 03/04/2026. <https://fpif.org/tehrans-decapitation-and-the-end-of-an-era/> (Accessed: 2026-11-03).

(12) Sheindlin, Dahlia (2026): Israelis and Americans Have Wildly Different Opinions on the Iran War. Does It Matter? Haaretz 03/10/2026. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2026-03-10/ty-article/.premium/israelis-and-americans-disagree-wildly-on-the-iran-war-does-it-matter/0000019c-d7a4-db40-abbd-f7fd4d750000> (Accessed: 2026-11-03).

(13) Rappaport, Meron (2026): Israel’s last war alongside an imperial power backfired. This one could, too. +972 Magazine 03/05/2026. <https://www.972mag.com/israels-last-regime-change-war-backfired-this-one-could-too/> (Accessed: 2026-29-03).

(14) Trump, Iran and Israel’s War Without End. Middle East Monitor YouTube channel 03/25/2026. <https://youtu.be/z4yKFu_A6Ic?si=qOA8FLbFmAj1G75f> (Accessed: 2026-25-03).

(15) Pappé, Ilan (2026): On the Warpath. Savage Minds 03/12/2026. <https://savageminds.substack.com/p/on-the-warpath> (Accessed: 2026-29-03).

Peace President Trump and his escalation trap in his Iran War

President TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) gave Iran a two-day deadline to Iran last Saturday which he waived on the deadline day (Monday) and setting a new five-day guideline. Depending on whatever math calculations go on in his head, that could mean Friday or Saturday as the new date to do something more disastrous than what he’s had so far.

This is another discussion featuring David Rothkopf, Rosa Brooks and Ed Luce taking a look at the current risks in Trump’s latest war: (1)

Robert Pape seems to be one of the most popular people in the political podcast world if what the YouTube algorithms are showing me. But he’s well worth listening to. And he thinks that we’re very close to taking the next step in what Pape calls the escalation trap. And he’s been wargaming something very like the current one for years now. (2)

Now that what the “realist” foreign-policy theorists called the “unipolar moment” is over, it would be nice to think that the US would have fewer wars than we’ve had since, well, pick your favorite post-1945 date. But that kind of transition to a more responsible approach to US foreign policy would require consecutive years of a solid strategic foreign policy. That will not have as long as the Orange Anomaly is still President.

How sad is the current decision-making by the Trump regime? Amos Harel describes the current US practice of war politics as reality-show TV:

The U.S. administration entered this war, with Israel's vigorous encouragement, with only a partial plan and apparently only a limited understanding of the way decisions are made in Tehran. It seems that Trump had thought that this would be another Venezuela – a short and stunning blow followed by an almost guaranteed success.

In his frequent public appearances, the U.S. president creates an alternative reality for his listeners, one that doesn't jibe with the reality on the ground. As far as he's concerned, Iran has already been completely defeated, its army destroyed and its regime replaced "two or three times" following Israel's assassinations of its senior figures (which Trump takes retroactive credit for). The president is now talking about a precious gift the Iranians supposedly offered him in the energy sector – likely referring to the permission for several tankers to pass through Hormuz. Trump added that if he were a gambler, he would bet on an imminent deal. [my emphasis] (3)

Finally, Patrick Strickland also has some worthwhile observations on the help that Trump said he was sending to Iranian regime opponents: “What Washington calls help is often disastrous and the U.S. has a long history of offering (and refusing) to help Iran.” And he gives a short recap of such past “help” that the US has provided to the Iranian people.

And he talks about the course the Trump regime has been pursuing since he achieved Everlasting Peace In The Middle East five months or so ago:

Since returning to office in January 2025, he has relaunched the long, lethal American tradition of military intervention abroad. “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end — and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into,” he said during his inaugural speech. Over the next year, though, he proceeded to bomb seven countries, threaten a slate of nations from Latin America to Europe, and even kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. All the while, he bragged of supposedly ending eight wars.

It’s always important to keep in mind that the Trump brand of America-First, allegedly isolationist policy about is hardcore, lawless, militaristic unilateralism. The foreign-policy version of smash-and-grab robberies. With the twist in Trump’s case that it couples a Mob-boss, protection-racket mentality with an off-the-charts level of financial corruption, at least by historical American standards. (4)

Notes:

(1) Searching for an Offramp to a Reckless, Irresponsible War. The DSR Network 05/25/2026. <https://youtu.be/L4IpetXky_c?si=HVbxzqg4dsrRGlXs> (Accessed: 2026-25-03).

2) “Many Will Die:” Military Expert Warns of Iran Escalation Trap. Amanpour and Company YouTube channel 03/25/2026. <https://youtu.be/Ghs03B9lkrw?si=V78fA_PaCo_I5nwT> (Accessed: 2026-25-03).

(3) Harel, Amos (2026): Ending the War Hinges on Bridging the Gap Between Trump's Delusions and Iran's Resolve. Haaretz 03/26/2026. Full link: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-03-26/ty-article/.premium/ending-war-hinges-on-bridging-gap-between-trumps-delusions-and-irans-resolve/0000019d-26ce-d8a3-abff-3eee16bd0000?gift=47e0fe4758bf4aac9a75e659dc8bea04> (Accessed: 2026-26-03).

(4) Strickland, Patrick (03/22/2026.): Why Donald Trump Just Can’t Stop Going to War. TomDispatch 03/22/2026. <https://tomdispatch.com/why-donald-trump-just-cant-stop-going-to-war/> (Accessed: 2026-26-03).

Deciphering the Peace President’s, uh, diplomacy?

Anne Applebaum, the historian (and long-time spouse of the current Polish Foreign Minister Radislaw Sikorski) gives an excellent brief description of how Peace President Trump’s strategic diplomacy works:

Donald Trump does not think strategically. Nor does he think historically, geographically, or even rationally. He does not connect actions he takes on one day to events that occur weeks later. He does not think about how his behavior in one place will change the behavior of other people in other places.

He does not consider the wider implications of his decisions. He does not take responsibility when these decisions go wrong. Instead, he acts on whim and impulse, and when he changes his mind - when he feels new whims and new impulses - he simply lies about whatever he said or did before. (1)

Even when bad Presidents like Dick Nixon and Shrub Bush said something that sounded confused and/or goofy, it was plausible to assume that they were stressed out or distracted about something else. In the Orange President Reality TV Show, who knows what to think when that happens?

Paul Krugman gives his laconic take on the Peace President’s latest mystery public diplomacy on the Iran War. He doesn’t go into a lot of diplomacy or strategic theory considerations. He basically just bluntly describes the obvious, that Trump didn’t know what he was getting into when he joined Israel in starting the Iran War. (2)

The Trump Report features an interview with a British general, Chip Chapman, who does go into more specific issues involving military options in Iran: (3)

Also on The Trump Report, Robert Pape, one of the leading historians on bombing campaigns, gets more into the weeds of the actual strategic challenges the Trump and Netanyahu regime are facing with Iran now. (4) (Although the title they gave the video - “Deploying troops could be Trump's only hope …” - isn’t a very representative one.) He talks about how an assumption that has been repeatedly proven wrong in actual experience for more than a century: the idea that one country can achieve regime change in another by massive bombing alone.

Notes:

(1) Applebaum, Anne (2026): Everyone but Trump Understands What He’s Done. 03/17/2026. The Atlantic 03/17/2026. <https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/trump-iran-war-allies/686423/> (Accessed: 2026-23-03).

(2) Adventures in Fantasy Diplomacy. Paul Krugman YouTube channel 03/23/2026. <https://youtu.be/Tc120RAcx48?si=e2HAqOrl2bfNZ4sr> (Accessed: 2026-23-03).

(3) Trump claims Iran breakthrough-Tehran denies it as exit slips away. The Trump Report YouTube channel 03/23/2026. <https://youtu.be/OU6qD53eRTc?si=LGLCk1v4OCWqArZJ> (Accessed: 2026-23-03).

(4) Deploying troops could be Trump's only hope for saving his presidency in Iran. The Trump Report YouTube channel 03/19/2026. <https://youtu.be/uISOkWuM3bA?si=lwfzaYc8juZaDdOR> (Accessed: 2026-23-03).

Iran war spreads to Iran’s South Pars oil field

The Iran War continues to escalate. Israel’s goal, which has been Benjamin Netanyahu’s dream for decades, as he himself recently said.

For at least three decades, Netanyahu had spoiled for a fight with the theocratic regime committed to Israel’s annihilation. Successive US administrations and his own security establishment had frustrated him, deeming it too risky to take on a country with a population more than nine times larger than Israel’s. Now, with Trump back in office, Netanyahu’s dream was within reach. Styling himself as Israel’s Winston Churchill, he enlisted the world's biggest military to make it come true. [my emphasis] (1)

It seems clear from the actions we see and from what experienced analysts like John Mearsheimer are saying that Israel’s goal is to turn Iran into a fragmented “failed state.” Netanyahu is aiming at creating a situation in Iran analogous to Israel’s longtime policy in Gaza, which they cynically call “cutting the grass.” Which basically means in additional to the daily violence they impose in Gaza and the West Bank, they periodically conduct a larger military operation to kill Palestinians and destroy more of the infrastructure of daily life in Gaza.

They do this of course with weaponry and substantial financial support from the United States and from various European countries, including Germany. Israel and its American supporters, notably including the far-right Christian Zionists who have made a fundamentalist prediction of the end of the world, which is crassly anti-Semitic at even a superficial look, a reason to support hardline Israeli policies and even genocide against Palestinians.

Israel just attacked the South Pars field in Iran, their most important gas field. Netanyahu at the moment seems to be leading an addled Donald Trump around by the nose. As a result, Trump has put the United States into a war for which it didn’t properly prepare either militarily or diplomatically. And Iran currently is in the position of having “escalation dominance.”

The Middle East Institute, a think tank heavily funded by oil companies and Arab oil state and state, has an article by Chuck Freilich, the editor of the Israel Journal on Foreign Affairs and a former Israeli deputy national security adviser, writes two days before the latest attack on the South Pars field:

As things stand now, the joint US-Israeli war risks ending in military victory but becoming a strategic failure. For Iran’s regime, merely surviving an armed conflict with the US constitutes victory. If it further succeeds in preserving its remaining nuclear capabilities, including the 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (sufficient for 10 bombs) still buried in the rubble of the June 2025 war, and at least some missile capabilities, which it will surely rebuild rapidly in the post-war period, this will be the icing on the cake.

For 30 years Israel dreamed of a scenario in which the US might go to war with Iran, with the minimal objective of removing the existential threat posed by its nuclear program, and ideally to topple the regime. Now that this scenario has emerged, a failure to achieve both of these objectives would be a significant strategic setback for the US and carry dire ramifications for Israel. [my emphasis] (2)

Freilich notes that Iran holds the escalation dominance at this state of the conflict. He suggest that one way for the US-Israel side to reverse that situation would be to close the Strait of Hormuz to Iranian oil shipments, which are currently going through. How that would prevent Iran from blocking other countries from using the Strait.

He paints the following picture of a scenario that Israel might use to achieve escalation dominance and (though he doesn’t describe it this way) to turn Iran into a fragmented “failed state”:

Still a further step up the escalatory ladder would be to begin attacks on Iran’s civil infrastructure, including power, communications, financial, and transportation systems, and potentially other sectors as well. The US and Israel have so far refrained from doing so, primarily out of concern that this might cause a rallying around the flag effect, turn the Iranian public against them, and hamper the prospects of regime change. Some such attacks might prove necessary, however, in a final play for escalation dominance, should the already ongoing effort to weaken the regime and create a possible opening for the people to take to the streets by steadily destroying the regime’s instruments of repression — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the paramilitary militia Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed (Basij), Iranian police, and other capabilities — prove insufficient to the task. Actual regime targets (for example, the parliament building) and other pillars of the ruling establishment, such as its means of communicating with the public (TV, radio, internet), might also be attacked. A broad cyber campaign would be a part of this next phase as well. [my emphasis]

We’re already seeing that rally-round-the-flag response in Iran. Ever since using planes to bomb an enemy became reality in 1912 with an attack by a Bulgarian pilot on a Turkish railway station during the First Balkan War, some air strategists to this day fantasize about mass bombing attacks on civilian targets will lead the population to revolt against their own government. There is enormous evidence over more than a century that this doesn’t happen. But for militarists, this kind of faith dies hard.

This is another reminder that the kind of nationalistic “isolationism” for which some of Trump’s rightwing admirers praise him – or used to! – is actually a form of unilateralism and militarism. Trump’s most important political mentor, the despicable Roy Cohn, was very much part of that McCarthyist fringe. (Cohn himself was the chief counsel for McCarthy’s witch-hung committee).

With Trump that gets transmuted into an Incredible Hulk comic-book version: “Me no like Iranians. Me drop big bombs. Big bombs go boom and kill lots of Iranians. Me win!”

We’re seeing in real time what the real-world version of that looks like. Apologies to the Incredible Hulk for dragging him into a degrading comparison like that!

US-Israeli military and strategic cooperation have never been so close, Israel’s standing in the US never so low. Given the war’s unpopularity in American public opinion, a further casualty of the conflict — and one that Israel can ill-afford — will be a significant hit to the bilateral relationship. This is amplified by the growing but unsubstantiated claims that it was Netanyahu who led Trump into the fight; there is no doubt that he has long hoped that the US would ultimately go to war with Iran ...

Freilich then goes on to say that, no, Netanyahu was trying to hold Trump back from doing it!

If you believe that, let me tell you about a hot new cryptocurrency investment that will triple in value in a few days after you buy it!

But he closes with, “Israel will have to weigh whether whatever gains were achieved vis-à-vis Iran were worth the price to its relationship with the US.” In other words, it’s clear that Israel’s wars are souring large numbers of American voters on the long-standing close alliance with Israel.

The Republican Party seems to be locked into that relationship. And many of them locked into the Christian Zionist ideology that helps to fuel religious fanaticism and warmongering. The Democrats have become more critical of Israel than at any time since Israel’s founding in 1948. But it will require real leadership among Democratic elected officials to avoid being drawn back into a de facto deference to Israel, even on occasions when their actions are contrary to the interests of the US or when they violate the laws against genocide.

Also from March 17, Christiane Amanpour and Tina Brown discuss the Iran War:

Notes:

(1) Coles, Isabel (2026): How Trump brought Netanyahu’s longtime dream of Iran’s destruction within reach. The Observer 03/15/2026. <https://observer.co.uk/news/international/article/how-trump-brought-netanyahus-longtime-dream-of-irans-destruction-within-reach> (Accessed: 2026-19-03).

(2) Freilich, Chuck (2026): How the US and Israel can stave off strategic failure in Iran. Middle East Institute 03/17/2026. <https://mei.edu/publication/how-the-us-and-israel-can-stave-off-strategic-failure-in-iran/> (Accessed: 2026-19-03).

(3) Is The Iran War Spiraling Beyond Trump’s Control? Christiane Amanpour Presents YouTube channel 03/17/2026. <https://youtu.be/6q_ZesE0wqY?si=xUmoMaMkoWHMewbu> (Accessed: 2026-19-03).

The US and the *escalation trap” in the Iran War

The historian Robert Pape has studied the realities of air power and bombing in particular. His 1996 book Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War surveys decades of experience going back to the Second World War and stresses the evidence against the idea that mass bombing is a magic bullet in wars. In that book he notes that in the 1990s, use of air power for coercive purposes became more attractive to American policymakers and politicians as a way to exercise military power in what was then part of the “unipolar moment” for the US of being the clearly dominant major world power, while minimizing the use of ground troops. Both strategic and tactical bombing were major features of the Gulf War of 1990-1991. (1)

This trend was also apparent in the growing role of air power in U.S. military strategy in the 1990s. As policymakers perceived the American public's willingness to bear military costs as having declined, the role of air power in overseas conflicts increased because it can project force more rapidly and with less risk than land power and more formidably than naval power.

The US continued after the war to pursue severe sanctions against Iraq, which included partial US control of Iraqi airspace and featured the bizarrely named Operation Desert Fox by the Clinton Administration in 1998. (The World War II German general Ernst Rommel was nicknamed “the Desert Fox.“) The US and Israeli strikes against Iran during the 12-Day War in 2025 were a similar kind of operation. The Trump regime apparently hoped to have a relatively short repeat of that experience in the current war.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in a piece published the day before the current Iran War began noted:

The current force level is comparable to Operation Desert Fox, the Clinton administration’s punitive 70-hour bombing campaign after Saddam Hussein refused to cooperate with UN nuclear inspectors. Like then, U.S. forces in the Middle East can launch 150–250 Tomahawk missiles and other long-range missiles (e.g., JASSMs) against facilities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or Iran’s nuclear program. Israeli airpower might contribute to a punitive campaign. [my emphasis] (2)

The problem is that in all wars, the enemy has a say. And in the current war, Iran is striking back in ways that produce casualties in Israel and other countries allied with the US against Iran. Robert Pape and other are using the terms like “escalation trap” and “escalation dominance” to describe the dilemma of the current US posture in the Iran War.

The US currently appears to be in what authorities like Paper call an “escalation trap,” in which it is Iran that controls the escalation, which means that if the US and Israel just stop bombing with no formal agreement acceptable to Iran’s leaders, that doesn’t ensure that Iran will stop their current military actions like the blocking of the Straits of Hormuz:

Experts point in particular to the risks of an escalation trap – whereby the attacker is drawn into an ever more complex, protracted and costly conflict than envisaged at the outset – from a widening disparity in the US-Israeli campaign between the tactical and strategic level. Put simply, the tactical level involves specific military tasks – such as airstrikes hitting their intended targets – where the campaign has been successful. The strategic level defines whether the political and national security aims of the war are being achieved and at what cost.

“The are several stages to the escalation trap,” said Robert Pape, a US historian who has studied the limitation of air power and has advised a number of US administrations.

“What we saw with the initial attack was tactically almost 100% success,” he said. “The problem is that when that doesn’t lead to strategic success … you get to second stage of the trap.

“The attacker still has escalation dominance, so there is a doubling down, which then moves up the escalation ladder and that still does not lead to strategic success. Then you reach stage three, which is the real crisis, where you are contemplating far riskier options. I would say we are stage two, and on on the cusp of stage three.”

He said the Trump administration had become mesmerised by the initial attack and had an “illusion of control” based on the accuracy of its weapons. All of this has pushed Tehran towards its own model of escalation, one with a far wider global economic and political impact, Pape and other critics say. [my emphasis] (3)

Military air power since its inception – the first aerial bombing from a plane took place in 1912 during the First Balkan War when a Bulgarian pilot bombed a Turking train station – has always brought out a certain amount of “boys with toys” enthusiasm for seeing the latest development in air power as a magic weapon. The military in the 1990s talked for years after the Gulf War about a “revolution in military affairs.” It even had its own abbreviation, RMA.

The atomic bomb after 1945 was touted as the super weapon that would end all wars. The latest featured hopes in that category are drones and artificial intelligence (AI). And what Pape wrote in his 1996 book remains true today:

Countercivilian attacks can lower morale, increase absenteeism, and cause some deurbanization as refugees flee vulnerable cities, but these problems rarely have serious effects on production or cause civilians to put effective pressure on the government to surrender. (4)

The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) provides this recent interview about the “escalation trap” with Pape including the early days of the Iran War. He’s pretty blunt about it. He’s also been modeling Iran War scenarios for two decades. (5)

Notes:

(1) Lacquement, Jr., Richard (2020): The Gulf War 30 Years Later: Successes, Failures, and Blind Spots. War on the Rocks 09/09/2020. <https://warontherocks.com/2020/09/the-gulf-war-30-years-later-successes-failures-and-blind-spots/> (Accessed: 2026-17-03).

(2) Cancian, Mark & Prk, Chris (2026): With Trump’s Middle East Buildup, Think Desert Fox - Not Desert Storm. Center for Strategic and International Studies 02/27/2026. <https://www.csis.org/analysis/trumps-middle-east-buildup-think-desert-fox-not-desert-storm> (Accessed: 2026-17-03).

(3) Beaumont, Peter (2026): The escalation trap: how the Iran war could become more costly and complex. Guardian 03/14/2026. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/14/how-iran-war-escalate-vietnam-trump-netanyahu-us-israel> (Accessed: 2026-17-03).

(4) Pape, Robert (1996): Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War, 23. (Accessed: 2026-17-03).

What could falling into an 'escalation trap' in Iran mean for Canada and the rest of the world? CBC News YouTube channel 03/15/2026. <https://youtu.be/j0DQXnErlCk?si=FfcVlV8mIJrWfWhA> (Accessed: 2026-17-03).

„The Israel Lobby“ – 20 years on

I’ve been blogging for a few years. So I’m not only “old enough to remember” when John Mearsheimer’s and Stephen Walt’s article and book on the Israel Lobby first came out. The article came out before the book.

This is a long current interview with Mearsheimer in the first half of this video. I have my reservations about Max Blumenthal’s foreign policy commentaries but this is a good interview. (1)

I was even blogging about it in real time. Here’s what I wrote in 2006.

The "Lobby" article [my text from 2006]

I've been meaning to post on the controversial John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt paper, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy 03/13/06. (Abridged version in the London Review of Books 03/23/06

Their paper deals with the "Israel lobby" in the United States, which includes not only Jewish organizations but Christian Right groups, as well. Much of the focus of the paper is on the American-Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC), the best known and also generally considered the most influential of the lobbies concerned particularly with US policy toward Israel.

It's a large and controversial subject. This recent article is a useful way of framing the discussion: Is It Good for the Jews? by Daniel Levy American Prospect 07/05/06 issue; accessed 06/23/06.

Levy, who among other things was part of the Israeli negotiating team for the Oslo B talks, writes:

The publication earlier this year of a Harvard University Kennedy School of Government paper by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt entitled “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” placed the issue under a magnifying glass.

It is sensitive territory. Their thesis, and the counterattacks, have been well-rehearsed elsewhere, including most recently by Michael Massing in The New York Review of Books. Establishing some benchmarks is a worthwhile exercise. The more shrill conspiracy theorists who suggest the existence of an all-powerful foreign interest occupying Washington, such as “They Dare to Speak Out” author and former Republican Congressman Paul Findley and his Council for the National Interest (a group that I had the misfortune to be quoted by in a recent New York Times ad), are wide of the mark. Conversely, those defenders of the cause whose reflexive response is to cry antisemitism can be equally misguided and also do a disservice to the struggle against contemporary manifestations of real antisemitism.

AIPAC’s sheer name recognition and resources guarantees that most American Jews who care somewhat about Israel but are not policy wonks will likely choose it as their default vehicle for occasional involvement. But the so-called Israel lobby is not monolithic. Groups such as the Religious Action Committee of Reform Judaism, IPF, APN, and Brit Tzedek are probably more representative of American Jewish opinion than AIPAC (and closer to where the Israeli public and even much of government policy stands today). Polls repeatedly show that American Jews, unsurprisingly, are liberal on Israel-Palestine, just as they are across a range of issues. Paradoxically then, it could be argued that there is too little Jewish influence in Washington. If more American Jews took a keener interest in what was being advocated in their names on Israel-related matters, then things might look very different, and far more hopeful. And of course, AIPAC is not unique in being a powerful and influential lobby (as the group boasts on its own Web site) that flouts its success, or in largely representing a diaspora community on a foreign policy/homeland issue in controversial ways (just look at the role of the Cuban American National Foundation). Furthermore, AIPAC is not omnipotent, unchanging, or unchallengeable. It can also be a convenient scapegoat and excuse for failings of others or a credit-taking champion for the successes of more camera-shy actors.

Here, in no particular order, are a few of the many articles that have appeared dealing with the subject.

Quiet Riot: Tin foil Hats in Harvard Yard by Michael Oren 03/31/06. As the title suggests, Oren makes the not particularly convincing argument that Mearsheimer and Walt are proposing a Jewish conspiracy theory.

Israel and Moral Blackmail: The Israel lobby is bringing out the big guns byt Justin Raimondo Antiwar.com 04/03/06. This writer has a tendency to give too much credit to Israel's ability to influence American foreign policy. And he sometimes writes in a way that would make his arguments easily appropriated by conspiracy theorists. Although highly critical of the Israel lobby, this article avoids that shortcoming.

Is the "Israel lobby" distorting America's Mideast policies? by Michelle Goldberg Salon 04/18/06. Goldberg's experience of researching her 2006 book Kingdom Coming about the Christian Right gave her a heavy dose of the eccentric views of Israel in Christian Right apocalyptic theories. This article provides a thoughtful critique of the Mearsheimer/Walt paper.

Juan Cole's Breaking the silence in the same daily edition of Salon (04/18/06) provides a more sympathetic take.

A Lobby, Not a Conspiracy by Tony Judt New York Times 04/19/06. Judt observes that a more open discussion of these issues has long taken place in Europe, and it's good that the Mearsheimer/Walt paper addresses it in a serious way.

More on Walt/Mearsheimer [dead link] By Jo-Ann Mort TPM Cafe 04/21/06. She argues that the paper suffers from "shockingly sloppy" scholarship.

No, It's Not Anti-Semitic [dead link] by Richard Cohen Washington Post 04/25/06. Cohen also complains that some of the scholarship is sloppy, but this is a generally positive look at it.

Israel, Oil and Realism by Martin Kramer, Sandbox blog 04/24/06. Kramer is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINIP), which generally reflects the kind of hardline policies favorted by the neoconservatives.

Alan Dershowitz blasts the paper in Debunking the Newest - and Oldest - Jewish Conspiracy: A Reply to the Mearsheimer-Walt “Working Paper” April 2006.

The Storm over the Israel Lobby by Michael Massing New York Review of Books 05/11/06. Discusses the paper and the ensuring controversy. Massing is generally sympathetic to the Mearsheimer/Walt paper.

Israel's American Constituency [dead link] by Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service/TomPaine.com 05/25/06. Discusses how AIPAC is often more hardline than the Israeli government.

Molly Ivins weighs in with a column sympathetic to the paper: Let's call the Israel lobby the Israel lobby [dead link] WorkingforChange.com 04/25/06.

**************

I’ve updated the 20-year-old links to current ones when I could. I had to update nearly every one of them. This is a reminder for me that early own in my blogging experience I started explicitly citing the names and sources of articles along with the link. Also often called “hotlink” in those days. It’s because I realized early on that the links would sometimes change within a few days, even links at major papers, and without the name of the article it could be a hassle to find the original.

Looking at those references, I’m reminded how much I miss sources like the late great Molly Ivins.

Notes:

The Israel Lobby: 20 years later w/ John Mearsheimer. The Grayzone YouTube channel 03/12/2026. <https://www.youtube.com/live/YFRD3Ei-4k4?si=yHSffef2xswJNh0E> (Accessed: 2026-12-03).

Yes, it is an illegal war – initiated by the US Peace President and Bibi Netanyahu

Oona Hathaway: “The U.S. and Israeli war against Iran is clearly and unequivocally unlawful. Under the United Nations Charter, a use of force by one state against another is lawful only if it is authorized by the UN Security Council or if it is a necessary and proportionate act of self defense. Neither is true here.“ (1)

Can some journalist please ask “War” Secretary Pete Kegsbreath if he knows what the United Nations Charter is? His most likely answer: It’s just more lesbian Woke propaganda!

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has this nine-minute March 5 video on the current situation with the Iran War: (2)

At least some people are happy about the whole thing! (3)

Being a petrostate like Russia is a mixed blessing. When oil prices are high, it’s a very positive thing. When oil prices are low, it’s a real bummer.

So the illegal US-Israeli war against Iran is delivering benefits to Russia at the moment.

As Politico EU reports:

Only several weeks ago, the mood among Russia’s economic elite was grim.

The Russian finance ministry’s budget plan for this year assumed a baseline benchmark of $59 per barrel of Urals crude, the country’s main export blend. But in January, energy revenues plunged to their lowest level since 2020, compounding a disappointing tax haul.

As Western sanctions, high interest rates and labor shortages strained the economy, tension between the finance ministry and the central bank on how to mitigate the damage became increasingly visible.

“It was far from a collapse,” said Sergey Vakulenko, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “But the government was facing tough choices, had to cut its spending and raise taxes and even consider some reduction in military expenditure.”

It’s worth noting that we’ve hearing since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine War over four years ago now that economic sanctions were on the verge of bringing Russia to its knees.

But magic weapons from “strategic bombing” to economic sanctions consistently turn out to be less magical than their enthusiasts imagine. Not that they don’t do enormous damage. It’s rather that neither heavy aerial bombing nor severe economic sanctions don’t by themselves induce the kind of collapse in public morale and therefore of the government’s willingness and ability to resist foreign attack that would achieve a goal like the “unconditional surrender” that Trump is currently demanding from Iran. (Do I need to add that Trump almost certainly has no idea what “unconditional surrender” by Iran would even mean?)

Oh, and there’s that whole nuclear proliferation thing, another thing that Trump and his clown-show Administration show little sign of understanding.

The New START Treaty, the last binding agreement limiting the strategic nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia, expired on February 5, 2026. For more than half a century, since the first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) in the early 1970s, American and Soviet (later Russian) leaders had operated under some form of negotiated restraint on their most powerful weapons.

That era has now ended. There are no longer legal caps on deployed strategic warheads, no mandatory data exchanges, no on-site inspections, and no regular forum, such as the Bilateral Consultative Commission, to address compliance concerns or resolve disputes. (4)

The United States for the most part squandered its “unipolar moment” after the collapse of the Soviet Union very badly.

Joe Cirincione from March 8 provides us with commentary on the official prowar rhetoric from the Trump regime and another nine-minute video report (with disturbing images and profanity): (5)

The script most [Trump regime war supporters] follow is fairly straightforward:

1. Lead with how terrible the Iranian government is

2. Blame Iran for causing the war (a war of necessity)

3. Claim imminent threat

4. Posit great support in Iran, the region and America for regime change

5. Prepare to blame the Iranian people when the war fails.

Notes:

(1) Hathaway, Oona (2026): “The Unwillingness to Call This Illegal Is a Terrible Mistake”. Verfassunsblog 03/06/2026. <https://verfassungsblog.de/the-unwillingness-to-call-this-illegal-is-a-terrible-mistake/> (Accessed: 2026-10-03).

(2) War in Iran: Views from the ground. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists YouTube channel 03/05/2026. <https://youtu.be/s7lo1St5ruI?si=HE5kVs53Nd7bjQ3C> (Accessed: 2026-11-03).

(3) Hartog, Eva (2026): Why Vladimir Putin is the biggest winner from the war in Iran. Politico EU 03/09/2026. <https://www.politico.eu/article/why-vladimir-putin-is-the-biggest-winner-from-the-war-in-iran/> (Accessed: 2026-10-03).

(4) Alter, Eric (2026): With the End of the New START Treaty, Nuclear Anarchy Has Arrived. The National Interest 03/09/2026. <https: feature="" nationalinterest.org="" with-the-end-of-the-new-start-treaty-nuclear-anarchy-has-arrived=""> (Accessed: 2026-10-03).

(5) Cirincione, Joe (2026): The War Supporters' Script. Strategy & History 03/08/2026. <https://joecirincione.substack.com/p/the-war-supporters-script?utm_campaign> (Accessed: 2026-11-03).

European Trumpists: Or, Nationalist International, then and now

The whole idea of a “nationalist international” is weird on its face. But there are lots of weird things about the radical right in all kinds of countries. But as Juliette Bretan reminds us, this was the case with the fascists movements and governments of the 1920s and later:

For all their authoritarianism, nationalism, and racism, the Nazis made considerable efforts to appeal to other countries for support, and kindle fascist thinking, during the interwar era. And there were times when it looked as if this strategy would work. Nazi Germany capitalized on existing dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Versailles, which was almost universally seen as unfair before the ink had even dried. The party promoted an anti-liberal and antidemocratic politics that in fact proved rather popular across national borders. They also flattered international supporters and foisted their ideas on the world at every opportunity. In the US alone, there were numerous fascist hubs. An organization called the Friends of New Germany was established in the 1930s by a German immigrant to the United States; it later became the German American Bund and received support from Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess. The American architect Philip Johnson reviewed Mein Kampf (1925) positively and reported from Germany on the “stirring spectacle” of the Nazi invasion of Poland. (1)

Doctrines matter to political movements. But political parties and political movements aren’t schools of philosophy. And their focus on national power means that they inevitably have to pick friends and enemies in particular situations. Mussolini and Italian fascism were a major model for Hitler. His failed “Beer Hall Putsch” in Munich in 1923 was an attempt to copy Mussolini’s March on Rome in 1922. Mussolini continued to be the senior political partner in the Germany-Italy relationship immediately after Hitler took power. He was also the model for Engelbert Dollfuss’ “Austrofascist“ regime, which Austrian and German Nazis attempted to stage a coup against that government. Mussolini backed Dollfuss against Hitler and threatened to send Italian troops to Austria to block a German takeover.

1935 became a turning point, though, when Italy found itself financially dependent on Germany once Italy began its colonial war against Abyssinia/Ethiopia. And the dependence grew in 1936 when Germany and Italy joined to actively support Franco’s rebels in the Spanish Civil War. Before the end of the Second World War, Mussolini was reduced to heading a rump state controlled by the Germans.

Hitler’s government could be ruthlessly pragmatic, most dramatically in the 1938 Nonaggression Pact with the Soviet Union, ideologically the Nazis’ worst enemy. (Obviously, the Soviets could also be ruthlessly pragmatic!)

Angel Munárriz reported on today’s de facto Trumpist International, a key player in which is the American Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) reporting on a CPAC conference in Buenos Aires in 2024:

CPAC is an example of that desire to weave together the alliances that [far-right anarcho-libertarian Argentine President Javier] Milei praises. But the clean-cut and smiling [Matt and Mercy Schlapp] are far from alone in this endeavor. “The international integration of the far-right through think tanks and allied foundations [intends] to drag the parties into their positions: neoliberal in economic terms and reactionary in social terms. This is a phenomenon that dates back to the 1970s in the United States but has spread to Latin America and Europe. It’s now experiencing a strong acceleration,” explains Anna López, a professor of political science at the University of Valencia.

One of the entities that’s stepping on that accelerator is the Political Network for Values (PNfV). Two days before the meeting in Argentina, the PNfV held a summit in Madrid, where European, American, and African far-right figures gathered. Many activists participated, as well as politicians from two of the three far-right parties represented in the European Parliament. There were also smaller delegations from the European People’s Party bloc. The most prominent political leader present was José Antonio Kast, the runner-up in the 2021 Chilean presidential elections. He was among a list of 50 speakers, some of whom are defenders of conversion therapy and opposed to abortion even in cases of rape. (2)

Notes:

(1) Bretan, Juliette (2026): It Really Can Happen Here. Los Angeles Review of Books 02/27/2026. <https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/transnational-fascism-united-states-nazis-hungary-yugoslavia-germany/> (Accessed: 2026-27-02).

2) Munárriz, Angel (2026): The far right is moving closer to the old dream of a ‘nationalist international’. El País International 12/22/2024. <https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-12-22/the-far-right-is-moving-closer-to-the-old-dream-of-a-nationalist-international.html> (Accessed: 2026-37-02).

Peace President Trump's foreign policy defined?

Julian Borger and Andrew Roth explains how the Peace President turns out to be a warmongering militarist even worse the Dark Lord Dick Cheney:

The shadow of Bush and the regional conflagration he ignited have loomed over the events of the past week, though the inevitable comparisons have gone unacknowledged or been angrily rejected by the White House.

Trump had, after all, campaigned as a leader who would end America’s “forever wars” begun by Bush in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. His Maga movement was built on antipathy to foreign entanglement, and the president himself spent much of 2025 lobbying to be awarded the Nobel peace prize.

In the space of a few months, however, the “peace president” became the first US leader since Bush to lead a regime change war against a major adversary. (1)

I don’t think we can call the Peace President an ideologue. Because that implies some kind of coherent thinking. He’s a talented demagogue who as President is focused – to the extent he can focus on anything for long – with self-enrichment. For him, everyone from US soldiers killed in battle to his own followers are “suckers” and “losers.”

Trump, who allegedly studied economic or business or something in college, probably doesn’t know who John Maynard Keynes was and has undoubtedly never read any of his books. But this famous quote of Keynes does fit the Orange Anomaly well: “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

Trump’s political mentor, the hardcore rightwing gay Mob lawyer Roy Cohn, was a huge influence on him. And Trump’s militaristic and nationalistic bluster is a clear example of that ugly corner of American political history. It’s not about “staying out of other people’s conflicts” or anything like that. It’s about the US being able to throw its military weight around without regard to law or principles.

The typical “isolationist” gripe about the war in Vietnam fit easily when braindead slogans like, “We never should have been there in the first place. But now that we’re there, we ought to win it!” What they meant by that pretty much came down to more bombing and killing more Vietnamese and killing them faster. Probably the most notorious version of this argument is associated with Air Force Gen. Curtis “Nuke” LeMay:

The quote is usually attributed to Curtis LeMay, the scowling Air Force general who incinerated two thirds of Japan’s cities in World War II and was disappointed when Kennedy wouldn’t let him do the same to Cuba. In his 1968 memoir he suggested that rather than negotiating with Hanoi, the United States should “bomb them back to the stone age,” by taking out factories, harbors, and bridges “until we have destroyed every work of man in North Vietnam.”

LeMay, however, had cribbed it from a June 1967 column by humorist Art Buchwald, who used the phrase to caricature the Goldwater Republican attitude toward Vietnam. The 1964 “Daisy Girl” ad had already tarred Republicans as inveterate bombers, but the joke came from Buchwald’s association of bombing with time travel. [my emphasis] (2)

Fantasizing about big bombs making big booms as the only way to make war is central to make of the rightwing hawkish positions. Although at least some of them manage to present a less bombastic image at times.

                                                  Curtis “Nuke” LeMay (1906-1990)

Joshua Leifer has provided a good succinct description of Trump's worldview, primitive though it may be:

Trump has unequivocally committed to a vision of muscular American global dominance, in which the U.S. acts unrestrained by international law, enforcing its will through the exercise of overwhelming military force.

In truth, Trump's deviation from precedent was always overstated. He campaigned and won – twice – on the promise to repudiate the neoconservatives' foreign policy legacy. In doing so, he dispensed with the moral language of promoting democracy and human rights that had long legitimized U.S. foreign interventions (the neoconservatives themselves having demolished respect for international law most spectacularly with the invasion of Iraq in 2003). Yet Trump never eschewed the basic belief that the United States should remain the dominant global power.

What he has done instead is rearticulate American hegemony in the jargon of a crueler worldview, according to which those with more power have their way with those who have less. "My own morality," Trump said last January, after the attack on Venezuela and abduction of its president. "It's the only thing that can stop me." (3)

Since there is not a lot obvious evidence for his own “morality,” that’s effectively his way of saying that he doesn’t think he is restrained by anything other than uncooperative flunkies.

A big part of the challenge in evaluating Trump's approach to foreign policy comes from the fact that he obviously has no clear strategic foreign-policy vision other than a bullying image of what US power is, combined with his desire to corruptly use his office to further enrich himself and his crime family.

To the extent he was something resembling foreign policy strategy, he’s eager to help Netanyahu’s Israel wreck even more of the Middle East.

Notes:

(1) Borger, J. (2026): From ‘peace president’ to Operation Epic Fury: Donald Trump’s road to war. Guardian 03/07/2026. <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/07/from-peace-president-to-operation-epic-fury-donald-trumps-road-to-war> (Accessed: 2026-08-03).

(2) Cullather, Nick (2026): Bomb them Back to the Stone Age: An Etymology. History News Network 10/06/2006. <https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/bomb-them-back-to-the-stone-age-an-etymology> (Accessed: 2026-08-03).

(3) Leifer, Joshua (2026): In Iran, Trump Finally Told the World What He Really Means by America First. Haaretz 03/01/2026. Gift length: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/haaretz-today/2026-03-01/ty-article/.highlight/in-iran-trump-finally-told-the-world-what-he-really-means-by-america-first/0000019c-aa9c-d513-ab9e-eefd2d0a0001?gift=f0594fc33d294cb8b1e331d40d42d0ee> (Accessed: 2026-08-03).

Iran War: Israel. oil corporations, and white Christian nationalists

I tend not to post Kyle Kulinski videos because his target market seems to be young men who are open to a left-leaning political narrative. And part of his style is to use a fair amount of profanity of the kind that would fit in a drinking party of twentysomething guys. And he definitely gives an energetic presentation.

This is one that mentions among other things that the US in Iran appears to be adopting Israel-in-Gaza tactics like targeting hospitals and schools. A reminder that the US needs to start giving much more attention to international law and to a sensible calculation of its national interest than to Israel’s approaches, which has involved during Syria, Lebanon, and now Iran into fragmented failed states. (1)

Kyle also cites several polls that highlight the very unusually low level of initial approval from the US public. Except for Trump cultists, of course.

I guess saying that Trump’s rhetoric on the war is delusional is pretty much like arguing that the sun rises in the east. But in a complicated situation like this in a war that will have long-lasting consequences in the volatile Middle East, Trump’s reality-show pantomime of international diplomacy is super-risky. There’s an old saying (that’s generally true!) that it’s a hell of a lot easier to get into a war than to get out of one. We see that right now in the Russia-Ukraine War, in which Trump’s pseudo-diplomacy hasn’t produced any progress toward some kind of workable peace agreement.

Trump himself is mainly interested in diplomacy because it can be used as a tool to enrich himself and his crime family. See: Gaza reconstruction plan and Board of Peace.

Speaking of Ukraine, when the Russia invasion of February 2022 occurred, a serious Western initiative might have brought about a pause that would have allowed for a diplomatic solution. The negotiations around a proposed Istanbul Protocol in April 2022 will no doubt get quite a bit of scrutiny in the history of that war that might have been an off-ramp. Russia, of course, was conducting an illegal invasion. But it’s also the case that part of the Biden Administration and the US foreign-policy establishment saw the war as a way to strategically weaken Russia. And that hope probably contributed to their disinclination to pursue that diplomatic route. (BTW, those same considerations are also in the minds of European leaders today, because that’s what foreign ministries are there to think about.)

A responsible US Administration would be putting huge attention into halting the current Iran War. But responsible US Administrations would have cut off arms supplies to Israel as soon as it was clear that Israel was committing genocidal acts in Gaza. But obviously neither the Biden nor the Trump Administrations did so.

Juan Cole, the historian who is also an expert on Shi’a Islam, is always an excellent sources on Middle East news. He recently did an interview whose transcript he has also made available. (2)

It was never clear what the goal of this war was. The likelihood that you could achieve regime change by bombarding people from the air was always very low. It has very seldom happened in history, and it hasn’t happened this time. [my emphasis]

He was probably being a bit cautious there. I don’t know of any case in which we could say regime change was ever brought about by bombing. Early theories of air warfare like Hugh Trenchard and Guilio Douhet saw strategic bombing as a kind of magic weapon, which could be used against enemy civilians in a way that would make them rise up and overthrow their own government in a matter of weeks.

It may be kind of a “boys with toys” problem. New flying ships! Bombing civilians directly! Nobody could endure that for long! The American fascination with “shock and awe” is similar in a lot of ways. Ironically, the experience from Britain and Germany with the bombing during the First World War provided very good reason to doubt the magical power of even that very early version of shock-and-awe..

Cole:

To the extent that a popular opposition was building against this government in the streets in January, by bombarding the country, that movement has had the steam taken out of it. You can’t go into the streets if you’re afraid of being bombed, and moreover you look like a traitor if you’re demonstrating against the government when it’s under bombardment. [Something that has been known – and repeatedly forgotten – since the First World War.] So the idea of regime change in this way was always foolish, and it hasn’t happened. It’s not likely to happen. The goals of this bombardment have been to weaken Iran’s ballistic missile and drone capabilities. It may well be that many of the launchers have been taken out, but Iran still seems to be able to put large numbers of drones out there. The Shahed drones are striking all over the region. So even that goal, so far, seems distant. [my emphasis]

Cole is very clear at the big influence Israel has on US foreign policy. And it’s pretty obvious that the current arrangement has done far more damage to American interests overall than any benefit it has provided. But Cole also discusses the way the US does see positive value – and least in an imperialist sense – from its partnership with Israel:

The US political establishment, however, sees Israel as a kind of aircraft carrier on land for the United States in the Middle East — a tool with which the US can achieve its objectives. Among those objectives are dominating the energy resources of the region and ensuring that there are no challenges to US predominance of the sort that Iran represents. To that extent, I think Trump is somewhat unusual in being willing to be led by Netanyahu. But we saw in Gaza how Biden declined to tell the Israeli government to cease its genocide. I think that the two governments have been joined at the hip for some time. …

I think the Israeli government took the lead on pushing for this war at this time. But I maintain that it wasn’t a hard sell in Washington. The political elite in Washington has hated the Iranian government for 47 years. It has been a thorn in the side of US interests in the region. The US petroleum companies, I think, bear as much blame as anybody else for this war, because they want to get into Iran and develop its petroleum, and they can’t do it as long as that government is there - there are sanctions on that government. There is every reason to think that they were pressuring Trump to do this as well. There is also a Christian white nationalist constituency in the United States which is very wedded to an alliance with Israel and which hates Iran — they’re hoping to turn the Iranians into evangelical Christians. [And/or kill a lot of them off!] There are a lot of ill-considered reasons for which the US is involved in this, but I don’t think it should be forgotten that oil is predominant. There’s a reason the dictatorship in Burma hasn’t been attacked by the United States. [my emphasis]

This war is not “all about oil.” But it is also about oil and the greed of the oil corporations.

Cole closes with: “This is becoming - it has the hallmarks of a world crisis. Even though ‘world war’ is too strong a term, it is certainly a world crisis, and the longer it goes on, the bigger the crisis will be.”

Chris Hedges has a sobering podcast with Alistair Crooke discussing the Iran War. (3)

The Council on Foreign Relations currently has a webpage providing updates on Iran War news.

Notes:

(1) BREAKING: GROUND TROOPS DEPLOYING?! UN PEACEKEEPERS HIT! SCHOOLS ATTACKED! US MISSILES DESTROYED! Secular Talk YouTube channel. <https://youtu.be/ctACnfMXat4?si=99M8KaIywhPwNIjU> (Accessed: 2026-07-03).

(2) Cole, Juan (2026): Juan Cole on Iran War: “Shock and Awe didn’t Work in Iraq, either” (TRT, Bradblog). Informed Comment 03/05/2026. <https://www.juancole.com/2026/03/shock-either-bradblog.html> (Accessed: 2026-07-03).

(3) Can Israel & the U.S. Sustain Iran's Military Power? (w/ Alastair Crooke). The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel 03/07/2026. <https://youtu.be/YL8rXeNkXsQ?si=WUdcNy2D7XOzF2jE> (Accessed; 2026-07-03).

Expert interviews on the Iran War

Our media environment is constantly changing. But the kind of high-quality podcasts featuring actual experts and serious analysts is something we didn’t have available in anywhere close to this degree during the early years of the Iraq War.

I’m sharing a few recent examples. Starting with this one of Timothy Snyder and Ruth Ben-Ghiat, both experts on authoritarianism. Snyder mentions here the aspect of the moment that has surprised me so much: the fact that US opinion polls show virtually no initial burst of popularity for this current war. (1)

Omer Bartov, an excellent American-Israeli historian and genocide expert (who has been very critical of Israel’s genocide against Gaza) in an interview with Daniel Davis: (2)

Bartov discusses among other things the seemingly near-unanimous support of the current war among Israelis. The mutual influence of the US and Israel on each other’s foreign policies is nothing new. But the current Iran War is the riskiest military adventure the US has so far undertaken at the urging of the Israeli government. But it’s not that Israel is simply driving the bus. The US has done some things on Israel’s behalf that were clearly not in the best interest of the US, including the shameful support from both the Biden and Trump Administrations for the Netanyahu government’s genocide against Gazans that began in 2023 after Hamas’ “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack. But Israel has also helped the US in some of its goals in the Middle East. The current Iran War has been Netanyahu’s dream for decades, as he recently commented himself. And US neoconservatives have wanted a war against Iran for decades as well, for reasons not entirely identical with Netanyahu’s.

The following is David Rothkopf hosting Joe Cirincione, Jon Wolfsthal and Ed Luce. Cirincione’s comments are particularly interesting: (3)

This is an interview with Foreign Affairs by Nate Swanson and Richard Haass (two separate interviews, same video). Foreign Affairs is the longtime journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, the stereotypically Establishment international relations journal. Richard Haass was president of the council for 20 years, which gives him the highest of Establishment respectability ratings. I don’t always agree with him but he’s well-informed and leans more to the liberal-interventionist side than the neocon orientation. He’s not interventionist on the current Iran War: (4)

And here is Ben Hodges, a former commanding general of the US Army in Europe. His commentary in support of Ukraine in its current war with Russia tends to be too much of the rah-rah side for me. Which is to say, he tends to downplay the military advantage that Russia currently has in the war. But his commentary here on the Iran War is good. I’m also not ready to go with Third World War talk. But having the US collapse foreign policy into a reality show starring a mentally ailing Orange Anomaly has really been, uh, disturbing. (5)

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who had high-level experience the reckless Iraq War, is not impressed with the approach to this war that the Orange Anomaly and his “Secretary of War” Pete Kegsbreath are taking: (6)

Notes:

(1) Thinking Live with Ruth Ben-Ghiat on Iran, Strongmen, and more. Victor Shi YouTube channel 03/05/2026. (Accessed: 2026-06-03).

(2) Iran War: fmr IDF Soldier & Historian Omer Bartov. Daniel Davis-Deep Dive YouTube channel 03/05/2026. (Accessed: 2026-05-03).

(3) Preparing for the Horrific Unintended Consequences of the Iran War. The DSR Network 03/05/2026. (Accessed: 2026-05-03).

(4) Nate Swanson & Richard Haass: America's War of Choice on Iran-Foreign Affairs Interview Foreign Affairs YouTube channel 03/05/2026. (Accessed: 2026-05-03).

(5) Trump’s Iran war is already a ‘global conflict’-Lt General Ben Hodges. The Trump Report 03/05/2026. (Accessed: 2026-05-03).

(6) COL. Lawrence Wilkerson: Trump’s War: What Washington Doesn’t See. Judge Napolitano-Judging Freedom YouTube channel 03/05/2026. (Accessed: 2026-05-03).

Thinking about ancient ethics

(Since the Iran War is going to be part of our daily news for weeks, months, and very possibly years, l’m posting on something different for this edition.)

Bart Ehrman is a Biblical scholar who does regular podcasts on his professional topic. His background is interesting. He began his career as a conservative Christian believer in the fundamentalist, “born-again” tradition. Over time, he evolved into a non-believer.

But that change didn’t remove his fascination and professional commitment to secular scholarly research in his chosen field. It’s worth remembering that the Young Hegelians of the early 19th century like Bruno Bauer, David Friedrich Strauss, and Ludwig Feuerbach focused heavily on critical Biblical scholarship. Their secular scholarship on the Bible was one reason they were known as Left Hegelians. Friedrich Engels at one point considered writing a book on Biblical scholarship in the tradition of Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity (1841). But his scholarly interests wound up going in a different direction.

That was part of a modern trend toward an increasingly secular understanding of religion and how it has functioned historically. Not a universal trend, obviously, as we see in the persistent appearance of religious fundamentalist movement in today’s world, and not just among Christians.

How this relates to Bart Ehrman’s podcast and scholarly projects is that he gives a historical picture of how ideas evolved and how they influenced history in ways that makes us still have interest in them today. Here he talks about ethics in the ancient Western world, not so much on Christianity. He talks about Aristotle’ ethics, Stoics, Epicureans, and Cynics.

If you pay attention to such things, this is an interesting and accessible presentation. (1)



In the previous episode in this particular series, “Love Thy Stranger: The Radical Origins of Western Compassion,” it talks about how hospitals began as a Christian undertaking. This piqued my interest because the late Austrian philosopher-theologian Ivan Ilich as argued that hospitals in the form that we know them were something Christian Crusaders learned about from the Muslims. But organized spots devoted to caring for the sick arguably goes back long before the Christian era began.

Ilich presumably thought there was something distinct about the kind of institutions that the Muslims operated:

Religion continued to be the dominant influence in the establishment of hospitals during the Middle Ages. The growth of hospitals accelerated during the Crusades, which began at the end of the 11th century. Pestilence and disease were more potent enemies than the Saracens in defeating the crusaders. Military hospitals came into being along the traveled routes; the Knights Hospitallers of the Order of St. John in 1099 established in the Holy Land a hospital that could care for some 2,000 patients. It is said to have been especially concerned with eye disease, and it may have been the first of the specialized hospitals. This order has survived through the centuries as the St. John Ambulance. (2)

Notes:

(1) Did Jesus Invent Modern Morality? Exploring Ancient Ethics. Bart D. Ehrman YouTube channel 03/03/2026. <https://youtu.be/EWnYqZNyEn4?si=sCNRtTn9z30ifeKr> (Accessed: 2026-04-03).

(2) Piercey, W. Douglas & Fralick, Pamela C. & Scarborough, Harold. "hospital". Encyclopedia Britannica 02/19/2026. <https://www.britannica.com/science/hospital> (Accessed: 2026-04-03).