President Donald Trump appears intent on war with Iran. After demanding that Norway give him the Nobel Peace Prize for magically solving multiple imagined conflicts, he is threatening to ignite a real war with an unjustified aggressive attack on a nation half a world away that poses no danger to America.
He is unashamedly acting on behalf of another government, violating his duty to the American people under the U.S. Constitution, which does not authorize the president to wander the globe bombing other nations at will. Last year’s lawless military strike evidently didn’t obliterate Tehran’s nuclear program, as he claimed yet again in his State of the Union speech. All the while he has failed to offer a plausible, let alone serious, argument for loosing the dogs of war and risking a major conflagration in the Middle East that could consume friends and foes alike.
Washington’s tempestuous relationship with Iran is one of the 20th century’s geopolitical tragedies. Unfortunately, American officials bear significant blame for Tehran becoming an enemy, and now a likely military target.
In 1953 the U.S. backed a coup against a democratic government—over oil, with which Trump also has a fixation (eg. Venezuela). The result was a quarter century of misrule by the corrupt and oppressive Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whose ambitious son now promotes war against his homeland. A broad coalition overthrew the shah in 1979, but violent theocrats grabbed control and directed their ire at Washington, illustrated by the more-than-yearlong occupation of the U.S. embassy. The Reagan administration subsequently aided the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s 1980 invasion of Iran, which resulted in perhaps a million casualties. Since then Tehran has faced a succession of American military threats and economic sanctions, including Trump’s 2020 assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and 2025 strike alongside Israel’s 12-Day War.
No one outside of Iran wants it to possess nuclear weapons, but what else offers geopolitical protection? Today Tehran relies on an estimated 1,500 or so ballistic missiles, plus a myriad of shorter-range missiles and drones. Yet Trump’s war threats are also directed at Iran’s missile arsenal (which remains potent and caused significant damage to Israel last year) and regional proxies, which are also antagonistic to Israel. That is why Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed Trump to demand limits on Tehran’s missile capabilities, meaning the Iranian regime’s de facto surrender, leaving it open to attack at Israel’s pleasure. Although Trump has not been as ostentatiously subservient to Israeli interests as his ambassador to Jerusalem, he has rarely said no to Netanyahu.
But the president has discovered that other nations can say no, even at the risk of war. His special envoy Steve Witkoff admitted that Trump was “curious as to why [the Iranians] haven’t … I don’t want to use the word ‘capitulated,’ but why they haven’t capitulated.” The answer is obvious: the Islamic Republic does not trust Washington to keep any agreement. Observed Vali Nasr of Johns Hopkins University, the Iranians “are putting little stock in diplomacy and increasingly see war as inevitable. They see talks more as a trap than a solution and seem to view an unavoidable war as more cathartic than a weak deal.” To yield, as Trump expected, would invite continual bullying by both Washington and Israel. Tehran appears to have decided that it’s better to risk war today than ensure it tomorrow.
Although the U.S. possesses overwhelming military force, it remains vulnerable to retaliation, with upwards of 40,000 American military personnel scattered about the Middle East. CBS News reported, “In private meetings, [Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,] has advised Mr. Trump that a sustained military campaign against Iran could carry significant repercussions, such as retaliation from Tehran and its proxies against U.S. forces and allies, and it could spiral into a drawn-out engagement requiring additional American troops and resources.”
There is no legitimate cause for war. The Islamic Republic, though hostile, poses no threat to the U.S., which Tehran would prefer to ignore. It is Washington that has encircled Iran with bases in allied states filled with troops and weapons. Nor does Israel, an aggressively expansionist regional superpower with nuclear weapons, require American protection.
Ironically, Iran’s original nuclear program was begun by what was then Washington’s ally. Moreover, an Islamic bomb already exists, in Pakistan, and is believed to have been at least partially financed—and perhaps is effectively owned by—the Saudi monarchy which, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has proved to be as aggressive, even reckless, as Iran. In any case, U.S. intelligence concluded that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program under pressure. The Islamist regime subsequently concluded the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, with the Obama administration, sharply limiting Iran’s subsequent nuclear activities. It was Trump’s foolish, even reckless, first-term decision to drop the agreement and demand Tehran’s submission that left Iran largely unconstrained.
Yet despite the Netanyahu government’s persistent claim that radical Iran was nanoseconds away from possessing the Bomb, the Islamic Republic has demonstrated neither suicidal intent nor nuclear capabilities. Last year, before Trump decided on war the first time, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified that intelligence agencies continued “to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.” Inconveniently for those baying for war, the New York Times reported, “Contrary to Israeli claims, senior administration officials were unaware of any new intelligence showing that the Iranians were rushing to build a nuclear bomb—a move that would justify a pre-emptive strike.”
Instead, the Islamic regime, surrounded by enemies, particularly Israel and until recently Saudi Arabia, backed by Washington, preserved a path to nuclear weapons while seeking to negotiate. Trump’s decision to put Israel’s interest first has created the impasse. Last year, the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi explained, “It was Israel that persuaded Trump to adopt the zero-enrichment negotiating stance—the very position that led to the diplomatic deadlock Israel later exploited to secure a green light for its faltering military campaign. Had Trump stuck to his original red line—no weaponization—he might now be on the verge of a historic nuclear agreement with Iran.”
Tragically, Jerusalem and Washington continue to reinforce the case for Iran to create a nuclear deterrent. How else to defend itself? Last year, reported Parsi, “support for acquiring a nuclear weapon has surged among Iran’s elite and broader society in response.” At the time Compact’s Sohrab Amari similarly concluded that: “even the secularist-minded opponents of the regime are by most accounts rallying to the flag as we speak.”
Some analysts also make a humanitarian case for war. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a human rights disaster, a bottom-dweller on the Freedom House index alongside the likes of China and Russia. The regime’s most notable recent crime was killing thousands of protesters. However, the Trump administration cares nothing about democracy and human rights, witness its past support for Saudi Arabia’s depredations in Yemen and Israel’s brutality toward Palestinians. In any case, while there are good guys in Tehran, they are unlikely to gain power in the chaotic aftermath of catastrophic conflict.
War rarely yields liberal, democratic government; witness the revolutions in France, Russia, Germany, China, and elsewhere. Washington’s occupation of Iraq triggered postwar strife costing thousands of American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. The Atlantic Council’s Jonathan Panikoff warns, “History tells us it can always be worse. What is likely to follow a theocratic Iranian government is not democracy but Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps–istan. Such a government is likely, at least initially, to be much more hardline than the current one. In such a case, Israel might find itself in a perpetual, ongoing, and far more intense war that is no longer in the shadows, as it has been for years.”
Last year Trump declared, “They said, ‘he will start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars.” Unfortunately, “they” proved to be correct. He was elected proclaiming “Make America Great Again.” It is time he governed in America’s interest.
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