U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks during an event at the Port of Corpus Christi in Corpus Christi, Texas, U.S., February 27, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
President Donald Trump attacked Iran early Saturday morning, striking targets that they intend to continue for several days. He also encouraged citizens to rise up against their government. Other than that, it appears there is no real plan from the U.S.
Publications across the internet matched one major messasge on Saturday afternoon, asking what the plan is.
"'Massive' War Launched by a Man With No Plan. Again," the Mother Jones headline by David Corn reads. "Trump Has No Plan for the Iranian People," The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum headlined her piece. Even the LGBTQ+ publication The Advocate reported on the voices of those "who say the operation was undertaken without congressional authorization and without a plan for what comes next." Even the right-leaning Sky News called the war "a gamble."
In the latter, the analysis concluded, "The history of wars in the Middle East shows that no plan by either side survives first contact with the enemy."
The Advocate cited Pete Buttigieg, a Navy lieutenant who served in the War in Afghanistan.
“The President has launched our nation and our great military into a war of choice, risking American lives and resources, ignoring American law, and endangering our allies and partners,” the former transportation secretary wrote Saturday on Bluesky. “It does nothing to help with the urgent problems here at home that Americans face every day.”
“This nation learned the hard way that an unnecessary war, with no plan for what comes next, can lead to years of chaos and put America in still greater danger," he added in a seperate post.
"What Trump did not say was that he had a plan," Corn wrote for MoJo. "It’s easy for an American president to bomb a country. It’s much tougher to figure out what to do in the aftermath."
He noted that it has been an ongoing problem for Trump, who never has a plan for anything. Such was the case when Trump promised he could end the war between Ukraine and Russia in 24 hours. He even bragged that he likely could do it before he even took office on Jan. 20, 2025. More than a year later, the war continues.
"He had no plan to do so," Corn wrote.
Trump has been fighting that problem for years. In his first administration, the GOP came inches away from repealing the Affordable Care Act, a huge policy promise to "repeal and replace Obamacare." Their problem is that there was no plan to replace it with.
There was a running joke in the first administration that every week was "Infrastructure Week," part of Trump's ongoing effort to usher in a major nationwide infrastructure project to repair the country's aging infrastructure, such as highways, bridges, internet, plumbing, and sewage systems. The White House would announce "Infrastructure Week," and continue identifying problems, but not proposing any plans to fix it.
"The mere act of bombing Iran will not by itself create a stable regime," Applebaum wrote for The Atlantic.
This problem has already plagued Trump for weeks, she explained.
"On at least eight occasions during Iran’s nationwide uprising in early January, Trump encouraged Iranians to 'take over their institutions' and promised that American help was 'on its way.' But just last month, days after the Iranian regime massacred thousands of its own citizens, President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, sent out the opposite message," Applebaum said.
Witkoff suggested that Iran needed “a deal that ought to happen.” Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance was just as clueless, saying that America’s interests in Iran are limited.
“If the Iranian people want to overthrow the regime, that’s up to the Iranian people,” Vance told reporters. “What we’re focused on right now is the fact that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
She closed by saying that everyone is behind a "stable, law-abiding Iran," in the hopes that it "will help build a stable, law-abiding Middle East."
To do that, however, she wrote that "Iran needs not a new dictatorship but self-determination and a pluralist government that respects basic rights. Right now, the Trump administration is not trying to build one."