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Iran is winning Trump's war

Again, it’s the president’s war, not America’s. Poll after poll after poll show a majority, sometimes a vast majority, does not want the US to be entangled in a Middle East war. There was no imminent threat. There are no clear goals. There is no exit plan. Donald Trump started a war for selfish reasons. It’s his, not ours.

Yet the president won’t be held accountable for it. Four separate investigations, including one by the Pentagon, have determined that a US bomb landed on an elementary school in southern Iran on the first day of war, killing 150 girls. Perhaps it was a mistake. Perhaps it was unintended. (It was near a military target). If so, a commander-in-chief of noble spirit would accept responsibility.

We don’t have one of those.

“It was done by Iran,” Trump said Sunday, incredibly.

Over the weekend, American bombs destroyed a desalination plant in Iran, according to the Post. The plant was a vital piece of civilian infrastructure in the parched desert conditions of the Persian Gulf. Yet when the president was asked about it Saturday, the Post said, he told reporters he was unaware of its destruction.

Rewind: either the commander-in-chief does not know what the military under his authority is doing or he’s bald-faced lying about what the military under his authority is doing. Both are evidence of the desire for power without responsibility for it.

Last Tuesday, Trump was asked about the worst-case scenario he had planned for in Iran. Evidently, there is no such plan, given that he guessed. “I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person.”

Three days later, the president declared that his war will end when Iran capitulates. "There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” Trump wrote in a post on his social media site. “After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. 'MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!).'”

But last night, the worst-case scenario happened, as Trump defined it. The son of Iran’s assassinated leader was chosen to be the next head of state. Mojtaba Khamenei, the Post said, is a “powerful regime insider deeply intertwined with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.” His pick “sends a strong message of defiance to the Trump administration.” NDTV said the US killed not only his dad, but also his mom, his wife and one of his kids.

So Trump killed Khamenei’s family, but expects him to give up? That, in addition to his reportedly “serious interest” in sending troops to Iran, makes you wonder if he’s right in the head. When asked for his reaction to the news of a possible ground invasion, retired General Paul Eaton, who trained combat troops in Iraq, told MS Now the first word that came to mind was “dementia.”

Whether he’s demented or not, the outcome of Donald Trump’s war is the same – someone else will be responsible for it, not him. Fox host Maria Bartiromo raised the specter of the military draft to the press secretary. “Mothers out there are worried that we’re going to have a draft, that they’re going to see their sons and daughters get involved in [the war]. What do you want to say about the president’s plans for troops on the ground?”

"It's not part of the current plan right now," Karoline Leavitt said. "But the president, again, wisely keeps his options on the table."

There hasn’t been a military draft since the end of the Vietnam war, but a ground invasion that no one wants is so personally important to this president that turning America’s sons and daughters into cannon fodder is a sacrifice he’s willing to make.

Just don’t ask for anything else, especially respect for the war dead. At the Dover Air Force Base Sunday, during the dignified transfer of six service members, Trump wore one of his caps with “USA” printed on the front and “45-47” on the side, both in gold.

The image of a president attempting to profit from the ultimate sacrifice was so insulting that Fox “accidently” aired footage from a previous dignified transfer. In its apology, however, Fox did not show the correct footage, nor did it describe what happened.

The war dead may have been killed thanks to Russian aid to Iran, but the president won’t take responsibility for that either.

The AP reported Friday that Russia has give Iran intelligence to help “strike American warships, aircraft and other assets in the region.” When a Fox reporter asked about it, Trump snapped back: “What a stupid question that is to be asking at this time.”

(On the same day that the AP reported on Russia’s abetting of Iran, the US Treasury said it might lift sanctions on Russian oil.)

A president who won’t give anything, not even respect, still expects the rest of us to. “Oil prices have crossed into triple digits for the first time since 2022,” Axios reported Sunday, “a stark sign of how the Iran war is throttling global supplies and raising consumer costs.” Politico said experts are “predicting we may see $4 and perhaps $5-a-gallon gas prices within weeks. And this in a country where the cost of living is already the hottest political issue in a midterm year” (bolded stress in the original).

Though Trump promised to bring down costs and put America First, spiking costs with $5-a-gallon gas is apparently the price for stability in … some place that’s not America, said Florida Congressman Carlos Gimenez: “You gotta pay the price. If [the war] takes four weeks, so be it. If it takes a bit longer, so be it.”

Trump is spending tens of billions in the name of the American people while driving up the cost of living for everyone with an illegal war, as well as illegal tariffs, and cutting off the safety net and gutting health care. But it’s all going to be worth it, right?

Hardly. Even before Mojtaba Khamenei was installed to replace his murderous dad, the Iranians had Trump’s number. They know they can use “economic pain” to exhaust his political will, which was already in short supply, as the point of the war was never defense but creating conditions in which an old, depleted and unpopular president looks big, tough and loved on American TV.

And just like that, the president seems ready to TACO.

Amid news of soaring oil prices, Trump told CBS News today that “the war is very complete, pretty much.” He said “they have no navy, no communications, they’ve got no Air Force,” which, even if true, is far short of his previous demand for “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” Iran predicted this would happen. Then it did.

What has all the sacrifice been for? Iran has a new leader who’s more murderous than the last one. It is more motivated than ever to acquire nuclear weapons. Its pro-democracy movement has been crushed. Experts worry Tehran will activate “sleeper cells” in the US. And war, not peace, has spread across the region. (Not to mention Iran’s incentive to choke off the global supply of oil at the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf whenever it wants to.)

Iran is winning the war.

Because it’s Trump’s, not America’s.

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'Reckless' Trump forces Iran's nuclear showdown

President Donald Trump’s ongoing showdown with Iran over its alleged nuclear arsenal is “reckless,” argued a pair of columnists in a Saturday editorial.

“Iran’s nuclear program has been severely damaged by U.S.-led air attacks over the past nine months,” wrote The New York Times’ national security contributor W.J. Hennigan and opinion editor Massimo Calabresi. “American officials and experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency believe the uranium has nonetheless survived.”

Because America is now at war with Iran, Hennigan and Calabresi argued, the question of Iranian uranium has been brought “to the fore,” making a “showdown” inevitable.

“If President Trump ends the war without getting control of the canisters, Iran will almost certainly speed toward going nuclear,” Hennigan and Calabresi wrote. “Grabbing it, on the other hand, would entail huge risk and the inevitable deployment of American or Israeli ground forces.”

Unfortunately for US interests, Hennigan and Calabresi assess the “very urgent problem” as having “no good options.” If America and Israel dispatch special force teams, “things could go terribly wrong” as they attempt to acquire nuclear weapons during an active war. The diplomatic approach, by contrast, may have become less feasible thanks to “the latest attacks,” especially given that “America and Iran have been negotiating over this question for more than a decade.”

The stakes of obtaining those uranium canisters could not be higher, the Times writers conclude.

“In a war filled with open questions, the fate of the Iranian uranium canisters is a terribly concrete determinant of what the future holds,” Hennigan and Calabresi write. “The nuclear question is likely to be the most consequential one, however it is solved. That may be the most reckless part of Mr. Trump’s attack on Iran: forcing a final resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue with no clear path to success.”

Trump himself has displayed a seemingly indifferent attitude toward the possibility of mass casualties. Mother Jones senior news and engagement editor Inae Oh wrote earlier this week that Trump has a “shruggy nihilism” toward the hundreds of Iranian deaths and ongoing American deaths, asking a question about whether there will be future US casualties by saying “I guess.”

The president then added, “But I think they’re worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time. We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.”

The Iran war is also having a negative impact on the US economy.


"The bad news comes in two parts," wrote economist Paul Krugman for The New York Times earlier this week. "First, any hopes that this war might be extremely brief are fading. The Trump Administration may have imagined that decapitating the Iranian government would bring swift regime change, but the Islamic state isn't a government of mere thugs — yes, they're evil thugs, but they're also serious religious fanatics facing what, for them, is an existential threat. And their grip on power isn't that easy to break…. Second, war in the middle of the world's most important oil-producing region — which is also a key source of liquefied natural gas — inevitably has major consequences for energy prices."

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Gen Z turning is on Trump because of Iran — and dating

President Donald Trump made historic inroads among young voters during the 2024 presidential election, but a conservative commentator and polling expert believes his second term has erased those gains — and for more than one reason.

Speaking with Here & Now's Indira Lakshmanan about a recent focus group session, The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell analyzed her hundreds of hours of analysis and why it bodes so poorly for Trump.

“Nothing has shifted more in the Republican Party over the last decade than its views on foreign policy,” Longwell told Lakshmanan on Tuesday. “The Republican Party has just become very isolationist, especially among younger voters. And I think you can see this in polling, but we certainly hear it in focus groups with younger voters across the political spectrum.” Longwell described Republicans as not wanting American foreign policy to be entangled with Israel and, in general, to not get entangled in “foreign adventurism.” By invading Venezuela and Iran, and threatening invasions against Cuba, Denmark and Mexico, Trump has violated those ideals.

“I think for those voters, they're watching what Trump is doing right now and they're feeling duped and disappointed, because not only has he not lowered prices as they wanted, but he has of course launched a number of preemptive strikes and appears to be getting us into a new war right now,” Longwell said. She also pointed out that Trump has not lowered prices, even though he frequently promised to do so during his campaign, and supports building AI facilities. Both of these policies — one a failure to deliver, the other a controversial job-gobbling agenda — imperil Generation Z’s economic future.

“They talk about their fears around AI, they talk about just the price of everything, the fact that they can't pay rent or they'll never get into a house,” Longwell said. “And so when Trump talks about America First, it's not just a slogan for them. They read it as a statement of prioritization — Trump is saying he's going to focus on Americans and cost of living, and not on these other sorts of unnecessary things that they think politicians often focus on. And so right now, I've heard nothing from voters who are more disappointed with Trump than it is about the fact that he is not focusing on prices and is instead focusing on a variety of other things —

whether it is covering up the Epstein files, whether it's the ballroom that he's building, and now I think getting into a war.”

In addition to feeling frustrated with Trump on a policy level, young people find that he has so polarized American politics that it even trickles into their personal lives.

“There's also, among young men and young women, a level of political divergence — the gap is greater than it's ever been,” Longwell explained. “So you have the vast majority of young women who are more progressive, or who vote for Democrats, and do not support JD Vance and Donald Trump. And young men, on the other hand — not overwhelmingly, but you have a lot more young men who like Donald Trump, who listen to and kind of live in the manosphere podcasting world. And that actually puts a strain on their social relationships, because if a young woman thinks that a young man who votes for Donald Trump is somebody they just don't share values with — that that vote is an indication of not having shared values — that makes dating very hard.”

She added, “And so you hear a lot of young Trump-voting men complaining that it's hard to find a conservative woman. And you hear a lot of progressive young women saying that under no circumstances would they date somebody who voted for Donald Trump.”

An April 2025 survey by the Yale Youth Poll found that a disproportionate number of Generation Z-ers who were aged 13 to 16 during the COVID-19 lockdowns are Republican, especially men. This is because they gravitated towards the Republicans’ anti-lockdown rhetoric and had so much free time devoid of socialization that they were easy prey for manosphere influencers.

"Turns out, they weren’t too happy about it. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that this group has gravitated to the GOP, the political party that ultimately opposed pandemic lockdowns and belittled precautions like vaccines and masks," the report said. Jack Dozier, deputy director of the Yale Youth Poll, told Bloomberg, "These kids are students who have grown up in a different media environment, in a different world — basically — than their peers.”

He concluded, “They’re significantly more conservative and while they still have some tendencies to lean towards progressive social issues, their economic issues and, at the end of the day, their party choice is significantly more conservative.”

By early 2026, however, the signs already emerged that this conservatism was cracking. Last month Vox interviewed Rachel Janfaza, the founder of The Up and Up, a research firm dedicated to Gen Z.

"In my work as a researcher, this is something I heard in focus groups and on campus quads at the time," Janfaza explained. "Yes, economic issues mattered the most, but a surprising number volunteered that they were worried about the US being dragged into conflicts — and what it would mean for the generation that would be tasked with fighting them."

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Trump’s defenders already 'in trouble' over the Iran invasion

Prominent conservative, William Kristol — who was one of the most vocal, influential proponents advocating for the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the 2003 Iraq War to remove him — says advocates for President Donal Trump’s war in Iran are already on shaky ground.

“Why did we go to war four days ago? And why are we going to continue this war, apparently for weeks or longer? The Trump administration can’t answer either question,” said Kristol.

Kristol points out that on Monday CNN reporter Kasie Hunt “posed a sensible question” to Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin, who serves on the Armed Services Committee and who has been acting as an administration surrogate over the last few days: “Did the president not run on not starting a war with Iran?”

But Kristol said Sen. Mullin deflected: “This isn’t a war.”

“You know the administration’s defenders are in trouble when they resort to this kind of denial of reality,” said Kristol — and this is the conservative who bought former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s claim that Iraq was on the cusp of loading up with enough fissile material for nuclear bomb development.

Now perhaps a more discerning observer, Kristol points out that “Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had undermined this talking point a few hours earlier, acknowledging that we are in fact at war.”

“We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it,” Hegseth said.

“So yes, we are at war,” said Kristol. “To deny this is disrespectful both to the American public, who have eyes to see what is happening, and to our servicemen and servicewomen, whom the administration has ordered into harm’s way. Will Sen. Mullin explain to the families of the service members who have died that their loved ones were not fighting in a war?”

This does not mean President Donald Trump has anything close to a reason behind his war, however.

“The administration hasn’t offered a coherent explanation. Over the weekend, President Trump suggested several purposes and backed away from some, leaving confusion in his wake,” said Kristol. “His aides tried to clean things up yesterday, having Trump read military ‘objectives’ from a teleprompter at the White House. But none of the objectives — destroying Iran’s missile capabilities and its navy, ensuring Iran can’t obtain a nuclear weapon or support terrorism — explain why we had to go to war now. Nor do they explain why we are engaged in such an open-ended and massive military campaign.”

Kristol points out that Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, “tried to help out his boss” on Monday by arguing that the Iranian threat to the U.S. really was imminent, and that it required a preemptive attack. However, last June, Israel was at all-out war with Iran for almost two weeks before the Trump fire upon Iran himself. And during that span Iran launched major attacks against Israel, but hardly any attacks on U.S. assets in the region.

“Instead the administration chose a pre-emptive and unauthorized war for which it has offered no coherent rationale. And it now has no sound argument for why this war must be extended,” said Kristol, adding that six U.S. service people have already lost their lives in Trump’s personal war.

“The answer is simple: Congress should not give this administration a blank and open-ended check to continue to wage a massive, risky, and unconstitutional war.”

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Trump's using WWI-era tactics in Iran: WSJ

President Donald Trump is trying to win his war in Iran using geopolitical tactics not employed since World War I, according to a foreign policy expert.

“Mr. Trump, however, operates from an older playbook” than the one used in the prevailing geopolitical order, “one in which tariffs, embargoes and the application of economic power were far more common,” Josh Lipsky, chairman of international economics at the Atlantic Council and senior director of the council’s GeoEconomics Center, wrote for The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. These tools include using the U.S. International Development Finance Corp. to insure ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz and threatening Spain with an absolute trade embargo “based on the government’s refusal to allow U.S. aircraft to use Spanish bases as a staging location for attacks” by relying on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Lipsky suggested the administration is also considering using the Defense Production Act “to direct the private sector for national-defense purposes,” which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatened to cite when ordering Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to disregard AI guardrails.

“In many ways, it’s a throwback to how wars used to be waged,” Lipsky wrote. “During World War I, the U.K. used its dominance of global insurance markets to complement its naval power and control imports to Germany on everything from food to fertilizer.”

He added, “In World War II, the U.S. launched financial warfare against the Nazis long before entering the war in 1941. From secret efforts to derail the German economy to ensuring U.S. and Western banks wouldn’t do business with their German counterparts, the predecessors to today’s financial sanctions were born.”

In addition to using unorthodox techniques to prosecute his war, Trump’s invasion of Iran is also unusual for another reason: It seems to have deferred largely to a different government, the Israeli government’s, priorities.

“The American military is now telling the New York Times that, far from collapsing, the Iranian regime is adapting to the Israeli–American onslaught and finding our weaknesses,” conservative commentator Jonathan V. Last wrote for The Bulwark on Wednesday. Describing how both America and Israel expected the mullahs to collapse shortly after the attack, even though our national intelligence knew for years that they were prepared for precisely this type of attack, he asked “how is it possible that the people in charge of running America’s war—by which I mean the commander-in-chief and his secretary of defense—could have misunderestimated Iran so completely?”

Similar to Last, influential conservative podcaster Joe Rogan said on the Tuesday episode of his podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” that he knows many Trump supporters who feel “betrayed”by Trump’s invasion of Iran.

“Well, it just seems so insane, based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right?” Rogan said. “He ran on, ‘No more wars,’ ‘End these stupid, senseless wars,’ and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it.”

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Lawmaker tears into White House's 'incoherent' Iran attack justification

President Donald Trump launched strikes into Iran Saturday morning in the second bombing campaign on the country. CNN's Kaitlan Collins couldn't help but notice that his reasoning behind it doesn't make much sense.

Speaking to Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calf.), who sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee, Collins recalled, "a lot of the president's supporters had heard [in 2024], no more regime change, no more endless wars. The vice president, JD Vance, I asked him about this and what exactly the argument was here, given they said seven months ago that they had obliterated Iran's nuclear arsenal."

When she asked Vance about it, how they were going to justify to the American people that a war against Iran was necessary, he said he wouldn't "make any news on Iran today."

"But the principle is very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon if they try to rebuild a nuclear weapon, that causes problems for us," Vance continued.

It prompted Collins to question: "Congresswoman, do you understand how the United States can go from having obliterated Iran's nuclear program as the White House insisted last summer, to now saying that part of the justification for these strikes is to ensure that they cannot have a nuclear weapon?"

Jacobs said that it makes it clear there's no real plan around the attack.

"I think this just goes to show how completely incoherent their strategy is or lack thereof. And look, I know a lot of my colleagues are also trying to justify this, saying that Iran shouldn't have a nuclear weapon. I agree Iran should never be allowed to get a nuclear weapon. We had a deal that, while imperfect, was actually working towards getting there, and instead Donald Trump pulled us out of that deal," Jacobs said.

Indeed, Badr Albusaidi, Oman's foreign minister, spoke with Vance, he told CBS "Face the Nation," and relayed the message that "the peace deal is within our reach.”

He also added, “I don't think any alternative to diplomacy is going to solve this problem.”


- YouTube youtu.be

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Iran's regime was built for survival — and a long war is now likely

The joint US–Israel strikes on Iran, which killed the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Tehran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel and neighbouring Arab countries have again plunged the Middle East into war.

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said their aim is to bring about a favourable regime change in Iran. The implications of this for Iran, the region and beyond should not be underestimated.

Although Khamenei’s killing is a significant blow to the Islamic regime, it is not insurmountable. Many Iranian leaders have been killed in the past, including Qassem Soleimani, Tehran’s regional security architect, who was assassinated by the US in January 2020.

But they have been replaced relatively smoothly, and the Islamic regime has endured.

Khamenei’s departure is unlikely to mean the end of the Islamic regime in the short run. He anticipated this eventuality, and reportedly last week arranged a line of succession for his leadership and that of senior military, security and political leaders if they were “martyred”.

However, Khamenei was both a political and spiritual leader. He has commanded followers not only among devout Shias in Iran, but also many Muslims across the wider region. His assassination will spur some of them to seek revenge, potentially sparking a wave of extremist violent actions in the region and beyond.

A regime built for survival

Under a constitutional provision of the Islamic Republic, the Assembly of Experts – the body responsible for appointing and dismissing a supreme leader – will now meet and appoint an interim or long-term leader, either from among their own ranks or outside.

There are three likely candidates to be his successor:

  • Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, the head of the judiciary
  • Ali Asghar Hejazi, Khamenei’s chief-of-staff
  • Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Rohullah Khomeini.

The regime has every incentive to do what it must to ensure its survival.There are many regime enforcers and defenders, led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its subordinate paramilitary Basij group, across the country to suppress any domestic uprisings and fight for the endurance of the regime.

Their fortunes are intimately tied to the regime. So are a range of administrators and bureaucrats in the Iranian government, as well as regime sympathisers among ordinary Iranians. They are motivated by a blend of Shi’ism and fierce nationalism to remain loyal to the regime.

Trump and Netanyahu have called on the Iranian people – some 60% of whom are below the age of 30 – to topple the regime once the US-Israeli operations have crippled it.

Many are deeply aggrieved by the regime’s theocratic impositions and dire economic situation and took to the streets in protests in late 2025 and early 2026. The regime cracked down harshly then, killing thousands.

Could a public uprising happen now? So far, the coercive and administrative state apparatus seems to be solidly backing the regime. Without serious cracks appearing among these figures – particularly the IRGC – the regime can be expected to survive this crisis.

Global economic pain

The regime has also been able to respond very quickly to outside aggression. It has already hit back at Israel and US military bases across the Persian Gulf, using short-range and long-range advanced ballistic missiles and drones.

While many of the projectiles have been repelled, some have hit their targets, causing serious damage.

The IRGC has also set out to choke the Strait of Hormuz – the narrow strategic waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean. Some 20% of the world’s oil and 25% of its liquefied gas flows through the strait every day.

The United States has vowed to keep the strait open, but the IRGC is potentially well-placed to block traffic from going through. There could be serious implications for the global energy supply and broader economy.

Both sides in this conflict have trespassed all of the previous red lines. They are now in open warfare, which is engulfing the entire region.

A prolonged war looks likely

If there was any pretence on the part of Washington and Jerusalem that their attacks would not lead to a regional war, they were wrong. This is already happening.

Many countries that have close cooperation agreements with Iran, including China and Russia, have condemned the US-Israeli actions. The United Nations secretary-general António Guterres has also urgently called for de-escalation and a return to diplomatic negotiations, as have many others.

But the chances for this look very slim. The US and Iran were in the middle of a second round of talks over Tehran’s nuclear program when the attacks happened. The Omani foreign minister, who mediated between the two sides, publicly said just days ago that “peace was within reach”.

But this was not enough to convince Trump and Netanyahu to let the negotiations continue. They sensed now was the best time to strike the Islamic Republic to destroy not just its nuclear program but also its military capability after Israel degraded some of Tehran’s regional affiliates, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and expanded its footprint in Lebanon and Syria over the last two and a half years.

While it is difficult to be definitive about where the war is likely to lead, the scene is set for a long conflict. It may not last days, but rather weeks. The US and Israel do not want anything short of regime change, and the regime is determined to survive.

With this war, the Trump leadership is also signalling to its adversaries – China, in particular – that the US remains the preeminent global power, while Netanyahu is seeking to cement Israel’s position as the dominant regional actor.

Pity the Iranian people, the region and the world that have to endure the consequences of another war of choice in the Middle East for geopolitical gains in an already deeply troubled world.The Conversation

Amin Saikal, Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, Australian National University; The University of Western Australia; Victoria University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Dems flag concerns on 'disturbing' development in Trump war with Iran

President Donald Trump's claim that his war against Iran may soon be coming to an end is being rejected by Senate Democrats, who warn that the administration may be on a path to putting boots on the ground in a "forever war."

After attending a bipartisan briefing, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who sits on the Armed Services Committee, told reporters, "I emerged from this briefing as dissatisfied and angry, frankly, as I have from any past briefing in my 15 years in the Senate."

"We seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground, in Iran," he said, warning about "potentially huge consequences to American lives."

U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) also expressed grave doubts.

“What I heard is not just concerning, it is disturbing,” said Senator Rosen, who also serves on the Armed Services Committee, as CNBC reported. “I’m not sure what the endgame is or what their plans are."

She said that if President Trump "does want to put us in a forever war — which it seems like he does — he needs to come out and let us be able to have that discussion.”

CNBC reported that the "concerns from Democrats who attended a bipartisan classified briefing with military brass on Tuesday stand in stark contrast with the president, who on Monday suggested the U.S. may be nearing the completion of its operation. Trump’s statements sent slumping markets soaring and cratered oil prices that had skyrocketed in recent days."

Democrats are warning that there is no end in sight, CNBC noted, and reported that the "war dragging on could also see markets whip back and oil costs continue to soar, especially as the Strait of Hormuz, which carries roughly 20% of the world’s oil remains largely impassible."

After the Senate briefing, CBS News reported that "U.S. intelligence assets have begun to see indications Iran is taking steps to deploy mines in Strait of Hormuz shipping lane."

.@SenBlumenthal remarks after Iran briefing: "I emerged from this briefing dissatisfied and angry frankly that I have for any past briefing in my 15 years in the Senate.. We seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran." pic.twitter.com/e2qv0dcAds
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 10, 2026
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Voters know Iran is about 'distracting' from Epstein: report

Iran may have finally diverted some online clicks from the Jeffrey Epstein case plaguing President Donald Trump, but that doesn’t mean Americans don’t know Trump’s invasion is a ploy of distraction.

“A majority of likely American voters believe that Donald Trump launched the war on Iran at least in part to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal that had engulfed his presidency, according to a new survey,” reports Zeteo.

An early March survey of 1,272 likely voters, conducted by Data for Progress and funded by Drop Site News and Zeteo, found a solid 52-40 majority of voters agreed with the statement that Trump was “motivated” to strike Iran to “distract from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.”

“The findings will come as little surprise to a public that has morphed Trump’s codename for the war, Operation Epic Fury, into ‘Operation Epstein Fury,” reports Zeteo writer Ryan Grium. “The belief that Trump is trying to knock Epstein off the front pages by going to war with Iran is most strongly held, unsurprisingly, by Democrats, who agree with the statement by an 81-14 margin. For those under 45, it is approaching an article of faith, with a 66-26 majority agreeing with the idea.”

But the survey discovered that “even a quarter of Republicans told pollsters that Trump launched the war as a distraction from Epstein.”

Zeteo reports the public is maintaining this stance despite the belief being branded as antisemitic by the Anti-Defamation League and the Washington Post, which said the “viral claim” owed its popularity to a “pro-Iran propaganda network.”

“Pretty quickly after the conflict began, this conspiratorial rebranding of Operation Epic Fury into ‘Operation Epstein Fury’ started circulating on social media platforms,” ADL Senior Vice President of counter-extremism and intelligence Oren Segal told the Post. Grim said a timely ADL report also claimed the phrase “Epstein Fury” has been mentioned more than 90,000 times by roughly 60,000 accounts.

“The Post did not explain why it was antisemitic to believe that Trump launched the war to distract from the Epstein scandal beyond noting that Epstein was Jewish,” said Grim, adding that The Post recently laid off its entire Middle East team while claiming Iranians are “trying to undermine American support for the war by linking it to Epstein.”

The survey also discovered a majority of Americans to be “sour” on the war, and that overwhelmingly, voters believe the war will make their lives worse — despite the survey being underway before war-related fluctuations in the oil market inflated gas prices.

“More pressing for Washington, however, may be the public’s attitude toward politicians and candidates who support the war or support emergency supplemental funding for the war, which Trump has requested,” reported Zeteo.

The survey asked whether voters would be more likely or less likely to vote for a congressional candidate in 2026 or a presidential candidate in 2028 if they support the war or support new war funding. Results suggest voters would be less likely to support a congressional candidate who votes for war spending by 19 points.”

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'It was obliterated': CNN anchor corners Republican on Trump's Iran story

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins demanded Trump House ally Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) defend President Donald Trump’s claims that the U.S. “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear building arsenal while also claiming a need to invade to obliterate it again a mere handful of months later.

Last year, Trump claimed to Fox entertainers that U.S. missile strikes on Iran's Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz nuclear facilities had "completely and totally obliterated" that nation’s nuclear capacities.

But now Trump is threatening to invade Iran claiming the nation is on the cusp of nuclear capabilities.

Mullin defended Trump’s calls to invade on CNN Wednesday night.

“A nuclear Iran is bad for the entire world. It's bad for the economy remember,” said Mullin. “This is the No. 1 sponsor of terror around the world, and they make no bones about who their enemy is. They chant ‘death to America!’ since 1979. … [T]hey said they were done trying to build a nuclear weapon, yet they're obviously trying to rebuild it. We're not going to let that happen.”

“If we obliterated it — we being the United States last summer — then why are you worried about it right now?” Collins asked.

“Because they're rebuilding it, and you can see them rebuilding it,” Mullin said.

“But it was obliterated,” Collins repeated.

“But that doesn't mean you can't rebuild. I mean people have car accidents and obliterate their bones and their legs, and yet they can still put — you know, they can still put metal back in them and, and, and walk again.”

“But obliterated last June,” Collins pressed. “How is it February, and we're now, as [U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East] Steve Witkoff put it, ‘a week away from Iran having nuclear weapons?’”

“I don't know. I can't speak for, for Steve,” Mullin said. “I haven't got those reports. And you know, I've been read in on some of these programs. And so, I don't know what Steve is looking at. I don't say anything's wrong or right. I just haven't seen those reports.”

Collins again pressed Mullin to explain the inconsistency a few minutes later in the interview. “I think it's just hard sometimes to get your head around that: We were told last summer it was ‘obliterated,’ and now we're saying a strike might be necessary. … How can you rebuild from ‘obliterated?’”

“I just — I’ve already explained that,” Mullin insisted. “How do you rebuild your legs after you shatter them? How do you rebuild a house after it's been knocked down by a tornado or a hurricane? You can rebuild things. The, the foundation may still be there. You can build a lot back on a foundation once the top of it is removed. And so, the structure, if the, if the structure of the foundation is there, they can start rebuilding.”

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'The aliens are on Trump’s side': Conservative ridicules MAGA for backing Trump on Iran

President Donald Trump’s new war against Iran is so controversial among his own base, a conservative commentator quipped that “the aliens are on Trump’s side.”

“The war’s biggest fan is none other than Pizzagate promoter Mike Cernovich,” wrote The Bulwark’s Will Sommer. “With even podcast host Benny Johnson waffling on the war, Cernovich appeared on Johnson’s show Monday to cheer him up. And he had good news: The United States can avoid blowback for its military adventures, Cernovich said, because its weapons are so good they’re essentially ‘alien technology.’”

Adding that Cernovich is “an enthusiast of the hallucinogenic drug ayahuasca,” Sommer sarcastically observed that “once you know the aliens are on Trump’s side, it all makes sense.” Yet he noted that even Cernovich expressed disappointment after Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitted on Monday that America declared war on Iran to protect Israel. He was not alone.

“Megyn Kelly, on her Monday show, said she had ‘serious doubts’ about what the White House was doing in Iran,” Sommer wrote. “Appearing on Kelly’s show, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested Trump has gone insane—adding that Trump’s oft-repeated statement about not knowing if he’ll get into heaven raises questions about his state of mind and competency.”

Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News host who is outspokenly critical of Israel, accused Trump of being manipulated by Israel, saying “this happened because Israel wanted it to happen. This is Israel’s war.” Perhaps to absolve Trump of responsibility, Carlson speculated that the president may have been duped by bad intelligence. “Maybe it doesn’t show that, because this country has certainly been manipulated a lot by Israeli intelligence—and other foreign countries’ intelligence, but certainly by Israeli intelligence,” Carlson said.

Similarly the pro-Trump Hodge Twins, a pair of popular MAGA influencers, also said that “we are at war for Israel. Thanks for confirming.” Sommer also pointed out that, according to a New York Times poll, only 21 percent of Americans support his attack, with Trump adviser Steve Bannon referring to this number as “brutal.” Perhaps for this reason, even Trump’s unwavering defenders insist that the Iran operation is not actually a “war” — although Trump himself has contradicted that defense, leading to some occasional awkward moments.

Appearing on CNN Monday with host Kasie Hunt, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Ok.) was publicly corrected when he insisted that Trump’s actions in Iran were not a war.

“This isn't a war, we haven't declared war. Everybody wants to say,” Mullin told Hunt. The CNN host responded by playing a clip of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth saying earlier that day that “we set the terms of this war from start to finish. We didn't start this war. But under President Trump, we are finishing it.”

Hunt followed up by asking Mullin if he still stood by his statement that this is not a war.

“What he declared on us was war — meaning the Ayatollah declared war on us,” Mullin replied. “We are not at war with the Iranian people. The Ayatollah declared war on us, we've already taken him out, and now we're eliminating the threat."

A former Republican congressman, Joe Walsh of Illinois, argued last month that Trump supporters who stand by the president despite him breaking his promise to avoid future wars prove that they are in a “cult.”

“I thought you wanted him to end wars all over the world,” Walsh wrote. “You said you wanted him to end American entanglement in conflicts and wars around the world. America shouldn’t be involved in these wars, you said. That’s why you’re voting for Trump, you said.” Yet if they still back him despite his unprovoked wars against Venezuela and Iran, as well as his threatened wars against Greenland and Cuba, “what are we to think, MAGA, but that you are a cult?”

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