By Phil Giraldi
So the United States is at war again, even if the leading figures in President Donald Trump’s administration are denying that what is taking place with Iran should technically be called a “war.” These leading figures include the secretary of War and the secretary of State. They would much prefer that the armed conflict be understood to be something more akin to a “police action,” an “armed response,” or even a “special military operation,” carried out in response to a threatening provocation by the Islamic Republic.
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This would include the development of a nuclear weapon plus also enhancing its existing ballistic missile arsenal, creating “weapons of mass destruction” that could strike the United States. Trump, in a characteristic misspeak, has described the Iranian threat as “eminent” when he surely meant “imminent,” though either word is inaccurate.
Creating a threat to support actions that might otherwise be questioned is not exactly a new tactic for the United States government. Back in 2002-2003 the George W. Bush White House argued that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was developing “weapons of mass destruction,” including gliders that could cross the Atlantic Ocean and bomb the United States as well as chemical and possibly nuclear weapons that could also be deployed on the gliders.
Then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice famously argued that one did not want to see a “mushroom cloud” from a nuclear explosion over the United States. None of it was true—and the policymakers knew they were promoting a lie.
Currently “Christian Zionist” aligned Secretary of War Pete Hegseth perhaps wins the prize for most exuberance about Washington’s latest adventure in the Middle East. He and other senior commanders reportedly have been linking the war to the fulfillment of the prophecy of the biblical Armageddon, a catastrophic war that they believe will bring about the “End Times,” following which all true believers maintain that they will be raptured up to heaven.
One suspects that this particular spin to create enthusiasm for the war is not particularly popular among the families of the soldiers who will be doing the fighting and dying, and there has already been considerable pushback against it. It is also not popular with those who identify as atheist or agnostic, nor with anti-Zionist Christians, of which there are many in the United States.
In general, Iran and some of the “police actions” directed against alleged drug smuggling boats in Latin American waters are not particularly popular with the public, which now is seeing gas prices soar due to the closure of the Straits of Hormuz by Iran. In addition, only an estimated 33% to a high of 48% of Americans support the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicola Maduro.
Most Americans who have followed the arguments for going to war together with “friend and ally” Israel are skeptical. Critics are certainly aware that the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program is most likely non-existent, a fact confirmed by U.S. intelligence, as is the claim that Iran will be wasting its limited resources to develop missiles intended to hit the United States.
Both assertions were and still are essentially political, i.e. to create popular support for a military strike intended to cripple Iran’s defensive and offensive ability to challenge or damage both U.S. interests in Western Asia and to confront ally Israel.
That meant that the United States and Israel are seeking to damage Iran to such an extent that its government, recently challenged by demonstrations, will lose popular support, leading to regime change, possibly to include bringing back Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah, who is being groomed as a replacement.
President Trump declared that he wants to “clean out everything” when it comes to the Iranian leadership as the conflict expands in the Middle East. He posted on his social media site “Truth Social” that, “There will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender!”
He added that he wants a leader who “would do a good job” without elaborating what that would mean. It is a curious demand, unimaginable that Iran will agree to anything like that, particularly given that the fighting is, if anything, increasing and expanding geographically rather than heading toward some kind of ceasefire that might lead to a negotiated resolution as I write this on March 12.
Interestingly perhaps, is the transformation of Trump himself. He ran a successful presidential campaign in 2024 as a “Man of Peace,” but has morphed into a man who is increasingly willing to embrace threats of force to obtain political advantage when dealing with fragile situations in Ukraine, Latin America and the Middle East.
As Trump is relatively unschooled in the art of diplomacy and the niceties of deploying military power, one might suggest that it would be most fruitful to look at the men and women that he has surrounded himself with. They are sycophants to the man in power indisputably, but they also bring with them their own perspectives drawn from their orientation as rabid neoconservatives and passionate supporters of Israel.
The neoconservatives’ plan of action was elaborated in 1996 with their “Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” document, drafted by a team headed by arch-neocon Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle at the request of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It outlined inter alia how Israel would be best served by establishing and maintaining political and military dominance regionally.
Though focused on Israel, the document also cited the strategic partnership with the United States, and the “lessons” it included were subsequently applied to America as the preeminent global power. In March 2003, Patrick J Buchanan, referring to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the “Clean Break” report, wrote:
Their plan, which urged Israel to re-establish “the principle of preemption,” has now been imposed by [them] on the United States.
As the neocons gradually gained access to top level policymaking positions under George W. Bush, a presence that has since expanded under the presidents that followed, the willingness of the White House and Congress to flex America’s muscles post 9/11 also grew with it.
At the same time, the tie that binds Washington to Israel also became a major foreign policy constituency, backed as it was by the billionaires funding the influential Israel lobby and buying up the national media.
The extent to which Israeli interests dominate U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East can be measured in terms of its effectiveness, if one considers the seven trips to the United States made by Netanyahu and the rapturous reception he received from Congress and the media in spite of the fact that he was the man responsible for a horrific genocide still being conducted against the Gazans.
Since those visits, Israel has received virtual carte blanche in U.S. support, consisting of money, weapons and political cover. It also demonstrated its power when the Democrats sought in early March to pass a bill to force the constitutionally and War Powers Act-mandated congressional vote for declaring the Iran war. It should have been a no brainer in restoring “rule of law,” but the Republicans defeated it without really seeking to justify it in legal or constitutional terms.
Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio has revealed the process whereby the war against Iran came about. Israel sees the destruction of Iran as a top national priority, so one might assume that the United States under Trump would go along with that presumption.
It is generally believed that a war to destroy Iran, such as it is now, has been in the cards ever since the 12-day war directed against it in June 2025.
Per Rubio, the timing was based on Israel’s insistence that, if the United States did not join in an attack, Israel would go it alone. There was concern in Washington that that would mean Iranian retaliation against U.S. bases in the region, whether the United States was an attacker or not. Thus the decision was made to join Israel and preempt any Iranian “aggression.” That is what is playing out now, which means that Israel “mousetrapped” Trump into going into war for them.
Rubio’s case for going to war derived from how, for decades in the United States, absolute support for Israel has been a solid political bipartisan consensus. The only debate over Israel has been when one candidate boasted that he or she was more pro-Israel than the other.
The United States accepts that it must always finance, arm, diplomatically protect, and use its own soldiers to fight for Israel was confirmed by former President Barack Obama when he armed Israel to bomb Gaza in 2014 and agreed in 2016 to give the Jewish state $38 billion in cash direct from the U.S. Treasury over 10 years.
Joe Biden and Trump have both financed and armed Israel’s more recent and continuing destruction of Gaza. A similar destruction of Iran is anticipated, according to at least one leading Israeli politician. Americans who criticize the White House’s devotion to Israel are meanwhile routinely subject to reputation destruction by being labeled as anti-Semites.
But all of that has been changing over the last two-plus years, particularly among younger Americans. The Gaza genocide, and now developments with Iran, have made support for Israel unpopular among every demographic group except for conservatives over the age of 50.
I might be wrong, but I think Iran is going to be the beginning of the end of overwhelming Israeli/neocon influence over American politics. Folks like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens are reaching a huge audience to explain how there is no legitimate justification for military action against Iran in terms of actual American national security.
By the way, the war also goes against the senseless foreign conflicts that Trump campaigned on not so long ago. The American people are finally waking up and are being “unbrainwashed” to why there are always wars and they are feeling pain by paying for those wars with sky-high gas prices and lower standards of living. Perhaps it is not too late to turn the ship around.
Philip Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer and a columnist and television commentator. He is also the executive director of the Council for the National Interest. Other articles by Giraldi can be found on the website of the Unz Review and AmericanFreePress.net.
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