The Iranian Crisis

News of the US/Israel blitzkrieg attack upon Iran greeted sleepy Americans Saturday morning February 28, 2026. This attack has been anticipated by many because of the slow buildup of American assets in the Persian Gulf over many weeks and murmurings of impending conflict. The question of why this occurred is unclear from the usual lens of geopolitical engagement. If the rhetoric regarding possession of nuclear weapons or imminent development of them is to be believed, then this is confusing because of Trump’s assurance that their capability of producing a nuclear weapon was completely ‘obliterated’ when they were attacked during ongoing diplomatic negotiations on June 22, 2025. There seems to be no credible evidence that the US regime currently believes that Iran is enriching uranium, and indeed, multiple members of Trump’s cabinet have confirmed this including the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. There does not appear to be any clear reason for them breaking off diplomatic talks abruptly for a second time in less than a year. One of the lines coming from Republicans and the Trump Regime is that Khameini was a bad dude and had to be removed. Okay, I can get behind the sentiment, but why now and why by America? He has been in power since 1989. Or maybe the reason is because the Iranians are oppressed people and deserve their freedom? They have been oppressed even longer, since 1979 when Khomeini (not the same dude) took over. The US has been involved in Iranian affairs having backed the Shah of Iran from 1953 until he was deposed in the 1979 revolution, and the aftermath of that intervention did not work out so well for the Iranian people. So why now? Trump had a whole other presidency before this where he could have intervened. Is it because now the time is ripe, like he says? At this time, it is estimated that between ten to thirty thousand Iranians, depending on the source, have died since the Iranian regime’s crackdown on protestors began in January 2026. Trump encouraged them in their protests more than a month ago saying help was on the way perhaps contributing to more deaths. If the plan was to remove this regime for the people, why did he not mention anything at the State of the Union? He had plenty of time during that rambling, record-length blather to at least lay some groundwork for this. The timing on all this is just not adding up to the pretense that they are going in as liberators. Look, the world is a bad place and there are many autocratic nations with varying degrees of suppressed people. China, Afghanistan, Russia and North Korea immediately come to mind. Why are we not bombing them? Is it that the time is just not right for them as well? I understand that Trump is friends with many of the dictators of those nations, or perhaps he is hesitant to liberate those peoples because three of them are nuclear powers. Fine, so why not go after Somalia and depose the warlords there that have been operating for decades? There is no incentive for that. What is in it for Trump is the only question that matters.

Attacking Iran serves multiple purposes to this regime. First and foremost, from the perspective of Trump, it distracts from the Epstein files. Nothing grabs headlines and turns heads like war. I do not think anything will distract from the clear and overwhelming evidence that the current President of the United States is a rapist and a pedophile, but desperate times and all that. And please, spare me the nonsense that there is not a smoking gun because the man is mentioned in the files more than 38,000 times, with dozens upon dozens of accusations going back decades and is an adjudicated rapist. We have black and brown people in prison in this country for far, far less. The timing is certainly curious with the wave of resignations and imprisonments of those connected to Epstein going off worldwide outside the United States.

The other obvious reason, which is undeniable at this point, is for Iran’s oil reserves. Pacifying Iran and making them warm towards America again would mean exploiting this vast wealth to the benefit of the CEOs of American oil companies that could drill there. It should be noted that removing Maduro in Venezuela from power served a similar purpose by allowing the Vice President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez to remain in power if she is friendly – or else. Both Khameini and Maduro were leaders in two of the top five most oil-rich countries by reserves and both had their leaders deposed within 13 months of Trump’s second term. It should also be mentioned that there are those that think that this situation has resolved down there, but Venezuela has a constitution that states that interim VP can only remain in power for 180 days and then there must be an election. We already know that the depressingly sycophantic winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025, Maria Machado, is trying to curry favor with Trump because she wants his blessing for the coming election. If Maduro’s regime loses power, can we expect them to step aside peacefully, or is it possible the situation will destabilize? I do not think we can expect the situation to go as well with Iran as it has in Venezuela so far, simply because Iran has a much larger military with sophisticated weaponry and a deep-seated dislike of American foreign policy.

Netanyahu has been clamoring about taking out Iran since 1992 and starting a war against the biggest enemy of Israel is par for the course for a US administration that has supported the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. Netanyahu gets to preside over a war and genocide he started and evades a corruption trial that has been at his heels just like POTUS evaded jail by winning the 2024 US Presidential election. Trump has incentives and gets to back his despotic ally in the process as a win-win who may or may not have incriminating personal evidence against him as is alleged by some.

The final incentive for the conflict revolves around the impending midterm elections in the United States in November 2026. The Trump Regime is fixated on this because it will drastically reduce their power if there is a blue wave and could potentially open them up to impeachment and removal from office where many of them could be tried for the crimes they have so blatantly committed in the light of day. An ongoing war with Iran is something they will try to use as an excuse to cancel elections, a completely unfounded and historically unprecedented action in the United States. This country has been at war many, many times before, and in both our foreign and domestic wars, elections have proceeded. Lincoln was elected during the Civil War for a second time in 1864. This regime is the most flagrantly law-breaking administration in American history backed by a comparatively corrupt Supreme Court. There cannot be any expectation that laws and precedent will stand in their way. There is a quote – likely apocryphal – attributed to Pompey the Great from over 2000 years ago: “do not quote laws to men that carry swords”. I do not think people that orchestrated the violent US insurrection in Jan 2021 will just capitulate when the time comes if paper is waved in their faces.

Now that the war has begun, and America and Israel are the aggressors that attacked during diplomatic talks with Iran, it is unclear how the conflict will evolve. Trump is projecting confidence that things will swing the way of the United States, perhaps because of confidence gained by his foray into Venezuela. He did not seek approval from congress for the conflict because he would not have been granted it. Currently, only 21% of the American people support conflict with Iran, making it grossly unpopular. One thing that seems clear is that Iran has a military structure that has deep back benches of succession and when one person is killed, they are replaced. There have been protests across the Middle East mourning the death of Khameini, who led a country of approximately 92 million people, and even if he only had 20% approval (accurate numbers on this are difficult to find), that is still a lot of angry people with a standing army of over 1 million people and stockpiled advanced drones and missiles and the clear will to use them. It seems like a vanishingly small possibility in this scenario that this is a country that will suddenly back down after what has been done to them, and given how impulsive this decision was to attack this nation, it seems very unlikely that there is a contingency plan in place for what to do if there is a regional escalation. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were strategic disasters with poorly conceived exit strategies, and it looks like that lesson has still not been absorbed, at least by the Commander in Chief. With such cavalier decisions regarding war, the outcomes are drastically uncertain, especially when the Trump administration cannot give us a straight answer as to why this is happening, who the planned successors are in Iran and what is the ultimate exit strategy. We could be looking at the possibility that Iran devolves into civil war like after the Syrian conflict after the Arab Spring uprising or perhaps it creates a power vacuum filled by something like ISIS after the United States vacated Iraq in 2011. An increased risk of domestic terror attacks is a real concern with the shooting in Austin, Texas on Sunday March 1, 2026, potentially motivated by Iran attacks. This should be alarming to anyone living in the US with knowledge of the mass firings of FBI and career intelligence agents by the Trump Regime over the past year and the glaring lack of professionalism and competence of Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel to prevent domestic terrorist attacks from occurring. Already American military bases across the region have been bombed and the American service members killed overseas has started to tally. With Iran and Israel bombing multiple neighboring countries, there is significant risk that this conflagration will continue to expand and potentially draw in other countries in the region. In my estimation, the loss of American life and treasure is likely to continue to rise in this conflict and as always, the greatest loss of life will be felt by the most vulnerable civilians. An Iranian school has already been hit by US/Israeli bombs killing over 100 children. It is profoundly depressing that this is looking like it may just be the beginning.

References:

Iran Oil Reserves:

https://www.npr.org/2026/03/01/nx-s1-5730347/how-iran-can-use-its-vast-oil-reserves-as-a-weapon-in-retaliation-against-the-u-s

Iran war is deeply unpopular in US:

Who is running Venezuela and the upcoming election:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crmlz7r0zrxo

Netanyahu and staying in power:

Iranian Protesting Crackdown:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yj2kzkrj0o

Iraq war mistakes and similarities to Iran: