President Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi meeting on October 13, 2025 soon after he succeeded in getting Israel and Hamas to sign his landmark Gaza Peace Agreement. Trump claimed the agreement would ensure “eternal peace in the Middle East.” Just five months later, he decided to start the biggest regional war the US has fought in 35 years. At the urging of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, the leader of a nation 444 times smaller than the US and just a little larger than El Salvador, he is now reportedly considering expanding the war with a massive bombing campaign of Iran’s civilian infrastructure which would serve to maximize the suffering of the very Iranian people he pledged to liberate.

President Donald Trump campaigned three times on being a transformational peace president that would pursue a policy of peace through strength and end America’s forever wars. During his inauguration speech on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump told Americans: “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end - and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.” He called his proudest legacy that of a “peacemaker and a unifier.” At a rally in November 2024. Trump pledged, “I will stop the chaos in the Middle East, and I will prevent World War Three. You’re very close to world war, you’re very close, and we have people that are not the right people to handle that. They are grossly incompetent.” During a speech at the White House on September 29^th, Trump claimed his Gaza cease-fire agreement would bring “eternal peace in the Middle East.”

Instead, his legacy has been to bring endless war, death and destruction to the Middle East with an illegal, unconstitutional, unjust and unprovoked war of aggression against Iran. The Wall Street Journal has reported that President Trump told Sen. Lindsey Graham the Iran War was “the best thing I have ever done” and that “he loves blowing things up.” However, the biggest thing Trump has blown up with his forever war in the Middle East is his presidency.

In May 2019, neocon America Last Vice President Mike Pence gave an address at the US Military Academy at West Point informing graduating cadets that they would be called upon to fight in the Middle East, Korea, the Western Pacific, Eastern Europe and Latin America. “Some of you will join the fight against radical Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said. “Some of you will join the fight on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific, where North Korea continues to threaten the peace, and an increasingly militarized China challenges our presence in the region. Some of you will join the fight in Europe, where an aggressive Russia seeks to redraw international boundaries by force. And some of you may even be called upon to serve in this hemisphere.” At the time, it seemed hard to imagine how that would happen given Trump’s pledge of no new wars. But Pence’s prediction is already being fulfilled with Trump having switched sides to the Deep State fighting yet another forever war in the Middle East on behalf of Israel after sending our troops to fight a war in Venezuela and perhaps soon in Cuba.

It seems like a lifetime ago when Trump posted a video in 2024 calling for an America First foreign policy leading me to praise him as courageous and brilliant for supporting the America First conservative peace agenda, I have been championing my whole life only to see him totally betray us and break every single one of those promises. With his unbelievably stupid and idiotic Deep State War with Iran, Trump will be forever remembered as a failed second term president who could have been great as he was during his first term.

While many of my fellow disaffected America First conservatives are claiming Trump deliberately lied when he promised he would end America’s forever wars and not start any new ones and that he planned to wage a forever war against Iran all along, I actually don’t believe President Trump intended to surrender the US to Israel when he ran for re-election in 2024. I believe he was sincere when he said he wanted to be a transformational peace president to end America’s forever wars, stop new wars from breaking out and avert World War Three. That’s why I proudly voted for him trusting he would keep his promises. But when Netanyahu threatened to expose his criminal misconduct related to the Israel Mossad Jeffrey Epstein sex ring, Trump folded like a cheap suit to his demands to embroil the US in an unwinnable, forever war with Iran.

Trump promised to end all of unwinnable America’s forever wars and fight for the forgotten working class men and women in America with a focus on ending the affordability crisis and enabling them to afford to buy their own homes. Instead, with his endless, forever war against Iran, he has arguably become the most neocon America Last, Deep State war president in US history showing nothing but contempt for the suffering of the American people he was elected to represent with a war he started on false pretenses.

Last month America Last neocon warmonger Ben Shapiro said he is willing to accept hundreds, if not thousands, more US military casualties in a ground invasion of Iran if necessary to fight and die on behalf of Israel to do so. Apparently, he is too cowardly to join the US Army and fight Iran himself. The truth is that the US military does not have enough troops to successfully invade Iran. We would have to draft hundreds of thousands of our sons and daughters to do so. But the bigger question is what is Trump even trying to accomplish by fighting a war against Iran and why does he think it’s necessary to continue fighting it? Iran did not attack us and Pentagon leaders testified to Congress the day after the war began that the US had no intelligence to indicate Iran was planning to attack the US or Israel so why did Trump start an illegal, unconstitutional, unjust, unwinnable and unprovoked war of aggression against it? The answer is that Trump is fighting a war in furtherance of Israel’s national security interests but in opposition to America’s national security interests.

Fox News anchor and longtime Trump ally Lara Ingraham has been a Ukraine War suspect but was an Iran war cheerleader up until recently. Now she is sounding the alarm that the American people want peace not another forever war in the Middle East as Trump has been giving them and that the Republican Party will suffer bigger losses in the November 2026 mid-term election if the war does not end soon.

Thankfully, even some of Trump’s most hardened MAGA acolytes are beginning to wake up to his increasingly epic Iran war defeat. It looks like Fox News talk show host Laura Ingraham, who I sat near and got into a sparring match during the 2016 Republican National Convention, just flipped back to the America First side with her criticism of Trump’s war in Iran. On July 22^nd, following critical comments she made about the Iran War on her Fox News TV show two days earlier, in which she warned, “The clock is ticking. Republicans cannot let this become an endless distraction… especially if they want to win in November,” Ingraham reposted an article in the National Review entitled “A War Restrained by the People.” The article noted, “The American people are done with war. They will not support war. They will not (voluntarily) pay for war. They will not make sacrifices to support war. They will not encourage their kids and grandkids to fight in wars. They won’t vote for politicians who promise war, and they will punish politicians who get them into war. It’s not Trump who’s making America more isolationist. It’s the American people. And they are going to win this fight.”

Trump’s Threats to Commit Nuclear Genocide against Iran

Today, August 6th, marks the 81^st anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The US atomic bombings of Japan, which cost the lives of 140,000 Japanese civilians accomplished nothing because Imperial Japan had been trying to surrender for over a year at the time they were conducted. The terms the US imposed on Imperial Japan were virtually identical to the ones they offered us in January 1945 as reported by the MacArthur Memorandum. Ultimately, it was the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, northern Korea and northern Japan, not the atomic bombings, that caused Japanese leaders to offer their unconditional surrender. The US remains the only country in world history to use nuclear weapons against another country. You would have thought that US leaders would have learned from this war crime and exercise in futility not to threaten the use of nuclear weapons to obliterate enemy cities again but sadly President Trump continues to threaten to nuke Iran and kill up to 92 million civilians, the very ones he promised to liberate from Islamist rule.

On April 7th, President Trump threatened that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” if Iran did not agree to his demands, which many experts have described as a clear threat of nuclear genocide since not even a decade of intense US conventional bombing strikes would be successful in destroying Iran’s entire civilization let alone in a single night. On May 8^th, Trump declared “If there’s no ceasefire you’re just going to have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran” in yet another obvious reference to nuking Iran. On July 10^th, Trump issued his latest and most specific and comprehensive nuclear terror warning when he threatened to use 1,000 US nuclear missiles to “completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran” if Iranian leaders attempted to assassinate him giving Israel maximum incentive for a false flag assassination attempt.

“1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the Globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME!” Trump wrote on Truth Social late Friday U.S. time. “Orders have already been given, and the U.S. Military is ready, willing, and able, for a one year period of time, subject to extension, to completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran - PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!,” he added.

Incidentally, 1,000 nuclear missiles would include all the nuclear missiles America possesses in its three legs of the US nuclear triad including ICBM’s, SLBM’s and ALCMs leaving us with no nuclear missiles remaining to deter nuclear aggression against the US homeland or US allies from Russia, China or North Korea. It is grossly immoral and is a blatant violation of Christian principles to issue such threats of nuclear genocide a country that is defending itself in a war it did not start and desperately attempted to avoid. If he follows through on his threats to provoke World War Three and the potential destruction of US critical infrastructure, he will prove to be the craziest, most dishonest, dishonorable and the most despised president in US history. At the very least, such massive US bombing strikes would inflict vast economic suffering not just upon the people of Iran he falsely promised to liberate but upon 290 million Americans and everyone in the world with a global depression caused by his idiotic, illegal, imperial war of aggression.

Trump’s Multiple Meltdowns Over Iran War Epic Fiasco

At times, it appears like Trump is suffering from a split personality disorder. Over the past five plus months of war, Trump has clearly been of two minds. Most of the time, we have seen ‘bad Trump’ the irrational, America Last neocon warmonger-- but every once and a while we see ‘good Trump--the foreign policy realist we elected back in November 2024--come out of the closet only to be pushed back in the closet for weeks or months on end. I suspect that much of the chaos and infighting we have seen in the White House since the war began has resulted from the chaos and infighting going on in his own mind. After he opts to pursue foolish policy initatives like the war in Iran which predictably end in failure, Trump has a tendency to explode at his closest advisors and blames them for his own failures. If the US were actually winning the war as Trump has been claiming virtually since the day it began, you would think Trump would be happy and satisfied with how it was progressing. However, because the US has suffered a historic military defeat at the hands of Iran, he seems to be attempting to shift the blame for this strategic debacle to his subordinates.

President Trump has been shouting profanities at his top aides like failed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth over his Iran War failures and for misrepresenting the dangerously low state of our precision strike munitions which threatens to badly erode the US military’s ability to deter enemy aggression in other theaters and prevent us from being able to fight let alone win a war against our great power adversaries.

During a meeting a couple of weeks ago, the Daily Beast reported Trump reportedly shouted expletives at his White House top aides out of frustration over the US military’s failure to defeat Iran and force it to end its retaliatory strikes because his top advisors have been unable to agree on a strategy to fight let alone win or even end the foolishly imperial war of aggression he started with Iran. One wonders how it is possible that the Trump administration could be so incredibly foolish to start a great power war without a theory of victory or a strategy to win even after 160 days of America’s economy being held hostage in an unnecessary and unwinnable forever war of aggression.

Donald Trump is becoming increasingly “exasperated” in the White House at the failure of his war on Iran, insiders have revealed. A report from NBC News on July 29th. The report said that the president “exploded” at a meeting with his top national security officials last week. Trump was reportedly “yelling expletives” to express his frustration over the lack of progress in the war he launched on Feb. 28^th, and which has cost the lives of 18 U.S. service members.

The official warned “We have had a series of tactical victories, but are facing a strategic defeat without clear policy guidance or a decision about where this is going.” A Trump ally who has spoken with him recently claimed that despite his public bravado over the war, neither Trump nor his top aides are happy with the status quo in the conflict. “The president is exasperated. I don’t think he believed it was going to be this difficult to get the Iranians to agree to a deal. There was not a real strategy for how long or what they should do to get to the endpoint.” “He did not intend this to be a long, drawn-out war,” the ally added. In addition, his aides and allies are struggling to agree on the appropriate path forward. The source noted divisions in Trump’s administration over which direction to focus on: destroying Iran’s nuclear program, protecting the passage of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, or attacking Tehran’s missile and drone artillery. “After all this time, there is no unity,” the official said. Trump has become increasingly frustrated, two others familiar with the White House discussions told NBC, at Iran’s refusal to agree to a deal to end the conflict.

News of Trump’s rant last week was initially covered by the Wall Street Journal on July 24^th which is the date he decided to temporarily suspend US bombing strikes on Iran due primarily to the increasingly alarming missile shortages being experienced by the US military due to his decision to fight a 160-day war against Iran with no end in sight. Insiders told the publication that Trump reportedly went into meltdown mode, calling Iranian leaders “scumbags and lunatics” while peppering his claims with expletives. Trump was blindsided this week by a “surprise attack” from Iran, days after he had temporarily paused his war on the country. “We are going to beat the f---ing s--t out of them,” he is said to have told Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst. “We’ll be hitting them hard,” the president continued. “They are going to get a beating.” U.S. forces completed another “heavy wave of strikes” against Iran on Wednesday night, according to Central Command, who said over 50,000 American service members are currently deployed to the Middle East. The latest strikes targeted military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defense sites, and maritime capabilities.

Yesterday, multiple sources reported President Trump based Secretary of War Pete Hegseth accusing him of misleading him about the increasingly severe shortages of long-range precision missiles amid a potential return to major combat operations in Iran. The exchange took place at Camp David, The Washington Post reported, on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting. According to the report, Trump told Hegseth he thought the problem – a shortage of long-range and interceptor missiles – “had been fixed.” CNN reported Wednesday that the US military has used up close to 80 percent of its interceptors for the THAAD anti-ballistic missile defense system and approximately 50% of its Patriot interceptors, leaving the supply of those munitions “dangerously low.” When confronted about the problem, Hegseth punted the blame to his deputy, Stephen Feinberg, the Post report said. Trump then called Feinberg in which he was reportedly furious, and Feinberg called an emergency meeting of senior DoD officials to strategize how to increase missile production.

CNN reported further on the meeting including that Trump was aware of the critical US munitions shortages but was angry details of the shortage leaked to the public believing it makes the US look weak wanting to severely punish the leakers:

According to multiple officials, Trump has been well aware of any potential problems regarding munitions for months and was not blindsided by the reports. But he was angry that the information had been exposed at an inflection point in the conflict and that it continues to be an increasingly public issue at a time when he wants to project a position of strength, they said. President Donald Trump has privately complained in recent days that disclosures on the dwindling US munitions stockpile make the United States look weak at a critical juncture, senior US officials said, as he repeatedly threatens additional military action to try and motivate Iran to agree to a deal. Still, Trump appeared to acknowledge that at least some of the information circulating about the stockpiles was accurate. He said his administration would seek “long term jail sentences” for those found to have made the information public. “The ‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down,” Trump wrote, adding his administration will seek “Long term jail sentences.” As Trump grows angry at the narrative emerging on the stockpiles, officials in the White House have speculated the leaks come from anti-war officials within the administration who are determined to push Trump to extricate the United States from the conflict, the senior White House official said.

The Trump administration leakers are patriots who are fighting an uphill battle to pressure the White House to end the war to preserve what’s left of the US military’s prewar abilities to deter and, if necessary, fight wars with America’s great power adversaries.

While Trump administration remains badly divided on the best path forward, Iranian leaders remain unified behind fighting the war against the US as long as it takes to win it. Bloomberg reports that Iran’s Islamist leaders remain confident in Iran’s ultimate victory over the US believing they can exhaust Trump before the US succeeds in exhausting Iran.

Iran, while battered militarily since the US and Israel started the war in February, is confident it can hold out against an American naval blockade for much longer, one Iranian official said. Iranian leaders believe Trump will avoid the significant escalation he’s repeatedly threatened because of Tehran’s ability to inflict severe damage on Gulf Arab states and because he’s wary of pushing oil and fuel prices up further. Crude’s surge to more than $100 a barrel last week was one reason Trump paused his daily airstrikes on Iran and opted to try diplomacy again, one person said. Iran is fully aware that Trump’s ability to intensify his campaign is hindered by the depletion of global oil stockpiles and American munitions since the war erupted. The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is now at its lowest in forty-four years, thanks to the White House drawing it down to keep fuel prices in check. Sophisticated US weaponry, including air-defense missiles, has been used up in significant numbers. Iran sees control of the strait, through which one fifth of oil and liquefied natural gas supplies normally flow, as a source of leverage over the US and key to its national security. Trump is under pressure from American politicians to end the conflict, with many Republicans keen for that to happen before midterm elections in November. “We got to wrap it up,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, an ally of Trump, said around a week ago.

Bloomberg interviewed several current and former US officials who say the Iran War looks set to drag on, possibly for months, with the White House unlikely to be able to break a deadlock over the Strait of Hormuz and achieve a lasting cease-fire deal as Trump continues to try to apply military and economic pressure on Iran to capitulate while Tehran demonstrates its willing and able to match every US escalation. If Trump continues this war for another several weeks, the US may effectively cease to be a conventional military superpower because our missile arsenal will be virtually entirely expended. Trump is also coming under increasing pressure from GOP congressional leaders who can see no good side to his decision to continue prolonging the war indefinitely at a time when the affordability crisis is causing GOP chances of retaining control of Congress to plummet. Even diehard neocon House Speaker Mike Johnson stated a couple of weeks ago that “We got to wrap it up.”

US Military Conflict with Iran is a War in Search of a Strategy

US political and military leaders have conferred together to determine an achievable and workable military strategy for victory at the onset of most of America’s wars. Wars cannot be won without a strategy that includes militarily achievable objectives. In the run up to the outbreak of the Iran War, President Trump ordered the US military to start a war on Iran he had no clue how to win directing them to accomplish objectives that US intelligence and senior US military leaders had every reason to know were unachievable. Evidence indicates he mistakenly assumed that Iran would accept an end of hostilities whenever he decided he was done bombing them and that he initially planned for just a one-week bombing campaign.

Since he started the war began 160 days ago, President Trump has essentially been making up Iran war policy on a day-by-day basis on the fly. He has alternated between ordering large-scale bombing strikes and renewed diplomatic efforts to end the fighting based on his mood swings from time to time which explains why he is constantly contradicting himself praising Iran’s leaders as honorable and easy to work with one day and blasting them as degenerate ‘scumbags’ the next. Accordingly, it should come as no surprise, despite all his boasts to the contrary, that this war has become the most ineffective campaign in US military history.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell briefing reporters during the First Iraq War in February 1991. In the run-up to the war, he formulated an outstanding set of requirements for the employment of US military force which has come to be known as the ‘Powell Doctrine’.

Trump’s war on Iran is a morally and strategically bankrupt war being fought in violation of the tenets of the Powell Doctrine and the Just War Doctrine just like Trump’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine because we are killing thousands of Iranians and sacrificing an increasing number of our brave US military servicemembers for no reason with no prospect for victory. As Lt. Colonel Danny Davis (USA Ret.) recently posted, it is a war that is fundamentally ‘un-American’ that no other modern-day US president would have chosen to fight.

This past week, the Iran war entered its sixth month with no end in sight, a war which President Trump had initially predicted would be over within a week. During the past five months of war, Trump has failed to achieve even one of the objectives he said he wanted to accomplish in fighting a war on Iran including overthrowing Iran’s Islamist regime, obliterating Iran’s nuclear weapons program, destroying Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and ballistic missile production facilities and ending Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz. This has causing him to feel increasingly frustrated, anxious, fearful and exasperated and lash out at his top advisors.

The Trump administration has no clue how win a war its unnecessary war of imperial aggression against Iran so now they are reportedly now asking line officers and NCOs to come up with ideas on what strategy the US can employ against Iran. This would be hilarious if this were not such a serious matter.

CNN reported further on the unprecedented inquiry:

The U.S military is officially out of ideas on how to tackle Iran. According to CNN, the Pentagon sent out an email asking troops for ‘creative and unconventional’ ideas to punish Iran. The request from a senior officer at the US Central Command’s intelligence branch carrying out President Donald Trump’s war with Iran came in an email: We need ideas. “We are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,” an officer in US Central Command’s intelligence branch wrote in a message sent Wednesday to a broad group of military analysts, according to a source familiar with the message. A second source also said that a senior US military officer sent the message last week soliciting new ideas for how to deal with Iran.

The crowdsourcing-style query, which military officials said was unusual over email, is one sign of the limited — and potentially unpalatable —options available to Trump to force Iran into a deal on his terms. Hoping to find an alternative, the official at CENTCOM kicked off the brainstorming session via email to see if anyone had a better idea. The second source said CENTCOM is looking at everything, acknowledging it needs to reevaluate the strategy. Both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency have recently assessed that the kind of bombing the US is carrying out is unlikely to shift the Iranian negotiating position, CNN has reported.

Gen. General Dan Caine, who currently serves as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Trump’s senior military advisor, has acknowledged publicly that bombing alone is unlikely to accomplish all Trump’s previously stated objectives for the war. “Air power has its limits,” Caine told lawmakers last month. That is advise we know he provided to the president before the war began but Trump opted to start this unwinnable war anyway.

From the onset of the war, I have been warning that President Trump started this unnecessary war on Iran with no theory for victory, no achievable war aims for a conflict that the US had zero chance of winning, and no exit strategy guaranteed to end in the biggest strategic debacle for the US since the Vietnam War. Trump’s Deep State forever war in the Middle East is literally the dumbest war the US has ever fought making Jimmy Carter look like a veritable foreign policy genius by way of comparison. Only Trump was dumb enough to fall into Netanyahu’s Iran War trap. Not even Sleep Joe Biden was stupid or idiotic enough to do so. In private meetings he is lashing out at his aides like Hitler in his underground bunker before the fall of Berlin. Yet, in public Trump continues to foolishly boast about his failed war on Iran every chance he gets.

One of the latest hair-brained ideas reportedly being floated by White House luminaries is a full land blockade of Iran of its 5,900 KM land border, with the plan requiring cooperation from Iran’s seven neighboring countries Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan to close border crossings, per Telegraph. This confirms what a US official said yesterday, that Trump is “exasperated” and there was “not a real strategy for how long or what they should do,” as many of these countries would not agree to this, given they are not in favor of working with Israel and the US. However, such a land blockade of Iran would have no chance of working because, as I have been saying for the past several months, Iran is surrounded by friends.

Of the seven countries it shares land borders with it has great trade and diplomatic relations with all of them except for Azerbaijan which has become an Israeli proxy in recent years. Retired Lt. General Sean MacFarland calls a land blockade “almost impossible,” adding the US is viewing Pakistan and Iraq as “weak links” despite Iraq’s Iran-aligned resistance groups, with all seven border countries facing their own economic consequences and threat of Iranian retaliatory strikes if they cooperate. Trump believes he has “reached the end of the road” with his current Hormuz strategy and bombing campaign, with Trump and Netanyahu having discussed three options including reaching a deal, continuing the naval blockade, or resuming strikes.

Trump Begging Iran for a Cease-Fire

Trump and Rubio have repeatedly claimed that Iran has been “begging” for a cease-fire while Trump stated he was not interested in a cease fire after Iran rejected a 10-day ceasefire deal reportedly backed by the White House. According to the latest reports, on July 23^rd, the US offered Iran another temporary ceasefire via a message personally delivered by Iraq’s Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi. Iraq’s PM was given the message during his visit to the White House and passed it on when he arrived in Tehran yesterday. Iran rejected the offer as it didn’t resolve the Strait of Hormuz issue, and its FM Araghchi said, “The problem is not passing messages, the problem is America’s outlook, which is illogical, greedy and controlling.”

On July 22^nd, I posted that President Trump keeps claiming that Iran is desperate for a peace deal. In fact, the exact opposite is the case. It is Trump that is desperate for a cease-fire but Iran rejected his proposed ten-day cease-fire this week and said his signature means nothing in reference to his decision to trash the 60-day cease-fire MOU which he spent months trying to negotiate. Trump’s decision to discard it destroyed months of diplomatic breakthroughs and has caused an end to his war in Iran seem further away than ever. It is this agreement which provided us with the best diplomatic exit ramp to get us out of the war so Trump should try to get Iran to agree to re-implement it again if possible. Unfortunately, Trump foolishly decided to restart the war over non-lethal Iranian drone strikes on neutral ships in the Strait of Hormuz resulting in four brave US military servicemembers being killed needlessly and now Iran has adopted a strategy of pre-emptive strikes on US military bases which are humiliating Trump. At this point, Trump needs to announce a unilateral suspension of all US military strikes on Iran and offer to end the US naval blockade and begin withdrawing US military forces from the region in exchange for Iran agreeing to restore compliance with the MOU.

As I predicted he likely would do eventually, up until the Iranian strike on the US military base in Jordan on July 28th, President Trump was reportedly seeking a return to the collapsed and suspended 60 day cease-fire Memorandum of Understanding which he trashed on July 7th, since that is the only agreement Iran will accept and the only way for him to end the war without a total withdrawal of US military forces from the Persian Gulf region before resuming US military strikes on Iran. The White House is also attempting to include Yemen and Trump seeking to make the Houthis part of the cease-fire discussions, per sources. It was also reported earlier this week that the Trump administration is once again attempting to get Iran to agree to return to the 60-day cease-fire agreement which is the only chance he has to end the war without withdrawing all US military forces from the region.

I have been saying for a while now that if Trump wanted a cease-fire he could declare a unilateral cease-fire and Iran would follow suit because it only conducts retaliatory strikes against US military bases. But Iran’s ‘surprise’ attack on the US military base in Jordan might have altered that calculus. President Trump declared it was ‘dishonorable’ for Iran to launch a missile strike on a US military base during the middle of negotiations. Yet, he continues to brag about killing 50 top Iranian leaders including Iran’s Supreme Leader and much of Iran’s First Family in the middle of discussions regarding Iran’s expansive February 27th offer to constrain its nuclear program.

Trump loves to project his own weaknesses on to those he perceives to be his enemies. It is not Iran but Trump himself that has been very dishonest and dishonorable in assassinating top Iranian leaders during diplomatic negotiations and breaking all his agreements. It’s not Iran but Trump who has been doing very poorly and having a difficult time as exemplified by his profane tirades this past week against his top aides for failing to agree on a strategy to fight, let alone win or end, his botched regime change war against Iran. That said, I was very happy with his decision to suspend US military strikes on August 1st after weeks of near daily US bombing strikes from July 7^th-24^th and from July 29^th-July 31^st which have depleted our missile stockpile to less than half of what they were before the war.

Trump Committing Political Suicide for GOP by Choosing to Fight Iran War Indefinitely

According to multiple reports, the Iran was it he most unpopular war in modern US military history. CNN is reporting that the latest poll shows that 74 percent of Americans have rightly concluded that Trump had no plan to fight his war in Iran and 67 percent say the war has not advanced US interests in any way. Despite this fact, Trump continues to double down in his prosecution of his unwinnable forever war against Iran. During a eulogy for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who died mysteriously the day after visiting a drone plant in Kiev, President Trump stated that Graham loved fighting and starting wars.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and President Donald Trump showing a “Make Iran Great Again” hat. Graham was an Israel First/America Last political leader who said his life’s work was to get a US president to start a protracted war with Iran. He has been a cheerleader for more war during his entire political career and shamefully called for Israel to nuke Gaza or obliterate it like the Allies did to the German city of Dresden just before Germany surrendered at the end of the Second World War. He has showed nothing but contempt for innocent lives and that is his life’s legacy.

The Washington Post recently published a video showing Graham cried tears of joy when Trump started a forever war with Iran back in February exclaiming that was what he’d been working for his entire life. Getting our brave US military heroes to fight and die in an endless war for Greater Israel is his life’s legacy and no one should be celebrating that. Fox News host Sean Hannity gave a eulogy at Graham’s funeral saying he showed moral clarity. If there’s one thing Sean Hannity and Lindsey Graham lack, it’s moral clarity. They believe waging endless wars of aggression on behalf of a foreign power at the cost of thousands of dead Americans that kill millions of people somehow equate to moral clarity. They are dangerous lunatics who would likely be more comfortable living in Nazi Germany than our once peace-loving imperial republic.

The Hill reports that Trump’s Iran War quagmire has taken a heavy toll on his approval rating and GOP chances to retain control of the US Senate in the November 3^rd elections. His approval rating is currently at an all-time low for his second term. A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday showed that 58 percent of surveyed voters disapproved of the president’s job performance, compared with 32 percent who approved. That number marks Trump’s lowest approval rating recorded by the pollster across both of his terms in office. On Wednesday, an AP-NORC poll similarly found Trump’s approval at 33 percent, down 4 points from the previous AP-NORC survey and also the lowest rating in their polling since his return to the White House. The Quinnipiac survey found 60 percent of U.S. voters oppose the war — the highest level of opposition recorded since the conflict began on Feb. 28. Nearly three-quarters of Americans said they do not support deploying U.S. troops to Iran. Similarly, the AP-NORC poll found that 64 percent of Americans believe the war has not been worthwhile — a view shared by 87 percent of Democrats, 37 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of independents.

If the 2026 mid-term election were held today, polls show that the GOP would lose US Senate seats in Maine, Ohio, Texas and North Carolina with GOP candidates leading the US Senate race in Iowa and Alaska vey a very narrow margin which would mean we are likely to lose four to six US Senate seats giving the Democrats a majority. As I noted, in my last article, I think there is probably a seventy percent chance that the GOP loses control of both Houses of Congress this year. I am predicting the GOP is also likely to lose about 25-30 US House seats. This election is being driven by an affordability crisis greatly worsened by Trump’s idiotic war on Iran so I think that will be the determining factor that determines who wins the November 3rd congressional elections. Accordingly, there is no scenario in which the GOP can retain control of the US House of Representatives where the GOP holds a very slim 219-212 seat majority.

Trump Shifting Support to Vance over Rubio

I have been reporting for some time that Trump was clearly hinting he was more likely to support Secretary of State Marco Rubio over his Vice President JD Vance as the 2028 GOP presidential standard bearer. However, over the past several weeks, Trump’s thinking has changed. Trump has shifted from privately weighing JD Vance against Marco Rubio to openly backing Vance as his preferred 2028 successor, according to people familiar with his comments. Vance’s recent media tour for his memoir “Communion” reportedly impressed Trump, with appearances on The View, Real Time with Bill Maher, Fox News, and Megyn Kelly’s podcast showcasing his ability to defend the administration in varied settings. “There’s been a lot of that,” one person said of Trump’s compliments about Vance’s appearance. President Trump reportedly told donors he wants Vice President Vance representing Republicans in the 2028 election, despite refraining from committing to a preferred candidate in public. Trump told donors in the Oval Office roughly two weeks ago that, “At the end of the day, we need to elect JD,” according to The Washington Post.

JD Vance has proven to be the best, most America First conservative Vice President in modern American history. He argued strongly against Trump’s decision to start an unnecessary and unwinnable war with Iran and he has been at the forefront of negotiations to end the war. Following the increasingly epic US military defeat in the Iran military conflict, President Trump has come to realize he was right all along and has asked his donors to back his presidential campaign which Vance is likely to declare by June 2027.

President Trump has appeared to have soured on his decision to start an unending and unwinnable war with Iran he has been desperate to get us out of. With his buyer’s remorse appears to have come a realization that had he listened to Vice President JD Vance’s warning not to fight it he would be in a much stronger position politically going into the November 3rd mid-term elections. So, it’s not surprising that he is increasingly opting to back his loyal America First conservative Vice President as his chosen successor over neocon America Last Secretary of State Marco Rubio who he understandably associates with his failed war in Iran.

I believe it is imperative for the Republican Party to nominate Vice President JD Vance as our 2028 presidential nominee if we are to turn the page on Trump’s neocon legacy of embroiling the US in unwinnable regime change wars. Vance has never abandoned his America First conservative ideological principles despite feeling the need to support Trump’s forever war in Iran publicly. During a recent podcast interview, Vice President JD Vance stated Israel spent a fortune trying to blow up our Iran negotiations and smear anyone pursuing a deal. “When I open up the pages of Time magazine and see that there’s a literal foreign influence campaign being funded to tank the very deal that I was pursuing, and many of the people receiving that money were attacking me in completely dishonest ways, my response is: Go to Hell!”

Merging the US Defense Industrial Base with Israel’s

On July 22^nd, seven America First conservative GOP heroes in the US House of Representatives led by Rep. Thomas Massie voted against the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act which includes Section 219 which would merge the US military industrial and technological base with Israel’s giving them an unprecedented degree of control over us. Meanwhile 209 House GOP members disgracefully voted in favor of this treasonous legislation. A vote to advance this legislation in the US Senate failed on July 14^th, with all but one Republican Senator present voting in favor meaning virtually all Senate Republicans support their allegiance to Israel over the country they were elected to represent.

If this bill passes, it will no longer be politically feasible for members of Congress to vote against using our brave US military servicemembers as Israel’s Foreign Legion. This is madness and treason at the highest levels. Most Democrat members of Congress are voting to defund Trump’s Deep State war in Iran and his Deep State plan to merge our military with the military of a hostile foreign power arguably giving the Democrat Party for the first time ever a better claim than the GOP to be the America First nationalist party.

In a July 15th vote in the US House of Representatives, the only Republican to vote to eliminate all offensive military assistance to Israel was America First conservative hero Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) even though Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu himself stated that all US aid to Israel should be phased out. Congressional Republicans have shown more loyalty to a hostile foreign power than they have to the country whose constitution they swore an oath to protect and defend from all enemies foreign and domestic.

Pentagon Covering Up True Extent of US Military Casualties

The Pentagon is reporting that the US military has suffered over 200 more casualties since Trump restarted the war on July 7^th with four US military servicemembers being killed in a single weekend in Jordan and Iraq for a total of 624 official US casualties since the war began. Interestingly, a new report published by The Warhorse using Defense Manpower Data Center figures found that 90 US military casualties occurred on the second day of the war on March 1^st as Iran struck 13-16 US military bases across the region in a single day while another seventy were incurred on March 18^th. Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said that 96% of service members would in action had returned to duty. Parnell described the majority of injuries as “minor concussions.” However, one national security expert found that US military servicemembers who remain hospitalized for serious wounds are deceptively counted as having ‘returned to duty.’

On July 23^rd, it was reported that America Last neocon Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered the exclusion of four brave US military heroes who died in Iranian retaliatory missile strikes on US military bases in Jordan and Iraq the previous weekend from the tally of US Iran war dead causing the U.S. Department of War lowered the total number of American servicemembers officially killed during the Iran War from 18 to 14. Three military officials told The New York Times that one reason behind the change was that their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a ceasefire with Iran in April. Secretary Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Trump are trying to duplicitously perpetrate the false narrative that the current round of US military strikes represent an entirely different war from the first 38 days of the conflict as it is taking place after the April 7th cease-fire, despite the fact neither side honored it. Because for them to claim otherwise would be to admit Trump has been fighting an illegal and unconstitutional war which has led to several hundred US military servicemembers being killed or wounded. So what message are the families of the four dead US soldiers to take from this action? That their sons and daughters died during a time of peace and thus must be denied the honorary title of war heroes?

On July 24^th, Sen. Tim Sheehy gave a speech on the floor of the US Senate in which he stated, “We didn’t start this war, but we will finish it.” It’s amazing how ignorant you have to be to be elected a US Senator these days. Iran never directly attacked us until we attacked them. We were at peace with Iran until we helped Israel murder Iran’s First Family on February 28th. Not even Iran’s Islamist regime had contemplated such a dishonorable attack against the US to assassinate not just a foreign head of state but his innocent family members as well. Yet, President Trump has repeatedly boasted and joked about this US/Israeli war crime while repeatedly threatening to perpetuate a nuclear genocide upon 92 million Iranian civilians. His despicable words and actions have not just been un-presidential. They have been un-American.

Will Trump Order a Ground Invasion of Iran?

The reason President Trump has been willing to stage a forever war with Iran while claiming it’s not actually a war is that US military deaths have remained low. This is primarily due to the fact it has been an air and naval campaign in which Iranian leaders have restrained themselves from taking advantage of Iran’s total supremacy over the US military in terms of its supersonic and hypersonic anti-ship missiles we do not possess to target and sink major US naval surface combatants up to and including our two aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea. But were Trump to order a US ground invasion of Iran would change that drastically. It would serve as the ultimate betrayal of his America First conservative voting base who re-elected him president. There is an increasing amount of evidence that President Trump is continuing to keep his options open when it comes to staging a potential ground invasion of Iraq.

The Military Times is reporting that the U.S. Selective Service System is planning a computer simulation to test how it would carry out a national mobilization of American manpower, months before the government begins automatically registering men aged 18 to 26 for the draft in December. Is this a prelude to a full-ground US invasion of Iran which has a million-man army? There is no other conceivable reason why President Trump would be considering a national mobilization unless he is planning to send hundreds of thousands of US troops to fight and die in his war against Russia in Ukraine.

The New York Times reports that the Trump administration is considering sending thousands of ground troops to secure Iranian nuclear sites and recover enriched uranium. The operation would require thousands of ground troops to secure the sites, clear booby traps, support construction teams, and establish a defensive perimeter before a small special operations team recovers the uranium. But it seems doubtful that Trump is stupid enough to order such a suicide mission that would result in thousands of US military casualties especially when Iran’s 1,000-pound uranium stockpile is likely dispersed among dozens of deep underground nuclear production facilities.

There’s a reason why I have been predicting Trump will veto any US ground invasion of Iran that could cause the war to drag on for years to come. During an interview with his daughter-in-law and Fox News host Laura Trump last month, he told her the reason he chose to start a war with Iran in February is because he believed the Democrats would win both Houses of Congress in November so he only has until the end of the year to finish fighting all his wars before they take over. Presumably, he believes the Democrats will act swiftly to investigate and hold impeachment hearings over his illegal, unconstitutional war on Iran if the military conflict is still ranging when they take power on January 3rd and will act quickly to defund the war. So, the good news is that Trump is likely to do everything in his power to end his war on Iran by December even if that means he must capitulate to virtually all of Iran’s peace demands again.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and previously served as National Security Policy Director for Sen. Mike Lee during his 2010 campaign. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster.” He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

July 2nd—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his Moral Resistance podcast to discuss the signing of the armistice agreement between the US and Iran in which we gave in to virtually all their terms and the chances that it will lead to a more just and lasting peace. We will also discuss US and Iranian cease-fire violations, missile strikes and the chances that Israel’s war in Lebanon might blow up the peace deal.

July 7th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss the latest developments with regards to the Ukraine and Iran wars and whether its possible that a peace deal can be negotiated ending the war in Ukraine or will the war only end with Ukraine’s military collapse this fall. We will also discuss my proposal to form a Triple Entente with Russia and India to neutralize the Sino-Russian military alliance, ensure US security for decades to come and help counter China’s rise to global hegemony.

July 9th—Interview with Emerald Robinson on her “The Absolute Truth” show to discuss Trump’s war on Iran, the NATO summit and the war in Ukraine. We will discuss Trump’s statement that the 60 day cease-fire is finished, his statement that Greenland should be American and NATO claims that Ukraine is winning its war against Russia.

July 9th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s war on Iran, the NATO summit and the war in Ukraine. We will discuss Trump’s statement that the 60 day cease-fire is finished, his statement that Greenland should be American and his statement that the US supporting Ukrainian deep strikes on Russian oil and gas infrastructure bring us closer to peace.

July 10th—Interview with Ben Harnwell on “Bannon’s War Room” show to discuss Trump’s war on Iran, the 2026 NATO Summit in Ankara and the war in Ukraine. We will discuss Trump’s statement that the 60 day cease-fire is finished, his statement that Greenland should be American and NATO claims that Ukraine is winning its war against Russia.

July 21st—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to escalate the war by bombing Iran’s critical infrastructure and Iran’s response by bombing our Gulf allies oil and gas infrastructure and desalinization plants. We will also discuss Iran’s rejection of Trump’s proposed ten day cease-fire proposal and its reply that it will not negotiate with the US again until the threat to Iran has been removed and the US missile arsenal has been fully depleted.

July 21st—Interview with Brandon Weichert on Mario Nawfal’s Roundtable podcast to discuss the most likely outcome of Trump’s forever war against Iran, his decision to escalate the war by bombing Iran’s critical infrastructure and Iran’s response by bombing our Gulf allies oil and gas infrastructure and desalinization plants. We will also discuss Iran’s rejection of Trump’s proposed ten day cease-fire proposal and its reply that it will not negotiate with the US again until the threat to Iran has been removed and the US missile arsenal has been fully depleted.

July 22nd—Interview with Tafhim Kiani on the Kianistan Podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to resume kinetic military strikes on Iran, trash the 60- day cease-fire and resume the US naval blockade of Iran and the potential consquences for the US and global economy. We will also discuss whether Trump will make good on his threats to invade Kharg Island.

July 28th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s war on Iran and the war in Ukraine. We will discuss Trump’s decision to suspend US missile strikes on Iran in an attempt to return to the 60-day cease-fire agreement and related issues.

July 29th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych to discuss the latest developments with regards to the Ukraine and Iran wars and whether its possible that a peace deal can be negotiated ending the war in Ukraine or will the war only end with Ukraine’s military collapse this fall following a massive Russian northern offensive.

July 30th—Interview with Jamin McKeever on his podcast to discuss Section 219 of the National Defense Authorization Act which would effectively merge the US defense industrial and military technological base with Israel’s. This provision would make it politically impossible for members of Congress to vote against the US military continuing to fight and die for all of Israel’s wars.

August 2nd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on Mario Nawfal’s Roundtable podcast to discuss the most likely outcome of Trump’s forever war against Iran. We will also discuss Iran’s surprise attack on a US military base in Jordan and Trump’s plans and whether it constitutes a change in Iran’s strategy to continue the war until November 3rd to maximize Democrat gains to ensure Trump is impeached by a wide margin.

August 5th—Interview with Brandon Weichert on Mario Nawfal’s Roundtable podcast to discuss the most likely outcome of Trump’s forever war against Iran. We will also discuss Iran’s new strategy of pre-emptive strikes which is humiliating President Trump and seems to be on the verge of restoring deterrence with the US given his inability to carry out his threat to destroy Iran’s power plants as US long-range munitions continue to be depleted to dangerously low levels.

Upcoming Interviews

August 6th—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Trump’s threat that this is Iran’s last chance to avoid having its critical infrastructure bombed and Iran’s new strategy of pre-emptive strikes on US military bases. We will also discuss the statement of Iran’s leaders that it will not negotiate with the US again until the threat to Iran has been removed and the US missile arsenal has been fully depleted.

August 10th—Interview on RT’s America Now show with Ben Swann to discuss Tucker Carlson’s new ten point plan for America First conservatives moving forward and whether he may try to use it to establish an America First third party that unites pro-peace America patriot and nationalist conservatives, liberals and moderates together to oppose Uniparty leaders.

August 10th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss the latest developments with regards to the Ukraine and Iran wars. We will discuss the prospects that Russia will complete its takeover of western Donetsk leading to a Ukrainian military collapse this fall and whether the US conflict with Iran will prove a forever war.

August 14th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Hagseth’s claims that dire and deplorable crew conditions on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln have been completely misinterpreted. We will discuss how the Iran War has been a disaster for US military readiness and deterrence.

August 21st—Interview with Pyotr Kutrin on the Global Gambit to discuss Russia’s overwhelming superiority over the US in nuclear weapons, the ramifications of Trump’s decision to prolong the Iran and Ukraine wars, whether Russia will defeat Ukraine this year and the effects of a super EMP attack on the US homeland.

August 24th—Interview with Rachel Blevins on her show to discuss the ramifications of Trump’s failed war on Iran and the prospects for a diplomatic end to the conflict as well as the likelihood of Ukraine suffering a military collapse this fall forcing it to capitulate to Russia.

August 25th—Interview with Paul Mills on his Off-Grid Farming podcast to discuss the ramifications of Trump’s decision to prolong the Iran and Ukraine wars, whether Russia will defeat Ukraine this year as well as the effects of a super EMP attack on the US homeland.

August 27th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Chinese hackers succeeding in hacking our military and nuclear secrets and why the likely purpose of CIA Director’s urgent visit to Moscow was all about was to warn Russia against staging a massive northern offensive aimed at Kyiv and Chernihiv oblasts and perhaps even conduct limited strikes on NATO itself.

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An Iranian oil refinery burning in Tehran during the Twelve Day War. President Trump was reportedly persuaded to suspend his plans to bomb Iran’s civilian infrastructure in part because it could lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iranian civilians. Combined with Iranian retaliatory strikes on US Gulf allies energy production facilities, it could lead to the suffering of tens of millions in the region and another global depression.

It has been 158 days since Trump started his unnecessary war of choice against Iran and he has yet to achieve even one of his stated six objectives against a nation that is a second-rate great power and near-peer adversary. Trump’s failure to subdue Iran in the war or even fight them to a draw has sent a message of weakness and increasingly US military impotency to our nuclear superpower adversaries Russia and China who now realize that the US no longer has the ability to fight let alone win a war against them in Eastern Europe or Western Pacific. As I predicted it would on March 5th, the Iran War has not just changed the regional balance of power in the Persian Gulf region against the US. It has also dramatically altered the global balance of power in favor of America’s enemies.

Over the past couple weeks, I did a number interviews in which I was asked how this war would end. My response was that it would end either when the US began running out of long-range precision strike munitions or when the price of gasoline spiked to an extent to which it was clear a recession was in the cards. During the past few days, Trump has been begging Iran for a cease-fire through intermediaries unsuccessfully and before he resumed the US military campaign against Iran on July 28^th was calling for a return to his 60-day cease fire MOU in which the US conditionally surrendered to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The reported reason is that both Vice President JD Vance and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine warned Trump during a White House meeting on July 24^th that if he continued to engage in daily bombing strikes on Iran, the US military would run dangerously low on its missile arsenal and that the effect of the US strikes was to unite the Iranian people behind Iran’s Islamist regime. The broad concerns raised by Caine during the White House meeting also included sparking a potential refugee crisis, Iranian retaliation against Gulf energy and desalination infrastructure and the potential for regional escalation, according to a source familiar with the discussion.

Trump’s decision to halt US bombing strikes against Iran a couple of weeks ago was largely due to the fact that the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Dan Caine had informed him and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth that a shortage of air defense interceptors could hamper the ability to protect U.S. forces and allies in the region. In addition, US CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper recommended suspending the US bombing campaign in southern Iran noting it had reached the limit of its effectiveness.

Microsoft News reported on Vance’s and Caine’s comments which included voicing concerns that massive US strikes on Iran’s civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes and lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iranian civilians leading Iran to respond by destroying the energy and water plants belonging to US Gulf allies causing millions if not tens of millions of people to suffer.

According to a recent article in the Washington Post, US intelligence is stating that the Islamist regime in Iran has demonstrated surprising “staying power” despite the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader and nearly fifty other top Iranian political and military leaders and that additional US military strikes would not be successful in getting Iran to make any concessions to the US. One senior official stated the strikes would have the opposite of effect of what was intended, keeping Iran cohesive and allowing Iranian leaders to focus attention on an external threat.

General Caine reportedly told the president that the US military campaign against Iran was undermining US military readiness globally and a return to major combat operations would dangerously deplete stockpiles of some of the military’s most important munitions, including the interceptors necessary to defend against Iranian counterattacks. America’s regional bases and personnel—not to mention our allies’ civilian infrastructure and populations—would then be dangerously exposed.

On August 4^th, Reuters issued an alarming report citing Trump administration officials that the U.S. has used “virtually all” its long-range precision strike missiles during its war on Iran. Last month, a U.S. official told the Washington Post that there weren’t enough munitions to sustain military operations in the Middle East. “I don’t think the White House is aware of that,” the official said. The dwindling stores could pose a risk for the military’s readiness to engage in future conflicts. It could also impact the U.S.’s ability to deter foreign foes like Russia and China. US forever wars in Ukraine and Iran have resulted in the depletion of over half of the US military’s long range precision strike munitions and missile defense interceptors without which the US will be unable to fight let alone win another great power war against the PRC or the Russian Federation let alone both should they initiate a simultaneous global conflict.

The US depleted 45 percent of its inventory of conventional offensive and defensive missiles during the first 38 days of the Iran War. President Trump restarted major combat operations on July 7th meaning that our missile stockpiles are likely less than half of what they were before the war on average. CSIS now estimates the US military has expended two-thirds of its pre-war stockpile of Patriot interceptors and eighty percent of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile interceptors following weeks of daily US missile strikes after Trump trashed the 60-day cease fire MOU. The CSIS report concluded: “Diminished stockpiles may force the United States and its coalition partners to take more risks with interceptions. There are no good alternatives to Patriot and THAAD for ballistic missile defense,” adding that U.S. Navy ships “with Standard Missiles that can intercept such threats, generally are too far away.” A previous report revealed that the US has exhausted virtually all its JASSM offensive strike missiles while another report cited US officials who revealed nearly half of the US global Tomahawk cruise missile inventory and virtually all of the US Army’s PrSM and ATACMS ballistic missiles have been used up during the US war with Iran.

Netanyahu Tries to Get Trump to Stage a Massive Escalation of Iran War Bombing Iranian Power Plants

On July 28^th, Politico published an excellent article noting that Trump’s America First allies were worried that his White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu that day would pull the US deeper into the war with Iran with a massive escalation of US strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure. The last time he met with Trump at the White House, he tricked him into using the US military as Israel’s Foreign Legion and embroiling the US in an endless war with Iran.

“I think all of President Trump’s most ardent non-‘Israel First’ supporters are furious,” said former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. “Netanyahu has had twice as many visits to the White House in 18 months as Churchill had in all of World War II — with every one of them a disaster for America First.” Many of the president’s anti-interventionist allies had hoped the latest ceasefire attempt would lead to a permanent end to the conflict. Instead, they’re grappling with the possibility that Netanyahu, who is visiting the U.S. for the seventh time since Trump took office last year, may instead push the president into a new, more durable phase of war that could leave the U.S. embroiled in conflict in the Middle East for months, if not years.

The meeting comes as new polling shows that a growing share of the president’s base no longer believes the war is worth its economic costs. And Republicans are increasingly resigned to the fact that the war will likely still be hanging over voters in some form when they head to the polls in November. Trump, who faces increasing pressure at home to bring the war to an end ahead of November’s midterms, has grown increasingly vocal in his frustration with Netanyahu. At the G7 summit last month, he criticized Israel’s continued military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon as he sought to promote a fragile peace deal. And his vice president, JD Vance, has also sharpened his attacks against Israel, accusing Netanyahu’s government of undermining U.S-Iran negotiations in an effort to drag out the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu meeting with President Donald Trump in the White House on April 7th, 2025 where he first urged Trump to join Israel in largescale bombing strikes on Iran. At the time, Trump vetoed the plan even going so far to fire his National Security Advisor Mike Waltz for urging him to agree to it and for repeating Netanyahu’s talking points four weeks later. On June 8, 2025, Trump met with his national security Cabinet members at Camp David, decided to give Israel the green light to bomb Iran and formulated a plan to bomb Iran’s three top nuclear sites. What changed?

President Trump ordered the US military to strike over a hundred Iranian military targets across nine Iranian cities on July 29^th after Iran struck a single US military base in Jordan the previous day while he was meeting with Netanyahu. Iran responded with strikes on US military bases in the region. Were the US to engage in a massive bombing campaign against Iranian power plants, Iran would destroy all US Gulf ally energy infrastructure pushing gas prices to $5-6 a gallon long-term replacing the Trump war tax would be all but certain to ensure the world suffered a massive economic recession and perhaps even another depression. Such an economic catastrophe would increase food and fuel prices so much it will throw millions of Americans beneath the poverty line while threatening starvation for tens of millions in the Third World. Hundreds more US military servicemembers would be killed and wounded all because Trump is too clueless and beholden to his Israeli puppet masters to put America First and end it.

The fact that Trump is even considering doing this just ninety days before the November 3rd election would be the equivalent of committing electoral suicide for the GOP majority in both Houses of Congress. Even before he announced he was considering massive bombing strikes on Iran, RealClearPolitics state by state polling showed the GOP likely to lose control of Congress in the November 3^rd mid-election. If the election were held today, polls show that the GOP would lose US Senate seats in Maine, Ohio, Texas and North Caroline with Iowa tied and the GOP leading the US Senate race in Alaska by only two points which would mean we are likely to lose four to six US Senate seats giving the Democrats a majority. The GOP could lose thirty US House seats as well handing control over to the Democrats in both chambers.

I think at this point there is probably a seventy percent chance the GOP loses control of both Houses of Congress this year. This election is being driven by an affordability crisis greatly worsened by Trump’s idiotic war on Iran so I think that will be the determining factor that determines who wins the November 3rd congressional elections. Accordingly, there is no scenario in which the GOP is able to retain control of the US House of Representatives where the GOP holds a very slim 219-212 seat majority. However, if Trump were to follow through on this massive escalation plan, GOP losses could be even worse ensuring a generational Democrat stranglehold over the White House and both Houses of Congress during the next decade or two. The longer Trump prolongs this unnecessary war, the more likely the GOP will be remembered for many years to come as the America Last party of war, deceit and impoverishment. Amazingly, most Republicans would undoubtedly cheer Trump’s politically suicidal act.

Iran Adopts a New Strategy of Pre-Emptive Strikes Against US Military Bases

The war is expanding with Iran becoming bolder attacking a US military base in Jordan on the day Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu visited the White House on July 28th with five ballistic missiles with the IRGC claiming it destroyed three F-35 fighters and damaged three others with multiple additional attacks on US bases since. While US Central Command claimed all missiles were intercepted, three smoke plumes over the base could be seen suggesting three missile impacts.

The Iranian attack broke five days of a unilateral US cease-fire after two weeks of US military strikes on Iran and prompted President Trump to order another two weeks of US military strikes on Iran beginning with US missile strikes in nine Iranian cities sparking Iran to strike back against US military bases in Jordan and Kuwait. President Trump says it was dishonorable for Iran to launch a missile strike on a US military base during the middle of negotiations. Yet, he continues to brag about killing 50 top Iranian leaders including Iran’s Supreme Leader and much of Iran’s First Family in the middle of discussions regarding Iran’s expansive February 27th offer to constrain its nuclear program. Does he not realize what a hypocrite he is?

Iranian Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi, Commander-in-Chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, one of architects of Iran’s new strategy of pre-emptive strikes on US military bases. He has been a top IRGC military commander for thirty eight years having been appointed as the IRGC’s Quds Force commander (and likely Brigadier General) back in 1988 at the age of 30.

Meanwhile, the US and Saudi struck Iranian-backed and US funded PMF militia forces which comprise part of the Iraqi Army in response to the over 600 reported missile and drone strikes which PMF forces have conducted against US military bases and US allies in the Gulf region since the war began over five months ago. In another sign of regional escalation, Iran reportedly struck an Egyptian ship in Egyptian waters while Ukraine attacked Iranian ships in the Caspian Sea headed for Russia in a reported attempt to merge the Ukraine and Iran wars and potentially transform the war into a global conflict that could escalate to World War Three. After reports that Iran was planning on launching missile strikes on Ukraine’s only port of Odessa in response, Ukraine apologized to Iran and said its strikes on Iranian ships were a mistake and offered to pay compensation. In the past several months since the war began, I have sometimes referred to this war as ‘Middle East Regional War One’ because it has proven much more expansive in scope than any previous modern-day war since World War Two.

The Middle Eastern news agency Al-Monitor reports on the details of Iran’s warfighting strategy:

Iran is betting it can outlast Washington by turning the Middle East’s trade routes, shipping lanes and energy infrastructure into pressure points that steadily raise the cost of confrontation, according to Gulf officials and analysts. Rather than seeking a decisive military victory, Tehran is pursuing a strategy of calibrated escalation aimed at widening the conflict without triggering full-scale war. The goal, they say, is to convince the United States and its allies that containing the crisis is more costly than accommodating Iran’s demands over the Strait of Hormuz. The message from Tehran is that unless Washington accepts a new status quo that gives Iran a greater role in Hormuz, the conflict could spread beyond the Gulf. By putting multiple maritime chokepoints and energy assets at risk, Iran believes it can strengthen its hand in any future negotiations.

“Iran, from the beginning, has tried to out-escalate the United States by stretching out its escalation options so that it always has something new to bring every week -- a new geography, a new type of weapon, a new type of target,” Michael Knights of the Washington Institute told Reuters.” The bigger advantage they have is not that they can hurt America or Israel,” Knights added. “Their big advantage is that they can hurt the regional states and the global economy.” “The Iranians...believe that by widening the war and increasing the pressure, he will eventually give in,” the Gulf source said. “Trump thinks he can hit the Iranians hard and bring them to the negotiating table, but they won’t bend.” At its core, the contest is one of endurance. Iranian leaders appear to believe they can tolerate economic pressure longer than a U.S.-led coalition can tolerate recurring disruption to global commerce and energy markets.

So, the Iranian leadership has correctly concluded that the only language that Trump understands is the language of military force and economic pressure. They have come to believe that seizing the initiative with new attacks on US bases and US allies in the region along with tankers attempting to take the Omani corridor route through the Strait of Hormuz is the best way to wear down Trump’s willingness to keep fighting and restore deterrence with the US to ensure no US president ever conducts direct military strikes against Iran ever again.

Trump responded to the Iranian strike on the US military base in Jordan in an unsurprising fashion declaring. “We are going to beat the f**king sh*t out of them,” US President Donald Trump told Fox News Wednesday morning. “We’ll be hitting them hard. They’re going to get a beating.” The US military then conducted a “heavy wave of strikes” against Iran in response to Tehran’s attempted attack on US forces, hitting “dozens” of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets.

Trump’s Iran Forever War ‘Doom Loop’

During the past week, there were multiple that Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu had succeeded in tricking Trump into a huge escalation of his war against Iran with massive US bombing strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure to maximize the suffering of the American people. The American Conservative reported on US CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper’s plan for another two-week bombing campaign which I have compared to General David Petreus’ Iraq War surge in 2006 despite the fact that the US just ended a 17-day near daily bombing campaign that hit over 1,000 Iranian targets yet failed “to bring them back to the bargaining table” as Fox News reported to the aim of a new bombing campaign last week.

Last week, there was a lot of rumbling out of Washington about a massive escalation against Iran. Admiral Brad Cooper, who is currently the king of the wood in CENTCOM, had reportedly hatched a “go-big” option that would grievously damage Iranian military assets—in the depressed dialect of military press releases, “degrade their capabilities”—while drawing only a limited response, thus saving our dwindling supplies of defensive weapons. Conversations swirled about striking “Pickaxe Mountain,” an annex to the Natanz nuclear site and allegedly the resting place for Iranian nuclear materials. On Friday, President Donald Trump himself said the U.S. would “be hitting [the Iranians] very hard.” The same day, American officials leaked to the Wall Street Journal that an attack was imminent.

US CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper. Just a week after recommending Trump halt all US missile strikes on southern Iran, Cooper reportedly urged the president to “go big” with massive US missile strikes on Iran’s underground ballistic missile cities which have proven virtually impervious to US missile strikes over the past five months. It is unclear what Cooper thinks the US could achieve with a resumption of such strikes.

Following Trump’s latest threats, Iran published a very detailed list of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) energy infrastructure targets it would destroy in response including Saudi Arabia’s largest ARAMCO oil facility. That prompted a desperate and concerted effort by US Gulf Allies over the past weekend including Saudi Arabia in particular to dissuade Trump from launching the planned strikes. Those efforts caused him to cancel the strikes on Saturday to the relief of US foreign policy realists and vulnerable GOP members of Congress and to the consternation of Israel who complained that Trump’s last minute cancellation of military strikes on Iran had become a pattern disrupting Israel’s military planning. President Trump citied the pleas of our Gulf allies not resume major US military strikes on Iran while also misleadingly claiming that Iran had agreed to re-open the Strait of Hormuz and give up its nuclear weapons program.

Thankfully, Trump announced he was TACOing out of the strikes and suspending the strikes to give Iran one last chance to make a new cease-fire deal. The Hill reported that on August 1^st, Trump unannounced his plan to unleash a new campaign of unparalleled mass ‘military terror’ strikes against tens of millions of Iranian civilians was being suspended.

“The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II. Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Trump added that the deal “would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.” “Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL,” he added. Israel was also a part of plans to launch “one of the harshest bombing campaigns to date” targeting Iranian energy infrastructure targets, multiple sources told CBS News. Both the Israeli and U.S. militaries came together to launch the first strikes in the conflict in February.

Politico’s National Security Daily reported:

It’s a familiar pattern at this point, which goes like this: The White House threatens strikes on Iran, backs down in the eleventh hour in the name of a coming deal and then grumbles over the collapse of the aforementioned agreement — leading back to the threat of military escalation. In the latest iteration, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei rejected President Donald Trump’s declaration that talks would restart today, saying this morning that Tehran was not holding negotiations with Washington — only with Oman. Then Trump insisted to reporters today that talks are “going on right now,” at the urging of Gulf allies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. In Washington’s Iran-watching circles, the pervading feeling is that diplomacy is needed to find a way out of the Iran war. But also that it’s a path that’s disintegrating.

This constant near-weekly cycle over the past four months of Trump’s constant threats of military escalation sometimes followed up by actions only to be suspended followed by claims of Iran capitulating to US terms after which we found out they never agreed to anything at all is what I have been referring to as the Iran War “doom loop.” On August 3^rd, President Trump warned he was giving Iran “a last chance” to negotiate a new deal to replace the June 17^th 60-day cease-fire MOU that Trump trashed on July 7 “before decapitation.”

Microsoft News reported:

President Donald Trump warned he’s giving Iran one final opportunity to agree to a peace deal or risk “decapitation” as the two sides disagreed publicly about whether new talks were underway. “This is a last chance,” Trump said on Aug. 3. “This is a last chance for them to sign a good document.” Throughout the five-month U.S. war against Iran, Trump has used sweeping rhetoric to inflate the scale of military action and threats; most notably, in April he warned “a whole civilization will die” if Iran did not agree to U.S. demands. Trump has also frequently overstated the prospects of a deal with Iran emerging.

It seems odd that he is threatening Iran with decapitation strikes against their political and military leaders since his decision to do so at the onset of the war on February 28^th resulted in the killing of most of Iran’s moderate leaders and their replacement with IRGC backed hardliners. The problem is with Trump having TACO’d out nine times from his threats against Iran since the war began, who is foolish enough to believe his threats anymore? Iran certainly doesn’t and it’s doubtful that any Americans, but his most hard-core supporters believe anything he says about the war in Iran since he has repeatedly been proven wrong both by US intelligence estimates and Iran’s increasing escalation dominance over the US in the Persian Gulf region.

On August 4^th, Trump claimed that a deal would be reached to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by today or tomorrow. Politico reported. Treasury Secretary SCOTT BESSENT told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that “we are in talks with the Iranians,” saying “there is a chance we may have a deal today or tomorrow to open the strait and move towards a more normalized position in this conflict.” Iran has denied that negotiations are currently taking place with the US. However, but is offering to reopen the Strait in exchange for the end to the US naval blockade, US guarantees that it will never attack Iran again, a lifting of all US economic sanctions against Iran and the right to impose a seven percent transit fee on ships going through the Strait of Hormuz with full Iranian control. If Trump wants to end the war, he is most likely going to have to accept virtually all of Iran’s terms.

US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent who joined Vice President JD Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright in advising President Trump against starting an unnecessary war with Iran fearing the potential for massive economic blowback against the US. His warnings have proven correct to date.

Trump’s decision to fight an unnecessary war has caused the US to lose deterrence with Iran. Before February 28th, Iran had ordered its proxies NOT to attack U.S. forces, they were contained. Now, they fire ballistic missiles at U.S. troops in Jordan and restart the war every time Trump offers an olive branch. As I have been writing since the war began, Trump’s war on Iran has not served to weaken Iran in any meaningful way as he intended it to do. Rather, it has increasingly emboldened Iran because the US has spent over five months throwing everything, we have at Iran in terms of a crushing economic blockade and massive US conventional military strikes and has only managed to degrade Iran’s military capabilities by fifteen percent or less while causing Iranian citizens to rally behind Iran’s Islamist regime leaving it stronger than ever. Before the war, Iranian leaders were credibly deterred from launching attacks on US military bases but now they feel able to launch such strikes with impunity even with Trump implementing a four-to-five-night unilateral cease-fire to try to de-escalate the conflict as proven by its July 28^th strike on a US military base in Jordan during his White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The US has lost its ability to credibly deter or constrain Iran as a result of Iran’s strategic victory over the US serving to greatly embolden not just its Islamist regime but our adversaries around the world to more closely align against us to challenge us. Iranian leaders have apparently calculated that the longer they prolong the war, the more they increase the economic pain on the US and its allies and the more they succeed in depleting the US military’s conventional missile arsenal the more they will ensure that no US president will be foolish enough to conduct direct military strikes or even blockade it ever again.

My Past Predictions of Trump’s Iran Strategic Debacle

Two days after the Iran War began, I made a number of predictions that have since been proven accurate. First, I predicted Iran’s strategic victory over the US and Israel was virtually inevitable at this point because we would run out of missiles before they did. According to US intelligence, Iran still has 70% of its ballistic and cruise missiles while the US has expended nearly half of its long-range precision strike munitions. That means that the US is expending its missiles at a rate 50% faster than Iran. Once we run out of missiles, we will have no choice but to stop the fighting.

Second, I predicted the only way we could end the war was to accept their peace terms. I said that we would agree to let them keep their Islamist regime, their nuclear weapons program and their long-range nuclear capable missiles. On June 14th, Trump reluctantly accepted virtually all of Iran’s peace terms in recognition of Iran’s strategic victory over us in what I have referred to as a conditional US surrender to the Islamic Republic. This is something almost no one else predicted would happen during the first few days of the war.

Third, I said Trump would fail to achieve any of his six stated mission objectives because none of his objectives could be achieved by airpower alone. Nearly five months into the war, not one of his objectives have been accomplished and Trump has nothing to show for his war other than a big hit to his political support, much higher food and fuel prices and much reduced US military readiness. Iran’s nuclear weapons program remains fully intact. It also continues to mass produce nuclear capable ballistic and cruise missiles and is using its vast missile arsenal to target and kill US military servicemembers four of which died this past weekend alone. In addition, it retains undisputed control of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf with its regional antiship missile supremacy over us and the US has not dared to send a ship to enter the Strait for the past couple months.

Fourth, I predicted that American voters would punish Trump and the GOP at the ballot box in November for fighting a war in furtherance of Israel’s interests rather than our own with the loss of our troops’ lives for no reason and that the GOP would likely lose both Houses of Congress ensuring his impeachment early next year. This is the only prediction I have made that has not come to fruition yet as the election is still three and a half months away. If Trump follows through on his threats to invade one or more Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf, US military casualties will increase exponentially, and his presidential legacy will be flushed down the toilet.

The Iran Conflict Is an Unwinnable War

During a Fox News interview on July 21^st, Brigadier General Robert Spalding (USAF Ret.) says the Iran War could be a forever war that lasts twenty years and that the US will have to continue striking and blockading Iran for decades. What exactly does he think we could accomplish by bombing Iran for 20 years given the fact that the US has failed to accomplish even one of Trump’s six stated objectives for the war? What is it about the war in Iran that makes otherwise rational people become totally blind to reality and common sense and spout this kind of nonsense?

As I noted before the war, there was never any military solution to the Iranian problem. Iran likely has operational nuclear weapons and there is nothing short of a US nuclear first strike that will change that. This forever war is by far the stupidest war we have ever fought and it’s shocking to see how many otherwise intelligent people are supporting this madness. When the war started, I was told that this war would be over in a week or a month at most, that Iran was on the verge of regime change and liberation and that if it went on for 5-6 months then my pro-war friends would concede I was right in stating it was a forever war. I am still waiting for them to concede I was right all along in my predictions about this unnecessary war.

Trump Truth Social post from yesterday of himself as a four-star general alongside General George S. Patton and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. Even though he is a five time Vietnam War draft dodger who never served a single day in the US military, Trump envisions himself as the greatest wartime president and military genius in US history despite the fact he is responsible for the most humiliating US military retreat in over half a century ago.

Trump has claimed dozens, if not hundreds, of times we have already won against an enemy military that he says we have already destroyed for the purpose of denying them a nuclear program he claimed he totally obliterated thirteen months ago. As I stated at the onset of the war, the Iran War is by far the stupidest, dumbest and most idiotic war ever fought in US military history. It is hard to believe that any American who knows anything about foreign policy and cares about US national security and US economic security could possibly support Trump continuing to embroil the US in an unwinnable quagmire that is beginning to rival the Vietnam War.

US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost $8 trillion over twenty years but Trump’s five month-long war in Iran has likely cost between $100-200 billion thus far. Secretary of War Hegseth testified last month that the Pentagon will run out of its $1 trillion budget early next month nearly two months before the end of the fiscal year. The only reason why that would be is that the White House has been concealing the true cost of the war along with the actual number of US military casualties to prevent a public outcry to end it. Both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate voted last month to require President Trump to end his illegal war with Iran, but he is continuing to fight it anyway in flagrant violation of our God-given Constitution.

President Trump’s war in Iran is an unjust and unprovoked war of aggression being “fought in blatant disregard for Christian principles” as Pope Leo XIV has rightly stated in support of Greater Israel. Lest anyone forget, the US and Israel attacked Iran out of the blue for no reason other than to expand our imperial influence across the entire Middle East. According to US intelligence, Iran had no plans to attack us or Israel and posed little threat to us before we assassinated its political and religious leader along with most of its First Family.

President Trump is delusional to claim the American people support his illegal, unconstitutional, unprovoked great power war of aggression against Iran. His own White House just published a poll stating that 60 percent of US citizens support his 60-day peace deal with Iran which he trashed two weeks ago. It’s unfortunate Trump doesn’t pay attention his own polls. The Iran War has proven to be is the most unpopular war in US history. Only 29 percent of Americans supported his decision to restart his war on Iran. According to the latest CNN poll, only 28% of Americans believe the Iran War was worth fighting which is 12 points less than the percentage of Americans that thought the Iraq War was worth it twenty years ago when the GOP lost both Houses of Congress. History is about to repeat itself with the likely GOP loss of both Houses of Congress in November all thanks to Trump’s forever war against Iran he promised us he would never fight.

War In Iran is the Biggest US Strategic Defeat Since the Vietnam War

While some are blaming US intelligence for Trump’s Iran War debacle, the truth is that President Trump received no US intelligence to indicate that overthrowing Iran’s Islamist regime or achieving any meaningful victory over Iran would be possible before the war broke out. Vice President JD Vance and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine laid out all the reasons why a US war with Iran would likely end in out defeat but he decided to throw caution to the wind and start a forever war with Iran anyway in the belief victory could be achieved after a week of intense US bombing strikes. During a recent press conference held in the Oval Office, America First conservative Vice President JD Vance’s face suggested clear disagreement with America Last, neocon Secretary of War Pete Hegseth as he declared the US will continue to fight Iran indefinitely. Both Vance and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bennett seated next to him advised President Trump that the Iran war would be a ‘lose-lose’ proposition for the administration politically, economically and militarily before the war, but he didn’t listen.

The Iran War has greatly weakened US regional and global power with the US proving a paper tiger unable to defeat a second-rate great power with a miniscule nuclear missile arsenal proving conclusively that we lack the ability to defeat Russia or China in war. Trump’s idiotic war on Iran has transformed it into a regional power and emerging regional hegemon with undisputed control over the Strait of Hormuz and the entire Persian Gulf through which one-fifth of the world’s oil flows. Trump himself said he signed the 60-day MOU with Iran, which was working to achieve peace until he abandoned it, on June 14th to avoid a global depression and crash the US economy.

However, over the past couple weeks of continual US bombings on Iran, he apparently has decided that starting a depression and being remembered as a modern-day Herbert Hoover is what he is wanting his presidential legacy to be. His foolish decision to restart the war will likely guarantee the loss of both Houses of Congress to the Democrat socialists and his well-deserved impeachment for his illegal and unconstitutional war of aggression, which constitutes an egregious crime against our God-given Constitution. What was the point of Trump starting this imperial Deep State war of aggression again and why is he continuing to fight it when Iran has shown us it is unwinnable?

Sen. Kristen Gillibrand nailed it during a US Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week when she told Secretary of War Pete Hegseth “So essentially you’re asking for literally $1.5 trillion for a war that President Trump said he already won?” It’s patently absurd. Trump literally claimed the US had won the war against Iran five times in thirteen seconds at a rally on March 11th and here we are nearly four and a half months later still fighting an unwinnable great power war against Iran likely to last until the end of his presidency. Of course, the reason that Trump is asking for $584 billion more for our war budget than he asked for last year is that he is signaling his intention to fight an endless war in the Middle East.

While Trump continues to misleadingly claim the US has destroyed 85 percent of Iran’s military capabilities, US intelligence estimates we have only succeeded in destroying only around 10-15% of Iran’s ballistic and cruise missiles, underground missile production and launch facilities and coastal defense anti-ship missile sites after over five months of war. Meanwhile, it has proven that the mightiest conventional naval force in the world is entirely incapable of breaking Iran’s stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf underscoring increasing US military impotence for all the world to see—the exact opposite of what Trump intended his unnecessary war of choice against Iran to show.

The US is reportedly planning to pull out all remaining troops from Iraq for the first time in 23 years. Bush invaded Iraq nearly a quarter century ago on false pretenses prompting Trump to rightly call for his impeachment in 2008 for starting a war on false pretenses in the Middle East. Bush’s invasion of Iraq overthrew Iran’s number one enemy Saddam Hussein and effectively handed Iraq over to the Islamic Republic of Iran. By his own logic, Trump should be impeached for doing the exact same thing. So, as a direct result of Iranian strikes on US military bases in the region in a war he foolishly started, President Trump is puling US troops out of Syria and Iraq with reports indicating he is planning on withdrawing all US troops from Kuwait and Bahrain because they are too vulnerable to Iranian missile strikes. When asked if these reports were true, Trump did not deny it. Needless to say, this is not what victory looks like.

The war has shown that the US military is incapable of even defeating a second-rate great power in an air and naval conflict similar to the one we would expect to fight against the PRC were it to stage an amphibious invasion of Taiwan, even though the Iranian Navy no longer possesses any major surface combatants or even minor surface combatants such as corvettes. As I have been stating since the war began, the cumulative effect of the war has been to serve as a huge green light to China to invade Taiwan and to Russia to re-invade Kyiv oblast to force Ukraine to surrender to Russia’s peace terms once and for all. With the US below 50% of pre-war missile stockpiles and China enjoying a 10-to-1 ship advantage over the US Navy in the South China Sea theater of operations and a far greater missile advantage still, it is highly likely that Chinese President Xi Jinping will order a move on Taiwan by October 2027.

When this disastrous war first started, I predicted that Communist China would be the biggest winner because it would gravely weaken the US ability to deter Chinese aggression and fight a war in defense of Taiwan emboldening China to blockade or invade it by next year. The longer Trump continues this unnecessary war and depletes the US conventional offensive and defensive missile arsenal, the greater the chances that my warning will prove accurate, and Taiwan will fall to Communist subjugation or worse that Trump stumbles into a war with the PRC the US has zero chance of winning.

Iran’s Capabilities to Match US Military Escalation

President Trump’s propaganda talking point that “we can’t allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon” is as Tucker Carlson has stated “the world’s dumbest talking point” not because Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons but because they likely do and they have never even threatened to use them against the US or Israel. During the past five months of war, the Iranians have refrained from using their supersonic and hypersonic antiship missiles which could send the USS Abraham Lincoln and a number of US Navy destroyers to the bottom of the sea.

Iranian leaders have also restrained themselves from conducting catastrophic WMD or terrorist attacks against the US homeland that could kill millions of Americans even after we assassinated Iran’s top political and religious leader and its First Family and struck over 14,000 Iranian targets. Anyone still calling them crazy, irrational or insane is either lying to your face or lacks a triple digit IQ. MAGA acolytes claim that the face that Iran hasn’t done so yet must mean they don’t have the ability to do so. However, just because Iran has not killed thousands of US military servicemembers or mass murdered millions of Americans in a nuclear, super EMP or massive cyber-attack on the US homeland doesn’t mean they lack the capability to do so any more than the fact Russia hasn’t nuked Ukraine yet doesn’t mean they can’t.

The more Trump escalates the war, the greater the chance the Iranians will make use of these as yet unused military capabilities to do so most likely starting with sinking a US destroyer or amphibious assault ship. If Iran were to use its hypersonic anti-ship missiles to sink the amphibious assault carrier USS Boxer, we could lose nearly as many US military servicemembers in a single day as we lost during our 20-year long war in Afghanistan. Trump’s unprovoked and unnecessary great power war with Iran and his proxy war against Russia in Ukraine are making US citizens less safe and secure than they have ever been in our history.

He has proven to be the worst US President in terms of his foreign policy and national security policy since Truman handed China over to the Communists and fired General Douglas MacArthur for trying to rectify his mistake in so doing. Such an escalation could even lead to World War Three with Iran staging a massive cyber or super-Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack on America’s critical infrastructure which could turn out the lights across the continental United States. Then, Trump would become the most hated and despised president in US history for provoking the destruction of the US and the deaths of millions of Americans in a great power war with a nuclear Iran fought on false pretenses.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and previously served as National Security Policy Director for Sen. Mike Lee during his 2010 campaign. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster.” He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

July 2nd—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his Moral Resistance podcast to discuss the signing of the armistice agreement between the US and Iran in which we gave in to virtually all their terms and the chances that it will lead to a more just and lasting peace. We will also discuss US and Iranian cease-fire violations, missile strikes and the chances that Israel’s war in Lebanon might blow up the peace deal.

July 7th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss the latest developments with regards to the Ukraine and Iran wars and whether its possible that a peace deal can be negotiated ending the war in Ukraine or will the war only end with Ukraine’s military collapse this fall. We will also discuss my proposal to form a Triple Entente with Russia and India to neutralize the Sino-Russian military alliance, ensure US security for decades to come and help counter China’s rise to global hegemony.

July 9th—Interview with Emerald Robinson on her “The Absolute Truth” show to discuss Trump’s war on Iran, the NATO summit and the war in Ukraine. We will discuss Trump’s statement that the 60 day cease-fire is finished, his statement that Greenland should be American and NATO claims that Ukraine is winning its war against Russia.

July 9th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s war on Iran, the NATO summit and the war in Ukraine. We will discuss Trump’s statement that the 60 day cease-fire is finished, his statement that Greenland should be American and his statement that the US supporting Ukrainian deep strikes on Russian oil and gas infrastructure bring us closer to peace.

July 10th—Interview with Ben Harnwell on “Bannon’s War Room” show to discuss Trump’s war on Iran, the 2026 NATO Summit in Ankara and the war in Ukraine. We will discuss Trump’s statement that the 60 day cease-fire is finished, his statement that Greenland should be American and NATO claims that Ukraine is winning its war against Russia.

July 21st—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to escalate the war by bombing Iran’s critical infrastructure and Iran’s response by bombing our Gulf allies oil and gas infrastructure and desalinization plants. We will also discuss Iran’s rejection of Trump’s proposed ten day cease-fire proposal and its reply that it will not negotiate with the US again until the threat to Iran has been removed and the US missile arsenal has been fully depleted.

July 21st—Interview with Brandon Weichert on Mario Nawfal’s Roundtable podcast to discuss the most likely outcome of Trump’s forever war against Iran, his decision to escalate the war by bombing Iran’s critical infrastructure and Iran’s response by bombing our Gulf allies oil and gas infrastructure and desalinization plants. We will also discuss Iran’s rejection of Trump’s proposed ten day cease-fire proposal and its reply that it will not negotiate with the US again until the threat to Iran has been removed and the US missile arsenal has been fully depleted.

July 22nd—Interview with Tafhim Kiani on the Kianistan Podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to resume kinetic military strikes on Iran, trash the 60- day cease-fire and resume the US naval blockade of Iran and the potential consquences for the US and global economy. We will also discuss whether Trump will make good on his threats to invade Kharg Island.

July 28th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s war on Iran and the war in Ukraine. We will discuss Trump’s decision to suspend US missile strikes on Iran in an attempt to return to the 60-day cease-fire agreement and related issues.

July 29th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych to discuss the latest developments with regards to the Ukraine and Iran wars and whether its possible that a peace deal can be negotiated ending the war in Ukraine or will the war only end with Ukraine’s military collapse this fall following a massive Russian northern offensive.

July 30th—Interview with Jamin McKeever on his podcast to discuss Section 219 of the National Defense Authorization Act which would effectively merge the US defense industrial and military technological base with Israel’s. This provision would make it politically impossible for members of Congress to vote against the US military continuing to fight and die for all of Israel’s wars.

August 2nd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on Mario Nawfal’s Roundtable podcast to discuss the most likely outcome of Trump’s forever war against Iran. We will also discuss Iran’s surprise attack on a US military base in Jordan and Trump’s plans and whether it constitutes a change in Iran’s strategy to continue the war until November 3rd to maximize Democrat gains to ensure Trump is impeached by a wide margin.

August 5th—Interview with Brandon Weichert on Mario Nawfal’s Roundtable podcast to discuss the most likely outcome of Trump’s forever war against Iran. We will also discuss Iran’s new strategy of pre-emptive strikes which is humiliating President Trump and seems to be on the verge of restoring deterrence with the US given his inability to carry out his threat to destroy Iran’s power plants as US long-range munitions continue to be depleted to dangerously low levels.

Upcoming Interviews

August 6th—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Trump’s threat that this is Iran’s last chance to avoid having its critical infrastructure bombed and Iran’s new strategy of pre-emptive strikes on US military bases. We will also discuss the statement of Iran’s leaders that it will not negotiate with the US again until the threat to Iran has been removed and the US missile arsenal has been fully depleted.

August 10th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss the latest developments with regards to the Ukraine and Iran wars. We will discuss the prospects that Russia will complete its takeover of western Donetsk leading to a Ukrainian military collapse this fall and whether the US conflict with Iran will prove a forever war.

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The USS Abraham Lincoln was spotted earlier today in the Sea of Oman not far from Iran’s coast without any destroyer escorts to defend it from Iranian anti-ship missile barrages sparking questions as to whether Trump is planning to restart the US naval blockade against Iran.

Less than a week ago, America commemorated the 250^th anniversary of its independence. President Donald Trump ran on the pledge that he would be a transformational America First peace president like Ronald Reagan who would end Biden’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine within twenty-four hours of being sworn in as president. He promised to end all of America’s forever wars and prevent new ones from starting. He promised to save the US from the outbreak of World War Three. Instead, he has relished in serving as a neocon America Last war president. He has bombed at least seven countries and fought four wars—against Yemen and Iran I 2025 and against Venezuela and another war against Iran this year.

He ended up accepting our adversaries’ peace terms in three out of the four wars he started meaning only one of them could be credibly said to have been a victory which was his war against Communist Venezuela to oust its dictator Nicolas Maduro while keeping his Communist regime, led by his hand-picked Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, firmly in control of the country. In his two-month war with the Houthis, he demanded that they agree to give up attacks on all international shipping but after realizing the US military did not have the capability to defeat them, he opted to accept their cease-fire offer to only end missile and drone strikes on US shipping while keeping the door open to attacking other ships. He famously called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” during the Twelve Day War in June 2025 but instead ended up accepting Iran’s demands that it be allowed to keep its Islamist regime with no limits on its nuclear weapons program and long-range ballistic missiles.

With regards to his current senseless war on Iran, President Trump again called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” but instead ended up accepting Iran’s Fourteen Point peace plan which he had rejected previously as unacceptable, the terms of which amounted to a US conditional surrender. Trump failed to achieve even one of his six objectives in fighting the war on Iran and the war has transformed Iran into a regional great power with unchallenged control over the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil traffic flows and the entire Persian Gulf. Millions of Iranians reportedly attended the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral so it would appear that Trump’s constant bombing strikes on Iran has caused its citizens to more strongly back its Islamist regime.

US Resumes Daily Missile Strikes on Iran

On July 7^th, the White House announced that the United States military has begun launching “a series of powerful strikes” against Iran in response to Iran’s attacks on three neutral commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz along the coast of Oman with ongoing strikes striking 80 Iranian targets (reportedly including 60 fast missile boats) The US also hit Qeshm Island used by Iran to control the Strait of Hormuz, Bandar Abbas, where the IRGC’s naval headquarters is located and Sirik which is the headquarters of Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority. Iran responded by attacking US military bases in Bahrain and Kuwait.

On July 8^th in response to US military strikes on thirteen Iranian targets in southern Iran, an Iranian Parliament National Security Commission spokesperson stated that if the US engaged in additional direct military strikes on its territory again, it would withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, completely change its nuclear doctrine, and fully close both the Bab el-Mandeb and Strait of Hormuz. The spokesperson stated a parliamentary plan for Iran’s full NPT withdrawal is already ready for review. He also noted Iran now has several options it did not use during the recent 40-day war.

A truck carrying the coffins of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and members of his family moves through a main avenue lined with thousands of mourners during the final stage of funeral ceremonies in Mashhad, northeastern Iran yesterday. Millions of Iranian citizens are believed to have attended the main funeral ceremony last week.

It remains to be seen whether they will follow up on that threat which former CIA officer Larry Johnson reportedly said Iran first issued to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on May 28^th saying they would follow up with a test of a nuclear weapon in Iran if the US did not cease its missile strikes on Iran. I have assessed Iran has likely had operational nuclear missiles since 2022 when Russia reportedly shared nuclear warhead miniaturization technology with Tehran. Accordingly, we could see Iran test a nuclear weapon within a few weeks or even a few days after their announcement they were departing from compliance with the NPT.

President Trump then resumed major bombing strikes hitting 90 Iranian targets challenging them to make good on their threats followed by Iranian missile strikes on US military bases in Bahrain and Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan. As was the case with his equally futile two-day bombing strikes on Iran on June 26-27th, these US military strikes are escalatory in response to Iranian drone attacks on neutral ships that resulted in no known casualties in what increasingly seems like a “doom loop” for Trump we are likely to see him continue to repeat for months, if not years, unless and until he realizes it is in his interest to exit the Iran quagmire he created for himself.

These ‘tit for tat’ attacks represent an attempt by each rival great power to exert control over the Strait of Hormuz but Iran has anti-ship missile supremacy over the US in the Strait so the US Navy is unable to break Iran’s stranglehold over it. He also revoked Iran’s license to export oil reimposing US oil sanctions. President Trump is now threatening to resume a full-scale war with Iran. However, his threat to do so is likely a bluff as the US lacks enough missiles to conduct another protracted bombing campaign of Iran. I have calculated that at the expenditure rates of the first 38 days of the Iran military campaign, the US could run out of offensive and defensive missiles within as little as six weeks.

While claiming to support peace, he seems addicted to war with Iran as he has been unable to go more than one to two weeks without bombing Iran. Following heavy US military strikes on at least ten Iranian targets in southern Iran, the IRGC has reportedly been ordered to prepare to close the Strait of Hormuz to and send the US and global economies spiraling into a serious recession that could make Trump the most disliked president since Herbert Hoover. As I predicted, Trump’s war on Iran has proven the most massive US strategic debacle since the Vietnam War.

Interestingly, at the NATO summit in Ankara on July 8^th, President Trump claimed America’s NATO ally Turkey wanted to join the war as an Iranian ally and fight the US and Israel but he was able to persuade Turkish President Erdogan not to fight on Iran’s side.

“He was a prime candidate to go into the war with Iran — maybe on the Iran side, because he’s not a big fan of Israel,” Trump claimed, even though Turkey gave no indication that it was preparing to enter the US-Israel war against Iran and even came under Iranian fire at one point. “I asked him to stay out. He stayed out,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Seriously, does Trump really expect us to believe these kinds of outlandish tales, or does he actually believe all the nonsense he keeps spouting?

Trump Declares His 60-Day Cease-Fire MOU “Over”

On July 8^th, asked if the cease-fire is over and the MOU is dead, President Trump announced that the ceasefire with Iran is over: “To me, I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore. As far as I am concerned, it’s a waste of time. They’re scum. They’re led by sick people. I’ll speak to our negotiators. They want to negotiate—they’re good people... but they have to come back to me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them.” He then said we hit them very hard after they launched two drones and one missile adding, “I think we will hit them very hard tonight.”

The US struck 13,600 Iranian targets during the initial 38-day war. During the past three days, the US has struck 170 more, which is a little more than one percent of the targets we hit previously. If President Trump is dumb enough to believe that will be sufficient to make Iran cry ‘uncle’, he is a lot more foolish than many of us previously believed especially after he caved to virtually every one of Iran’s peace demands in the 60-day MOU. I think he knows that these desperate US missile strikes are an exercise in futility, but he has made the decision to risk a US and global economic recession and an Iranian nuclear test in a failed attempt to look like a tough guy as part of his latest temper tantrum in response to not getting his way. On July 8^th, in response to renewed largescale US missile strikes which were followed by major Iranian drone and missile strikes on US military targets in Bahrain and Kuwait, Iran officially declared the cease-fire MOU was dead and the war has official resumed following Trump’s statements that he thinks the US cease-fire with Iran is finished.

With his actions in restarting the US bombing campaign against Iran and revoking the Iran oil sanctions waiver, President Trump flushed his much vaunted 60-day MOU, and very possibly his Presidency, down the drain. That is not to say that he will be removed from office or forced to resign but that the scale of Democrat gains in taking control of both Houses will bring his agenda to a halt. It is looking like Trump has killed any chance at a nuclear deal with Iran as well. Now, it appears that we are back to square one in his self-defeating war with Iran threatening to close not just the Strait of Hormuz but the Bab el-Mandeb Strait as well through which together nearly one-third of the world’s oil reserves flow. This is what happens when you elect a senile president with no ideological core principles who changes his mind every day shifting his support from supporting unnecessary wars without end to supporting peaceful diplomatic negotiations to resolve conflicts and back again.

What Does Trump Think New US Missile Strikes Will Accomplish?

The US and Iran again traded strikes yesterday with Iran hitting back at US military bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Jordan. The latest prolonged US military action has been dubbed “Operation Bitch Slap” by a cohort of Trump’s advisers. Trump has been escalating US air and missile strikes every day while Iran has pledged to match US strikes, rather than escalate in response in an effort to give Trump a reason to de-escalate rather than continue his self-defeating escalation spiral which will spell political and economic disaster for his presidency. President Trump has no strategy and no theory for victory over Iran or anywhere else around the world. In fact, he has made clear he has no national security strategy at all and that Undersecretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby’s outstanding US National Security Strategy document was little more than a research paper that may never be implemented unless JD Vance is elected president in 2028.

The New York Post reports that White House officials say President Trump is just acting on his gut in launching US military strikes and is not coordinating with anyone. Trump has fallen into an escalation trap only serves to further increase Iran’s escalation dominance over the US. This is because if Iran makes good on its threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, it will push the US and the world to the brink of another great recession and maybe even into a depression if he continues fighting the war for another year or more. But he fails to realize the fact that the dynamics haven’t changed from June 14th when he felt compelled to capitulate to Iran’s peace teams to avoid another depression. The US military is no more capable of defeating Iran than it was a month ago. As I said before the war broke out, there is no military solution for the US to achieve its objectives as Trump has reportedly admitted to his advisors which was the reason he accepted virtually all of Iran’s peace terms on June 14^th.

The era of daily ‘tit for tat’ attacks where we attack Iran one day and they attack us back the next is over. Now, Iran is saying it is going to bomb US military bases with a largescale drone and missile barrage a second time in the same day in response to Trump’s escalatory strikes on Iran during the past couple days. If Trump took Foreign Policy 101 in college, he obviously failed it because he has demonstrated zero understanding for how wars can be won, let alone how to negotiate diplomatic settlements to end them. President Trump has proven to be the absolute worst negotiator in US history to believe that escalating his forever wars in Iran and Ukraine bring us closer to peace. He promised to end Biden’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine in 24 hours. Nearly eighteen months later, he just declared today he supports escalating the war beyond what Biden did in the belief that escalation brings us closer to peace. Similarly, he seems to believe that implementing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s foolish policy statement that “we negotiate with bombs” can somehow pressure Iran to capitulate to his maximalist peace terms which they have repeatedly rejected.

Earlier today, President Donald Trump stated talks with the Iranians are resuming in Doha but “the cease-fire is still over.” With the cease-fires that were in place at least on paper for the past more than three months officially over, that leaves the US fighting an open-ended war that could continue indefinitely. As I said, before the war started, Trump’s war on Iran has proven to be a forever war. Axios reported that the U.S. has given Iran 24 hours to publicly commit to stopping attacks on ships and keeping the Strait of Hormuz open. Washington warned that failure to comply would bring “serious consequences,” adding that contingency plans are already in place if diplomacy fails.

Restarting the US naval blockade would be an extremely foolish decision on the part of the White House that would only serve to guarantee a US and global recession and perhaps even a depression if continued for a year or more. The US has reportedly moved the aircraft carriers USS George HW Bush and the USS Abraham Lincoln in blockade position in the Gulf of Oman not far from Iran’s southern coastline. Today, the US aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was spotted sailing north through the Gulf of Oman, operating within range of Iranian missiles with neither of its destroyer escorts leaving it totally vulnerable to Iranian supersonic and hypersonic antiship missile attack.

While Iran has not declared the Strait of Hormuz to be officially closed, only five ships crossed the strait today which is far less than the 140-day ship average before Trump started the war. So basically, the Strait is currently closed while the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is less than 30 days from hitting bare minimum level which will cause a spike in US gas prices. Trump’s decision to increase consumer gas prices for no reason and to refuse to sign the Housing Affordability leave little doubt why his approval rating is currently near all-time lows at just over 40 percent.

Trump Conceding Democrat Control of Congress to Restart War

On July 8^th, Iran announced it will close the Strait of Hormuz if Trump follows through on his threat to bomb them again which he did later that day and the following day. If it does, the US will likely slide into a recession just in time for the November mid-term elections. It’s not Iran that’s shutting down the Strait of Hormuz this time around. It’s Donald Trump. Ships aren’t going to risk transiting the strait when missiles are flying overhead and its Trump that started this round of missile exchanges with Iran.

The more he keeps escalating against Iran every day the fewer tankers will get through, and the worse economic pain Trump will inflict on the American people he claims to represent. It looks like President Trump is trying to blow up the US and global economy with his resumption of full-scale US bombing strikes on Iran which Iran is now stating could result in Iran blowing up the oil and gas facilities of our Gulf allies. If he does that, he will leave office with an approval rating of 25 percent like Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. Is that really what he wants as his presidential legacy?

Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) will likely be very pleased with the results of the coming blue wave November 3rd election. Pollsters continue to shift races in their favor as Trump’s unpopular war with Iran and connected affordability crisis continues to motivate Democrat voting base turnout while depressing Republican voter turnout.

Politico reports that Trump’s decision to end the ceasefire with Iran, which was popular with Americans, and restart the most unpopular war in modern history has presented a dilemma for Republicans running for Congress as to whether to support his war, which has caused a major increase in food and fuel prices and has caused a crisis in the supply of the fertilizer farmers need to plant crops, or support ending it. One House Republican privately expressed his anger at Trump for his decision to be politically tone deaf and risk sacrificing GOP control of Congress to restart his war of aggression against Iran stating, “Midterms are still beyond Trump’s focus zone. Not screwing us might be his goal, but he’s screwing us into political oblivion.” This place of uncertain progress is where many Republicans, including Vice President JD Vance, feared they would end up. The problem is they are now back where they were months ago — with four months left to go before the election. “It seems as if we are right back to this very sticky and tricky, either war of escalation or drawn-out painful negotiations,” said Matthew Bartlett, Republican strategist and former appointee to the State Department in Trump’s first administration. “We have absolutely no economic message, and now we have a muddled, messy international message.” “All of this makes it tougher for Republicans on the ballot to talk about what voters are saying is most important to them — lowering prices,” said Doug Heye, a former communications director for the Republican National Committee. “It’s why having a strategy would have been helpful, instead of making it up as you go along.”

Heye nailed the problem. Since starting his war on Iran in the belief they would meekly surrender after a US bombing campaign lasting no more than one week, Trump has never had a strategy for fighting or winning the war. He has just been making it up day to day off the cuff with no White House officials to help advise or guide him other than Vice President JD Vance who opposed the war from the start behind the scenes. Vance also negotiated the cease-fire MOU with Iran to provide Trump with a diplomatic exit ramp to end US involvement in the conflict.

In the last few days, Trump has restarted his war with Iran with daily missile strikes against Iran, discarded the 60 day cease-fire MOU he worked so hard to successfully negotiate and now he looks like he is about to resume the US naval blockade and crash the US economy in the process just in time for a Democrat sweep of the midterm congressional elections. Trump’s decision to support Israel in assassinating a foreign head of state means it’s open season for other countries to assassinate ours. It has set a terrible president and has caused the US to lose whatever moral authority it had left in the world before he started his illegal and unconstitutional war of aggression over four months ago. While Israel has falsely claimed that Iran is trying to assassinate President Trump without any evidence, the truth is that Iran is not trying to kill Trump. Instead, they are attempting to unofficially close the Strait of Hormuz to crash the US economy in a bid to exact a regime change of sorts by helping the Democrats take back control of both Houses of Congress so they can impeach President Trump, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and other top White House Cabinet officials.

Then, they can investigate Trump’s family members on corruption allegations and make his last two years in office a living hell. Given Trump’s latest show of determination to fall into Iran’s trap, I am guessing they will succeed at this point. The Democrats currently enjoy a 6.2 percent lead over Republics in the congressional polling average meaning the US is likely to see another blue wave election in November. While polls show that control of the US Senate is currently the equivalent of a coin-flip that could flip either way, the longer the war goes on the greater the chances are that the Democrats will gain the four-seat pickup they need to retake control.

Iran Conflict is Becoming a Forever War

Jake Wallis Simons wrote an op-ed in The Daily Telegraph that reported that Trump’s many mistakes in the planning and execution of his Iran War fiasco are catching up to him writing, It turns out winning a military campaign isn’t so easy, even when you have a commander-in-chief with the attention to detail, diplomatic skill and strategic brilliance of Donald Trump. Having come to power vowing an end to “forever wars”, the US president now finds himself reaping the consequences of his blunders and sinking into a quagmire of his own making. The problem with the Iran war fiasco was both in the planning and the execution.

Axios is now reporting that the White House is bracing for a protracted hot war with Iran that could last up to a month while Trump has declared an emergency due to lack of fertilizer for farmers and the US is just thirty days away from reaching the minimum level of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The White House is preparing for what could turn into a multi-day or even multi-week exchange of fire with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, US officials told Axios on Thursday. The duration and intensity of the new campaign depend entirely on Iran’s upcoming actions, according to US officials who spoke with Axios. They noted that the current escalation could last anywhere from one day to a month, depending on whether Iran continues its attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump briefing reporters following US bombing strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites conducted on June 22, 2025. A DIA Bombing Assessment determined that the strikes left all three underground nuclear production facilities intact. Despite that, Trump has continued to falsely claim the US has totally obliterated Iran’s nuclear program in that bombing strike even while continuing to falsely claim he restarted the war in February 2026 because to save the world from an imminent Iranian nuclear holocaust.

While Trump has restarted his kinetic war on Iran twice from June 26-27^th and now from July 7-9^th, he is claiming that his largescale missile strikes on Iran are not a resumption of the war but merely a continuation of the US “special military operation” a term which he borrowed from Russia’s war in Ukraine. But in his July 8^th press comments, he has also conceded that US missile strikes on Iran will end soon for a number of reasons. Firstly, he does not want Iran to follow through on its threat to close the Strait of Hormuz and send the US and the world into a global recession or perhaps even a depression and secondly because the US has depleted around half of tis conventional missile arsenal including all of its JASSM missiles so the US lacks the munitions necessary to resume a protracted kinetic war with Iran. Back in May, US intelligence estimates that Iran retains 70% of their ballistic and cruise missile arsenal while the US is down to about 50-55 percent of its offensive missile arsenal and defensive missile interceptors.

But the biggest reason why Trump doesn’t want to continue the war is as he has stated he fears that it would cause a global depression and he doesn’t want to be another Herbert Hoover in reference to the president who had the misfortune of being in office during the early years of the Great Depression. Politico’s National Security Daily reported on July 1st that Trump told aides he thinks that mounting another round of attacks could tank diplomatic efforts and impact the U.S.’s ability to get Tehran to dismantle its nuclear program. Trump also told aides he’s okay with negotiations extending beyond an Aug. 18 deadline for a nuclear deal, allowing more leeway for talks to continue — and for Tehran to drag them out. Yet, he restarted heavy missile strikes on Iran anyway in a temper tantrum following Iran’s use of two drones and a missile to hit three neutral ships in the Strait of Hormuz. While many security experts believe that the kinetic strikes will continue both sides have reason to want to restore compliance with the 60-day cease-fire MOU which benefits both the US and Iran. So, the question is what is the strategy or the objective behind the US missile strikes if Trump believes they will accomplish nothing and could risk Iran reclosing the Strait and ending talks to constrain its nuclear program?

The White House and Department of War has sent the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln within easy anti-ship missile range of one of the top five strongest anti-ship missile powers in the world while the US is in the process of bombing it. Is President Trump trying to provoke Iran to target and disable if not sink one of our aircraft carriers to justify a resumption of a full-scale bombing campaign? Or is he just convinced that Iran won’t respond to US escalations of the war by sinking a major US Navy surface combatant?

Moving one of our aircraft carriers 105 miles away from Iran while we are in the process of engaging in missile strikes on Iran’s territory is an extremely foolish and risky gamble on the part of President Trump and Secretary of War Hegseth. It would give it very little warning time if Iran were to launch a barrage of hypersonic anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles against it. If Iran wanted to sink one or both of our aircraft carriers with a swarm of hundreds of hypersonic and supersonic anti-ship missiles, there is no question in my mind that it could do so. How would the sinking of a US aircraft carrier and the loss of thousands of US sailors in a single day square with Trump’s misleading claim that the US succeeded in destroying Iran’s military and ballistic missile arsenal? What if Iran decides to make good on its threat to exit the Non-Proliferation Treaty and test detonate one of its nuclear warheads exposing Trump’s false claim he succeeded in obliterating Iran’s nuclear arsenal as a farce?

Will Trump Order a US Invasion of Kharg Island?

Two days ago, President Trump again threatened to stage a US amphibious and airborne invasion to seize Iran’s strategically important Kharg Island through which handles ninety percent of Iran’s oil exports. However, I doubt President Trump is seriously considering an amphibious landing of thousands of US troops on Kharg Island for a couple of reasons. He reportedly was so angry after two US F-15E Strike Eagle crew members went missing in action, he had to be escorted out of the Situation Room. He was so fearful he would be compared to Jimmy Carter during his 444-day Iran hostage crisis, he ordered a rescue mission to extract them which cost half a billion dollars’ worth of US Air force aircraft during a 48-hour period.

The other reason is that a US amphibious invasion of Kharg Island would likely prove to be a suicide mission. US amphibious assault vessels led by the USS Boxer and accompanying US Navy destroyers would have to run the gauntlet of thousands of Iranian anti-ship drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles including supersonic and hypersonic missiles which Iran has not yet employed in the war and held in reserve for exactly this kind of contingency. The US Navy has very little defense against hypersonic anti-ship missiles particularly if fired from a short distance along Iran’s coastline in the Persian Gulf with the Strait of Hormuz being only 22 miles wide.

At that range, Iran could launch such anti-ship missiles at our ships leaving them with only a few minutes if not as little as thirty seconds of warning time given Iran’s Fatah-1 hypersonic missile reportedly travels at speeds up to Mach 13-Mach 15 though it would likely be significantly slower than that without a more lengthy ballistic trajectory/descent. A US Navy amphibious invasion flotilla would have to travel 660 kilometers from the Strait of Hormuz and could be attacked by a swarm of several hundreds of drones and missiles which could overwhelm the missile defenses of their accompanying US Navy destroyers which typically carry around eighty SM-3 and SM-6 missile interceptors each.

A map of Kharg Island showing its location and its importance to Iran. The island is the size of Iwo Jima and is believed to be defended by 1,000 IRGC troops. An amphibious assault on the island would likely result in thousands of US military casualties but an airboene assault would likely be much less risky.

It is possible that Iran could kill more Americans in a single day or two than the US lost during the entire two-decade long war in Afghanistan if it were to succeed in sinking the USS Boxer alone, which would presumably be carrying over 3,000 sailors and Marines, presuming the loss of the vast majority of them. If so, Trump’s approval numbers would likely drop precipitously, and the Republican Party would suffer an even more momentous defeat in the November midterm elections. He is reportedly very casualty averse so it seems doubtful he would be willing to conduct such a risky assault which even if successful would not change the outcome of the war or even prevent Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz.

According to the leaked findings of a classified US intelligence report, Iran was successful in restoring thirty of its thirty-three coastal defense anti-ship missile sites to operational status. This explains why the US has only succeeded in forcing its way into the Persian Gulf on one or two occasions since the war began with three US Navy destroyers during Project Freedom which came under immediate Iranian drone, cruise missile and attack boat fire on May 4^th from the moment they entered the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian anti-ship missile threat forced them to leave the Gulf three days later. Weeks later, the US sent another two destroyers into the Strait of Hormuz and they were immediately bracketed by Iranian drone and missile fire strategically signaling to them that Iran could hit them whenever it wanted to and they ended up beating a hasty retreat.

President Trump would be wiser to limit a US invasion of Kharg Island to an airborne assault using troop transport aircraft and helicopters from Kuwait. The prospects of success would likely be considerably higher though we would be assured to lose some of our helicopters to Chinese supplied MANPADS. However, I have warned that a US takeover of Kharg Island would prove a pyrrhic victory for the US because while the US could likely succeed in taking the island, we would likely suffer dozens of US military casualties every day as the island is located only sixteen miles from the coast of Iran well within Iranian heavy artillery range and would be bombarded by Iranian drones, missiles and artillery on a daily basis. US troops would likely consist of light infantry and would have to entrench and build fortifications to defend against Iranian bombardment from which they would initially have little cover or protection.

In addition, we might have a lot of difficulty in extracting them in a modern-day version of Carter’s Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1981 that helped lose him the presidency. In fact, when this operation was first discussed a few months ago, I theorized that Iran might actually allow our troops to land on the island before sinking our naval vessels trapped in the Persian Gulf to entrap them for this various purpose to use them to obtain greater leverage over the US in negotiations in exchange for their safe extraction.

Pentagon Running Out of Money to Fight the War

NBC News reports that the Department of War was funded with a budget of nearly a trillion dollars, but it is now running out of cash nearly three months before the end of the fiscal year, according to three U.S. officials, a former defense official, outside experts and two congressional staff members. This suggests that the costs of the war to the US military likely amount to hundreds of billions and not just the $67 billion supplemental the Pentagon has requested. But Congress hasn’t approved the money yet, in part because of frustrations over information about the war with Iran, sources say. So, it turns out that the US fighting an endless, unwinnable war of aggression against Iran is very expensive. It has caused us to waste hundreds of billions of dollars that could have been spent to fulfill Trump’s promise to Make America Great Again and now the US Department of War, which expends over a trillion dollars a year, is running out of money. After wasting $8 trillion fighting an unnecessary War on Terror lasting two decades, who knew that forever wars, which Trump promised to end but failed to do so, were expensive?

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance is blowing away Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the latest GOP presidential primary poll. It turns out endless war and recessionary economic policies are unpopular among Americans under 50 years old who are struggling to buy a house and pay the bills. Who knew? Vance has enjoyed something of a bounce in the polls since the MOU was signed but now that Trump has trashed it that could change. The longer this war goes on the greater the chance that Rubio will run for President and that Trump will endorse him. If the war ends soon, Rubio likely won’t run because Trump will be unlikely to back him viewing Vance as more in line with his policy positions.

A US Navy helicopter squadron commander, Commander Gabe Edwards, missing since July 1^st, has been declared KIA--the latest needless US military casualty in Trump’s stupid, senseless war for Greater Israel. I wish he would just resign so Vice President JD Vance could be sworn in as President to implement all the America First conservative foreign policy promises that Trump has broken to be the peace president 77 million Americans like me voted for.

Trump has proven the worst foreign policy president since Harry Truman decided it was a good idea to cut off all US arms shipments to Chiang Kai Shek’s National Revolutionary Army to enable Mao’s Red Army to conquer mainland China and fire America’s greatest modern-day General of the Army Douglas MacArthur for wanting to correct his mistake two years later. Trump was an awesome Reaganite peace president during his first term, but his second term has proven to be an unmitigated foreign policy disaster and has made Jimmy Carter look like a brilliant foreign policy president by comparison.

He apparently loves bombing people and fighting unnecessary wars without end that bankrupt our economy and deplete our conventional missile arsenal to deprive us of the ability to deter Communist Chinese aggression in the Pacific. However, if the Iran War causes Trump to realize the US doesn’t have enough munitions to have even a 0.1 percent chance of defeating Communist China when it invades Taiwan in the next 18 months and thus spares the US homeland from being annihilated in a massive Chinese cyber, super-Electronic Pulse and/or nuclear first strike, it will have been worth it.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and previously served as National Security Policy Director for Sen. Mike Lee during his 2010 campaign. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster.” He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

June 9th—Interview with Steve Yang on his Natural Resource Stocks podcast to discuss the likelihood that the Iran War will continue until the end of the year resulting in a US and global recession as well as what President Trump can do to end it.

June 10th—Interview with Paul Mills on his Off-Grid Farming podcast to discuss the latest news about Trump’s escalating war on Iran, the future of suspended peace talks and the impact of Iran’s warning to the US that if the war continues it will test a nuclear weapon.

June 11th—Interview with Nate on his Canadian Prepper podcast to discuss recent revelations that Trump was warned by Iran on Tuesday that it will test a nuclear weapon if Israel does not suspend its war on Lebanon or if the US escalates its war on Iran.

June 11th—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his Moral Resistance podcast to discuss the latest missile strikes exchanged between the US, Iran and Israel threatening a return to full-scale war and why this war is likely to drag on for many months if not years without a peace deal.

June 12th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss the latest developments with regards to the Ukraine and Iran wars and whether its possible that a peace deal can be negotiated ending either way or will the wars drag on with the war in Ukraine only ending with Ukraine’s military collapse this fall.

June 13th—Interview with Mario Naval on his podcast to discuss the increasingly influence of Israel over President Trump and the US Congress, Joe Kent’s claim that Trump is under duress from Israel and the chances that a 60 day cease-fire MOU will be successful in ending the war with Iran.

June 16th—Panel Interview with Brandon Weichert on Emerald Robinson’s show “The Absolute Truth” and former CIA officer Larry Johnson to discuss Iran’s threat to test a nuclear weapon if the US continued to escalate its missile strikes on Iran and Israel continues its offensive against Lebanon.

June 18th—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his Moral Resistance podcast to discuss the signing of the armistice agreement between the US and Iran in which we gave in to virtually all their terms and the chances that it will lead to a more just and lasting peace. We will also discuss Trump’s pivot to pursuing an America First peace policy again.

June 20th—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to sign an armistice agreement that includes all of Iran’s requested peace terms and whether it represents an abandonment of his neocon war policies and a return to pursuing an America First peace policy.

June 23rd—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s war on Iran. We will discuss Trump’s armistice agreement with Iran in the context of a return to a courageous America First foreign policy which makes the US safer and more secure and whether Israel and its neocon allies will be successful in trying to blow up his Iran peace deal.

June 25th—Interview with Emerald Robinson on her “The Absolute Truth” show to discuss Trump’s war on Iran. We will discuss Trump’s armistice agreement with Iran in the context of a return to a courageous America First foreign policy which makes the US safer and more secure and whether Israel and its neocon allies will be successful in trying to blow up his Iran peace deal.

June 27th—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to resume bombing strikes on Iran in violation of his 60 day cease-fire agreement and whether this could lead to a full resumption of the war.

June 28th—Interview with Dr. Pascal Lottaz on his Neutrality Studies podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to sign an armistice agreement that includes all of Iran’s requested peace terms and whether it represents an abandonment of his neocon war policies and a return to pursuing an America First peace policy and whether the armistice deal will hold.

July 2nd—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his Moral Resistance podcast to discuss the signing of the armistice agreement between the US and Iran in which we gave in to virtually all their terms and the chances that it will lead to a more just and lasting peace. We will also discuss US and Iranian cease-fire violations, missile strikes and the chances that Israel’s war in Lebanon might blow up the peace deal.

July 7th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss the latest developments with regards to the Ukraine and Iran wars and whether its possible that a peace deal can be negotiated ending the war in Ukraine or will the war only end with Ukraine’s military collapse this fall. We will also discuss my proposal to form a Triple Entente with Russia and India to neutralize the Sino-Russian military alliance, ensure US security for decades to come and help counter China’s rise to global hegemony.

July 9th—Interview with Emerald Robinson on her “The Absolute Truth” show to discuss Trump’s war on Iran, the NATO summit and the war in Ukraine. We will discuss Trump’s statement that the 60 day cease-fire is finished, his statement that Greenland should be American and NATO claims that Ukraine is winning its war against Russia.

July 9th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s war on Iran, the NATO summit and the war in Ukraine. We will discuss Trump’s statement that the 60 day cease-fire is finished, his statement that Greenland should be American and his statement that the US supporting Ukrainian deep strikes on Russian oil and gas infrastructure bring us closer to peace.

July 10th—Interview with Ben Harnwell on “Bannon’s War Room” show to discuss Trump’s war on Iran, the 2026 NATO Summit in Ankara and the war in Ukraine. We will discuss Trump’s statement that the 60 day cease-fire is finished, his statement that Greenland should be American and NATO claims that Ukraine is winning its war against Russia.

Upcoming Interviews

July 21st—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to escalate the war by bombing Iran’s critical infrastructure and Iran’s response by bombing our Gulf allies oil and gas infrastructure and desalinization plants. We will also discuss Iran’s rejection of Trump’s proposed ten day cease-fire proposal and its reply that it will not negotiate with the US again until the threat to Iran has been removed and the US missile arsenal has been fully depleted.

July 21st—Interview with Brandon Weichert on Mario Nawfal’s Roundtable podcast to discuss the most likely outcome of Trump’s forever war against Iran, his decision to escalate the war by bombing Iran’s critical infrastructure and Iran’s response by bombing our Gulf allies oil and gas infrastructure and desalinization plants. We will also discuss Iran’s rejection of Trump’s proposed ten day cease-fire proposal and its reply that it will not negotiate with the US again until the threat to Iran has been removed and the US missile arsenal has been fully depleted.

July 22nd—Interview with Tafhim Kiani on the Kianistan Podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to resume kinetic military strikes on Iran, trash the 60- day cease-fire and resume the US naval blockade of Iran and the potential consquences for the US and global economy. We will also discuss whether Trump will make good on his threats to invade Kharg Island.

July 28th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s war on Iran and the war in Ukraine. We will discuss Trump’s decision to suspend US missile strikes on Iran in an attempt to return to the 60-day cease-fire agreement and related issues.

July 29th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych to discuss the latest developments with regards to the Ukraine and Iran wars and whether its possible that a peace deal can be negotiated ending the war in Ukraine or will the war only end with Ukraine’s military collapse this fall following a massive Russian northern offensive.

July 30th—Interview with Jamin McKeever on his podcast to discuss Section 219 of the National Defense Authorization Act which would effectively merge the US defense industrial and military technological base with Israel’s. This provision would make it politically impossible for members of Congress to vote against the US military continuing to fight and die for all of Israel’s wars.

August 2nd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on Mario Nawfal’s Roundtable podcast to discuss the most likely outcome of Trump’s forever war against Iran. We will also discuss Iran’s surprise attack on a US military base in Jordan and Trump’s plans and whether it constitutes a change in Iran’s strategy to continue the war until November 3rd to maximize Democrat gains to ensure Trump is impeached by a wide margin.

August 5th—Interview with Brandon Weichert on Mario Nawfal’s Roundtable podcast to discuss the most likely outcome of Trump’s forever war against Iran. We will also discuss Iran’s new strategy of pre-emptive strikes which is humiliating President Trump and seems to be on the verge of restoring deterrence with the US given his inability to carry out his threat to destroy Iran’s power plants as US long-range munitions continue to be depleted to dangerously low levels.

August 6th—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Trump’s threat that this is Iran’s last chance to avoid having its critical infrastructure bombed and Iran’s new strategy of pre-emptive strikes on US military bases. We will also discuss the statement of Iran’s leaders that it will not negotiate with the US again until the threat to Iran has been removed and the US missile arsenal has been fully depleted.

August 10th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss the latest developments with regards to the Ukraine and Iran wars. We will discuss the prospects that Russia will complete its takeover of western Donetsk leading to a Ukrainian military collapse this fall and whether the US conflict with Iran will prove a forever war.

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US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet taking off from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea. US CENTCOM reported it launched six US attack aircraft to strike military targets along Iran’s southern coastline this afternoon.

Yesterday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps launched a drone attack on the Singapore flagged tanker M/V Ever Lovely yesterday which caused moderate damage to its bridge as it was successfully transiting the Strait of Hormuz along the coast of Oman. Earlier today, President Donald Trump complained about what he rightly termed a “foolish violation of our cease-fire agreement” under Article Five in which Iran committed to help ensure the “safe passage of commercial vessels” through the Strait. During a White House press conference earlier this afternoon, President Trump said “you’ll see” when asked if the US would respond to Thursday’s attack. Then, a few hours ago, President Donald Trump restarted his illegal and unconstitutional war with Iran by bombing four Iranian military targets including underground missile and drone storage facilities and coastal radar sites.

CNBC reported on the breaking news cease-fire violations by both sides:

The U.S. military struck Iran on Friday after President Donald Trump accused the Islamic Republic of “foolish violation” of a ceasefire agreement by launching drone attacks at ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s military later said it had retaliated for the strikes. U.S. Central Command said its aircraft “struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations and coastal radar sites.” A one-way attack drone launched by Iran on Thursday struck the Singapore-flagged cargo ship Ever Lovely in the strait off the coast of Oman, Central Command said in a post on X. The vessel was able to continue on its way through the strait, which is a major thoroughfare for the shipment of oil. Trump said the U.S. military “knocked down” three other attack drones aimed at ships in the strait. “The unwarranted aggression against commercial shipping by Iranian forces clearly violated the ceasefire,” Central Command said. “Furthermore, Iran’s dangerous behavior undermined freedom of navigation as commerce increasingly flows through the vital international trade corridor,” Central Command said.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp, in a statement, after the U.S. strikes, said, “Following the violation of the ceasefire by the Zionist regime in southern Lebanon, a few hours ago, the treaty-breaking US regime, as always, violated its commitments and, under various pretexts, attacked the coasts of the Islamic Republic of Iran with an airstrike due to the passage of a violating ship through an unauthorized route in the Strait of Hormuz.” “The IRGC Navy responded to this aggression by striking the positions of the US terrorist army in the region,” the IRGC said. “According to clause 5 of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, the arrangements for controlling passage in the Strait of Hormuz are with the Islamic Republic of Iran; however, the US, by provoking various parties, sought to violate this commitment, to which a necessary response was given, and this will be the case from now on.” “If the aggression is repeated, our response will be broader than this,” the IRGC said. Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the national security commission of the Iranian parliament, in a post on X said, “The U.S. attacked Iran in the middle of negotiations once again.” “The failed U.S. President has shown he has no commitment to the principles of negotiation or a ceasefire,” Azizi said.

It’s important to point out that Iran didn’t violate the cease-fire by attacking the US or Israel. It was the US that violated the cease-fire agreement by attacking Iran which was an escalatory rather than a proportionate response to the Iranian cease-fire violation with its single drone attack on a neutral ship. Furthermore, Iran has shown considerable restraint by refraining from retaliating against Israel for its daily bombing strikes in violation of its numerous cease-fire agreements with Lebanon. Iran has also refrained from retaliating against the US over Trump’s multiple violations of its sixty-day cease-fire Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the US in terms of his continuing threats to occupy and invade Iran as well as to assassinate its top diplomats.

Iran is likely to respond by pulling out of all nuke talks with the US and might even shutting down the Strait of Hormuz to any ship that doesn't pay its $1 per barrel transit fee. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is now claiming it has struck US military sites in the region after President Trump ordered the US military to bomb four Iranian military sites and restart the war but it appears its claim is false as there have been no reports of any Iranian strikes. Iran is threatening further escalation if US bombing strikes continue. This could restart a cycle of ‘tit for tat’ escalation with the US and Iran bombing each other on a weekly if not daily basis unless Iran does not follow through on its threats to retaliate. Its possible Iran might opt not to out of a desire to secure its massive financial and economic gains the US has promised it under the terms of the 60-day cease-fire agreement and avoid a resumption of the US naval blockade.

President Trump’s much touted cease-fire lasted a mere nine days. The neocons are no doubt cheering their success in getting him to attempt to blow up his 60-day armistice agreement much sooner than most people expected. It appears that he’s back to being an America Last neocon war president again and can’t be trusted to honor any cease-fire agreement between the US and Iran. If he keeps up these military strikes, Iran could respond by re-closing the Strait of Hormuz indefinitely and the US will be facing a likely recession within months just in time for the Democrats to sweep both Houses of Congress in the November 3rd mid-term elections. That will enable the Democrats to impeach him and other top White House officials early next year and investigate his family members on corruption charges, delivering Iran yet another victory to make the remainder of his term miserable.

Given that Trump seems to be hell bent on fighting a forever war with Iran that could last until the end of his presidential term, it is worth considering exactly what his war with Iran has accomplished, what the point of fighting the war was in the first place and who have been the winners and losers of the war thus far.

What Has the US War on Iran Accomplished?

President Donald Trump speaking at a press conference at the G-7 Summit in France on June 17th the same day he signed his sixty-day armistice Memorandum of Understanding with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Throughout his press conference, Israel First neocon Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared rigid and dejected following news reports he had been critical of Trump’s decision to sign the agreement which incorporated all of Iran’s peace terms.

Trump’s surprising decision to normalize diplomatic and trade relations with Iran last week, treat it like a regional great power/near-peer competitor and admit that Iran is led by rational leaders represents a stunning departure from past presidents. His decision to sign the 60-day armistice agreement on terms highly favorable to Iran was an admission that the US could not achieve its war objectives by military means no matter how long it fought the war. The lessons from this war should lead to a more prudent, reasonable, rational and restrained foreign policy that is more in line with America’s national interests and more focused on homeland, hemispheric and strategic defense in line with the 2025 US National Security Strategy which called for the US to withdraw most of its troops from Europe and the Middle East and delegate regional security to the EU and Israel respectively.

In the assessment of The American Conservative’s Andrew Day, “What Trump has actually accomplished is to reframe the Islamic Republic as a legitimate actor in world affairs, rather than a Forever Enemy whose very existence America can scarcely tolerate.” Could it really be that half-a-century of hostility is being dissipated, or at least mitigated?

Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ economic sanctions campaign from 2017 to the present was designed to try to impoverish Iran and starve its Islamist regime of cash it could spend on funding its military, increasing its ballistic missile production, expand its incipient nuclear arsenal and fund its regional proxies. This agreement reverses that policy with Vice President JD Vance saying the White House is offering to transform its relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran to one of peace and economic cooperation stating, “We are extending an open hand to Iran. If they want to change their relationship with us, we will change our relationship with Iran.” Most foreign policy realists are comfortable with normalizing diplomatic and trade ties with Iran and ending the US policy of military confrontation with Iran but I suspect many Israel First neocon Republicans are not.

As Adam Gallagher, a contributing fellow with Defense Priorities, wrote an excellent article in The National Interest yesterday:

For decades, the United States, encouraged by Israel, has overhyped the threat posed by the Islamic Republic. If the United States hadn’t needlessly overextended itself in the Middle East, there was almost nothing Tehran could do to harm the United States. But the war has strengthened Iran’s strategic position, as Tehran now has a stranglehold over one of the world’s most important commodity chokepoints. Meanwhile, the conflict has been a disaster for the United States and the global economy. It’s time to finally get out of the Middle East. US engagement in the region has sapped American lives, resources, and bandwidth for far too long. US attempts to dominate the region have had bloody and destabilizing consequences for the people of the region and wasted money that could have been used to improve American lives. Washington’s enormous and costly bases have proven ineffectual at best, and our unwavering support for Israel has enabled its aggression. The Middle East has long been a region of declining strategic importance, and its challenges are fundamentally political. These problems, from the threat posed by terrorist groups to the free flow of oil from the region, are best addressed by regional states.

What Was the Point of Fighting an Unnecessary and Unwinnable War with Iran?

When a draft of the terms of what would later become the final signed June 14^th MOU armistice MOU was first leaked on May 23rd, several Republican hawks, including and Ted Cruz (R-TX), former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) attacked the peace deal with Iran. “The deal being floated with Iran seems straight out of the Wendy Sherman-Robert Malley-Ben Rhodes playbook: Pay the IRGC to build a WMD program and terrorize the world,” Pompeo wrote on X. “Not remotely America First.“ Sen. Ted Cruz posted, “I am deeply concerned about what we are hearing about an Iran ‘deal,’ being pushed by some voices in the administration. If the result of all that is to be an Iranian regime—still run by Islamists who chant “death to America” — now receiving billions of dollars, being able to enrich uranium & develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake.” On May 24^th, White House advisors slammed former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Israel) for undermining Iran deal negotiations while President Trump posted on Truth Social calling them and all his other Iran War critics “fools.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) misrepresented himself as an America First conservative during the 2016 presidential campaign causing me to strongly support him. However, during an appearance on the Tucker Carlson Network on June 18, 2025, he came out of the closet as a diehard Israel First/America Last neocon warmonger. Years ago, he was booed by a group dedicated to the defense of persecuted Christians in the Middle East for declaring, “If you will not stand with Israel and the Jews, then I will not stand with you.” Now, he claims Tucker Carlson, who has been a lifelong supporter of Israel like myself until very recently, is an “anti-Semite” for rightly criticizing Israel’s terror bombings which have killed tens of thousands of Gazan and Lebanese civilians.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, is an Israel First neocon warmonger who infamously stated during a Fox News interview that he didn’t care about US citizens and only cared about Israel and has already gone on record saying Republican congressional majorities should be sacrificed in Iran. Graham was also highly critical of the reported peace deal, calling it a “nightmare” for Israel. “If a deal is struck to end the Iranian conflict because it is believed that the Strait of Hormuz cannot be protected from Iranian terrorism and Iran still possesses the capability to destroy major Gulf oil infrastructure, then Iran will be perceived as being a dominate force requiring a diplomatic solution,” Graham wrote on X. “This combination of Iran being perceived as having the ability to terrorize the Strait in perpetuity and the ability [to] inflict massive damage to Gulf oil infrastructure is a major shift of the balance of power in the region and over time will be a nightmare for Israel,” Graham continued.” Also, it makes one wonder why the war started to begin with if these perceptions are accurate,” Graham said. “I personally am a skeptic of the idea that Iran cannot be denied the ability to terrorize the Strait and the region cannot protect itself against Iranian military capability.”

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Israel) concurred with Graham’s assessment seeming to denounce the deal as a modern-day Munich Pact. Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu also spoke out against the US-Iran peace framework agreement saying, “it would be very bad for Israel.” The day after Trump announced his June 14th armistice agreement had been finalized, a senior Israeli official told Israeli i24NEWS: “If we had known the war would end this way in terms of the political outcome, it is not certain it would have been worth going to it.” Former Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who resigned in part because of Netanyahu’s terror bombings that killed over 58,000 Gazan civilians, condemned the agreement stating “The emerging agreement with Iran appears to be a strategic failure that will require Israel to engage in diplomatic, military and legal struggles in the coming years.

Now that Trump’s has decided to capitulate to virtually all of Iran’s peace terms in the peace deal that was signed last week, it is worth asking the question, as Sen. Graham did a month ago, what was the point of the US fighting an unwinnable and unnecessary war against the Islamic Republic of Iran and what did it accomplish? It would have been much better to have accepted Iran’s far better nuclear deal they offered the day before he started the war, rather than get our US military bases destroyed or rendered unusable for no good reason and nearly half of our conventional missile arsenal depleted. Given the terms of the deal are not favorable to the US, it might have even been better for the US to have simply ended the blockade and unilaterally withdrawn all US military forces from the region without paying Iran hundreds of billions of dollars.

During an interview with his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump that aired on Fox News on May 30th^th, President Donald Trump stated that he has “a very short window” to fight all his wars before the November mid-term elections seeming to acknowledge that he expects the Democrats will take control of both Houses of Congress and block him from taking further military action by defunding his wars. That likely explains why he chose to fight wars against Venezuela, Iran and likely Cuba this year instead of after the mid-term elections so that he could try to minimize largescale Republican losses in both Houses of Congress that will likely ensure in response to his failed war on Iran.

During the interview, President Trump appeared to admit the US should never have started a war with Iran as he compared the more than three-month war with the U.S. war on Iraq, which lasted more than eight years. “If you look at what happened with Iraq, we did so bad, that was such a foolish thing, what we did. Shouldn’t have been there in the first place, by the way, and we shouldn’t have been in Iran,” he said during an interview with his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, which aired on Fox News on Saturday evening. The president then went on to justify the war by saying that if the U.S. didn’t attack Iran first in June last year, Tehran would have had a nuclear bomb by now, and that Israel wouldn’t have continued to exist. He made a similar statement on March 16th shortly after the Iran war began saying “you could make the case that maybe we should be there at all.”

The US has lifted its naval blockade on Iran in exchange for Iran re-opening the Strait of Hormuz and Iran would get full US sanctions relief if it agrees to a deal on its nuclear program acceptable to the US. It is looking like Trump is planning on accepting a new JCPOA II agreement where Iran would give up all its enriched uranium to Russia and possibly suspend uranium enrichment for five years to enable him to claim a victory. If President Trump had just kept the original 2015 JCPOA in place, it would have averted his perceived need to start an unnecessary and unbelievably costly 110-day war with Iran which has served to massively deplete the US military conventional missile stockpile and seriously damage our economy. Essentially, Trump’s war on Iran achieved nothing other than to catapult them to the exalted status of the new regional hegemon over the Persian Gulf.

It is far from certain that Iran will ever agree to meaningfully curtail its nuclear weapons program, certainly not to the extent it did under the JCPOA that Trump foolishly scrapped in 2018 that served as the pretext for his Iran nuclear crisis. The reason is because Iranian leaders now know they hold most of the cards and the US will have little leverage other than a complete lifting of all US economic sanctions to incentivize Iran to make a deal. However, even if it does not, a resumption of the blockade or US military strikes on Iran will likely not be a viable option for Trump politically when the 60-day cease-fire expires on August 19th because there will be less than two and a half months until the November 3rd midterm election where the Democrats are already heavily favored to retake control of both Houses of Congress. It would merely serve to guarantee that unfavorable outcome for the president’s political party.

Thomas Freedman published an op-ed in the New York Times in which he rightly concluded that President Trump fought a war with Iran to stop Iran from building a nuke he had every reason in the world to know they would never use. Doing so would provoke immediate US and Israeli nuclear retaliatory strikes on Iran and Iran’s leaders are very far from crazy or suicidal as Israel and the neocons wanted us to believe. They have proven to be more rational and reasonable than Trump and Netanyahu have acted. So why did he start the war? I have been stating it likely had nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear weapons and everything to do with expanding the US and Israel’s imperial hegemony to Iran to make it a US vassal state and steal its oil as he has admitted.

Rubio and Hagseth Testify to Congress that Trump Started a War with Iran Because it had Never Been Weaker

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth lying to Congress during testimony to the House Armed Services Committee. President Donald Trump is reportedly considering firing him and CIA Director John Ratcliffe for opposing his armistice agreement with Iran. If he did, it would serve as a heavy blow to the neocon wing of the White House given he is the most blatantly Israel First/America Last neocon warmonger in the Trump administration.

During his testimony to the House Armed Services Committee on April 29^th, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth admitted that the reason that Trump decided to attack Iran is not because Iran posed a threat to the US but because Iran has never been weaker. Rubio echoed this White House talking point during his congressional testimony on June 2^nd have now stated that the reason Trump attacked Iran was not because it threatened or attacked us but because “the regime was at its weakest point.” In fact, the exact opposite is true. US military strikes have caused the great majority of Iranians including millions that had opposed Iran’s Islamist regime to support it against the US and Israeli aggressors. Meanwhile, US intelligence reports that Iran’s military industrial base is much stronger than previously believed and is on track to rebuild its drone and missile stockpile to prewar levels within six months.

During his congressional testimony, Rubio added, “There is the prospect before us... that, for the first time, certainly in my memory, they have agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear program that just a month ago, just a year ago, they were refusing to even mention, much less enter into discussions about.” However, that statement is false. Former President Barack Obama got Iran to surrender 97 percent of its enriched uranium in 2015 without losing a single US life or firing a single missile. During his testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on June 2^nd, Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the Iran war was “highly successful” in achieving its military objectives, which he says was “dramatically reducing the defense industrial base of Iran.” In fact, US intelligence reports 90% of Iran’s underground missile production and launch facilities remain operational. Iran has damaged or destroyed 20 US military bases in the Middle East with ballistic and cruise missiles Trump claimed to have totally obliterated. Have administration officials been ordered to lie to Congress about all the military and strategic failures of Trumps war on Iran to accomplish any of his war objectives?

During his congressional testimony on June 2nd, Rubio also falsely claimed “the Iran War is over” at a time Trump was intensifying US military strikes on southern Iran and Iranian warships with three days of US missile strikes last week alone. As I wrote in my ‘Real War’ substack last month, Trump’s war on Iran is “a war of lies.” Literally everything Trump, Rubio and Hegseth have said about the war including their claims that we have destroyed the Iranian military has been proven to be objectively false. Of course, the reason that Rubio claimed the war was over was to attempt to reduce support for the Iran War Resolution passed by the House of Representatives the day after Rubio testified. The concurrent resolution was passed by the US Senate on Tuesday blocking Trump from further offensive military action against Iran and mandating he begin withdrawing US military forces from the theater of war causing President Trump to lash out at the four Senate Republicans that voted to pass it.

The reason that the Trump administration has repeatedly refused to provide Congress with any legal justification for its illegal, unconstitutional, unprovoked and undeclared war against Iran is because it doesn’t have any. The War Powers Act of 1973 only authorizes the President fight a war for 60 days if it is in response to a direct attack on US territory or military bases. However, Iran did not attack us and the war began with a US/Israeli joint sneak attack against Iran starting with the assassination of its leaders. The White House has falsely claimed Iran was on the verge of attacking US military bases without providing any evidence to support its claim while the Pentagon has revealed that Iran had no plans to attack the US at all, let alone imminently. Accordingly, Secretary of State Rubio was forced to claim President Trump’s 110-day war against Iran was not actually a war even though there have been direct US military strikes on Iran during the few weeks preceding the announcement of the 60-day MOU.

US Unsuccessful in Achieving Any of its War Objectives

On June 24^th, President Trump spoke to the press with Senate Republican leaders and attempted to spin ‘Operation Epic Fury,’ which I have denounced as ‘Operation Epic Fiasco’ as a victory stating, “Iran is being very nice. They’re agreeing to everything that I want and they have to—otherwise we just go back and do what we have to.” But the reality is very different. President Trump declared the US had four major goals when he launched the war in Iran on February 28th: obliterating Iran’s nuclear program; destroying its ballistic missile arsenal and missile production facilities; eliminating its arms shipments and funding to its regional proxies; and overthrowing the Iranian regime to replace it with leaders hand-picked by himself. To this he added, sinking Iran’s Navy to end its control over the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf and seize control of all its oil. Of these six objectives he failed to accomplish a single one of them either during the war or as part of the temporary armistice agreement. Iran’s nuclear program remains largely untouched with Iran retaining 100% of its prewar stockpile of Highly Enriched Uranium.

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President Trump giving an interview to Axios at the G-7 summit on June 18th during which he claimed “there are no limits” on his presidential powers and the 60-day cease-fire Memorandum of Understanding should be considered as Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender.’

On June 17th, President Trump signed a landmark 60-day armistice agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran while he was in Paris suspending the most unpopular war in US history hopefully indefinitely. The following day, Trump told Axios the agreement amounted to “unconditional surrender” by Iran to the US despite the fact that he ended up caving to virtually all of Iran’s peace terms. He the claimed that “there are no limits” on his imperial presidential powers five days before the US Senate joined the US House of Representatives in passing a concurrent resolution directing him to withdraw all US military forces from the Iran theater of war in a major rebuke to the president.

On June 21^st, the New York Times published an article entitled, “What Changed After Almost Four Months of War? Analysts Say Not Much.” President Donald Trump. Trump responded predictably by misleadingly claiming the Iran War was a huge victory for the US stating, “REALLY? Their Military is DONE, their Navy is GONE, their Air Force is GONE, their Launching Pads, Missiles, Drones and Manufacturing of same, is almost GONE, their top two sets of Leaders are GONE.”

As I noted in a previous article, literally none of those propaganda talking points are true and US military strikes on Iran’s military proved surprisingly ineffective. According to US intelligence reports, Iran retains 100 percent of its army, approximately 95 percent of its warships (including thousands of IRGC Navy fast missile boats), two-thirds of its air force, 70 percent of its ballistic and cruise missiles, 90 percent of its underground ballistic missile production and launch facilities and 91 percent of its coastal defense anti-ship missile sites. The war has left Iran with 5,600 nuclear capable ballistic missiles and thousands of subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic anti-ship missiles of all ranges to fire at the US and its allies in the region. Meanwhile, its nuclear production facilities remain “largely untouched” and it retains 100 percent of the Highly Enriched Uranium it did before Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025. It also has the same president, foreign minister and speaker of the parliament it had before the war.

President Trump continues to misleadingly claim that the US controls the Strait of Hormuz and that the US sank Iran’s entire navy. While it is true that we sunk all eleven of Iran’s surface combatants, it still has thousands of fast missile boats and dozens of midget submarines armed with anti-ship missiles and torpedoes which it has used to exert undisputed control over the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf and hold the mighty US Navy at bay. This was recently underscored by an Iranian drone attack on a tanker attempting to skirt Iran’s designated transit routes through the Strait leading Iran to fire a drone which damaged a Singapore flagged tanker yesterday. The US Navy has not dared to send a manned ship through the Strait for over two months due to the risk of being struck by Iranian anti-ship missiles and drones. Iran still controls all its territory and oil and is rapidly rebuilding its energy infrastructure and ballistic missile production facilities.

The outcome of this war in terms of the peace deal with Iran and Trump’s and Vance’s statements since the peace deal was announced and signed constitute a stunning reputation of neoconservative foreign policy particularly given their increasing critique of Israel for trying to torpedo the armistice agreement. However, President Trump understands that he has no choice but to implement the terms of the armistice agreement because if he re-implements the naval blockade and doesn’t do what Iran is requiring to re-open the Strait of Hormuz to avoid what he has described as a potential global economic depression transforming his presidency into “the second coming of Herbert Hoover” as he stated. As I warned before the war and right after the war broke out, the US has no military solution to achieving any of Trump’s stated war objectives let alone re-opening the strait. If there was a military solution to do so, Trump would have tried it by now. The real victory Trump should be celebrating is an end to his disastrous Iran War with a realistic peace agreement that should be made permanent, even though it recognizes the new balance of power in the Persian Gulf region in which Iran has proven more powerful than the US.

President Trump has been unable to resist reverting to his neocon warmonger threats and bluster. During a Fox News interview on the morning of July 21st, Trump threatened to “take over the rest of the country” of Iran, warned Iran it “won’t have a country” if it closes the Strait of Hormuz, and said Iranian officials “won’t even make it back to your effing country” if they closed the strait. Needless to say, Trump’s threats to bomb, invade and occupy all of Iran and assassinate Iran’s peace negotiators is a direct violation of his sixty-day armistice agreement in which both parties agree to refrain from using military force or even threatening the use of military force against the other party.

Trump violated the armistice agreement again by refusing to stop Israel from bombing Lebanon and threatening to hit Iran “very hard” with bombing strikes if they don’t tell Hezbollah to stop defending themselves against Israeli attacks. In a post to X, Trump said: “Iran must immediately stop their highly paid proxies in Lebanon from causing trouble. If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder”. President Trump later told Fox News the United States could become the “Guardian Angel” of the Strait of Hormuz and take 20% of the oil. “We may take over the Strait, if we have to,” President Trump told Fox News. “I’ll blow the sh*t out of them.” “If they don’t make a deal, we’ll collect tolls.”

President Trump’s statements above to assassinate Iran’s diplomatic representatives and invade, conquer and occupy all of Iran if it doesn’t re-open the Strait of Hormuz. It looks like he wants more war, not peace, after all make him appear completely unhinged threatening. That said, his threat to take over all of Iran is a bluff since he’s reportedly afraid to invade Iran knowing that it would lead to the thousands of US military servicemembers being killed in action. Even if the US deployed its entire active-duty Army and reserves to Iraq to invade western Iran it likely wouldn’t be enough to conquer all of Iran without a US nuclear first strike. If Trump makes good on his threats, there will never be a nuclear deal with Iran, and the Strait of Hormuz may remain closed indefinitely causing a worldwide depression.

Iran’s negotiators threatened to suspend all negotiations with the US as a result of Trump’s threats. Vice President JD Vance tried to reassure the Iranian delegation that Trump’s threats were just “trash talk” they should ignore in an attempt to persuade them not to abandon negotiations. They agreed to stay but refused to engage in any first-person negotiations with the US and only communicated through Pakistani mediators. Iran is wise to keep negotiating with the US to try to enforce the cease-fire against Israel rather than to retaliate militarily against Israel for resuming its military offensive against Lebanon. As long as both sides show their commitment to diplomatic resolutions of these issues, this armistice agreement can endure indefinitely and help establish a more just and lasting peace for the entire Middle East.

Trump’s unhinged and unpresidential rants were in sharp contrast to Vice President JD Vance’s positive, measured and hopeful diplomatic negotiating style exemplified by his statement: “The question before us now is how much more can we accomplish together? “Can we turn over a new leaf? Can we change relations in the Middle East permanently, or do we go back to doing things the old way, which is not our preference, but is certainly very much something that can happen.”

Winners and Losers of the Armistice Agreement

Both sides are currently celebrating the final agreement on the temporary armistice agreement as a victory which is a good sign but that may change once US neocons see how favorable the terms of the agreement are to the Islamic Republic of Iran which they have spent the past decade urging Trump to “finish the job” and eradicate. Based on a review of the MOU it’s not difficult to surmise which side is the winner of the war and which side is the loser. As I have been stating for the past few months, it is the winner of a war not the loser of a war that gets to dictate the terms which is why I predicted for months that this war would continue indefinitely until President Trump accepted Iran’s peace terms which is exactly what he ended up doing. The terms of the agreement, the text of which I shared in an article I published the day the agreement was signed appear to have even virtually all handwritten by Iranian leaders. This comprehensive armistice agreement represents a huge victory and masterstroke for Iran in getting the US to essentially recognize Iran as the regional hegemon of the Persian Gulf region and a near peer competitor, albeit a second rate one. On June 14th, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council declared complete and total victory over the US and Israel and states the documents of our surrender will be signed on Friday while Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian pointed to a top Israeli official’s statement that it was “a terrible deal for Israel” as proof that it represented a victory for Iran.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Pakistan is an Iranian ally as both are members of the Sino-Russian- led Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Pakistani leaders have been critical in mediating the armistice deal which represented a stunning victory and strategic masterstroke for the Islamic Republic of Iran which President Trump misleadingly claimed the US had defeated five times in thirteen seconds during a rally on March 11th.

Iran is getting a guarantee from the US that it will give up its objective of regime change and never again attack Iran again militarily so long as it honors the terms of the agreement and a commitment that the US will withdraw all its military forces from around Iran which could be interpreted to include virtually the entire Middle East, end its naval blockade, facilitate the payment of hundreds of billions of dollars in reparations to Iran and unlock all frozen Iranian assets under Article 6 of the agreement. In addition, the language in Article One of the agreement in which both the US and Iran commit to “ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon” seem to confirm reports that the White House agreed to Iran’s demands to pressure Israel to withdraw all its troops from Lebanon in exchange for Iran agreeing to sign the agreement. It’s no wonder why Iranian leaders and state media are celebrating this agreement as a huge victory for Iran over the US and Israel.

The US agrees to allow Iran and Oman to jointly control the Strait of Hormuz while Iran gets to keep indefinite control of the Persian Gulf with the implicit understanding that no US Navy surface combatant warships will be permitted to enter it aside from non-combat ships like minesweepers. Iran also gets suspension of all US sanctions on oil and gas as well as an implicit unfreezing of all Iranian frozen assets under Article 6 with the initial $13 billion down payment reportedly already delivered and an additional $12 billion to be delivered within sixty days. It is worth noting that the deal being discussed would neither constrain Iran’s ballistic or cruise missile program nor would it limit their ability to support Iran’s proxies like Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen—objectives which it would seem the Trump administration has given up as unachievable.

In return, the US gets a face-saving exit its botched war against Iran which has done serious damage to US economic and military might, a promise for Iran to end its attacks on US military bases and regional allies, re-open up the Strait of Hormuz and restore traffic through the Strait to prewar levels within thirty days under Iranian and Omani joint management. In addition, Iran has agreed to engage in serious negotiations to constrain its nuclear weapons programs in talks that began on Sunday and reiterated its pledge not to build nuclear weapons, a promise that it likely broke several years ago. However, Iran has yet to provide any real commitments to limit its nuclear weapons program in any way since President Trump tore up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018.

Under the agreement, the US and Iran agreed to what is essentially some sort of non-aggression pact with both sides committing to neither attack nor even threaten to engage in military action against the other. As Vice President has stated, the objective of the armistice agreement is to achieve an end to the war across the entire Middle Eastern region including Lebanon where President Trump has sharply criticized Israel for continuing its war of aggression. However, Israel’s decision to expand its military occupation of Gaza from 60 to 70 percent is not directly addressed as part of the agreement. Israel conducted a missile strike on Gazan refugees in the city of Khan Younis on Wednesday killing and wounding several children bringing the tally of Gazan children killed by Israel to over 20,000 with more than 44,000 wounded.

Vice President JD Vance has denied that Iran will get any money to sign the MOU, that is untrue. Iran reportedly received $13 billion in frozen funds from the UAE before the temporary armistice agreement was signed which would seem to meet their initial requirement for Iran agreeing to sign the deal. There is no question that funds transfer was facilitated by the Trump administration. On June 15^th, Vice President JD Vance confirmed that Iran would get access to the $300 billion reconstruction fund if they honor the terms of the 60-day armistice MOU and fully re-open the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days and agree to and implement a nuclear deal acceptable to the US. With the US set to unfreeze Iran’s frozen funds which he says total $100-200 billion and this enormous and unprecedented Iran reconstruction fund being referred to as “Iran’s Marshall Plan” is an amount of money twice as large, in today’s dollars, as what the US provided to western Europe to help aid in its economic recovery after World War Two. It also represents twice as much money as Obama gave Iran. The purpose of the fund is to recompense it for all the damage and destruction that US and Israeli military strikes caused to their critical infrastructure, schools, hospitals and other civilian buildings over the past 3.5 months of war, it appears the US is going to make Iran wealthy again. Iran reportedly asked for $400 billion initially but the Trump administration only agreed to $300 billion which is Iran’s minimum estimate for the cost for the damages caused.

The terms of the Trump-Iran peace deal represent a clear victory for Iran and a humiliating defeat for the US especially the $300 billion Iran reconstruction fund which constitute reparations in all but name which presumably would be financed by private companies and investors across the world tied to Iran’s compliance with the terms of the armistice agreement and any future agreement constraining its nuclear weapons program. It has not been explained how the US would be able to induce private companies to finance the fund. Trump continues to claim that the US ‘won’ the war militarily and claim it was Iran that capitulated to the US. However, nothing screams the US lost the Iran War louder than us having to pay $300 billion dollars in reparations and $100-200 billion in unfrozen Iranian assets to the very Islamist regime we tried and failed to overthrow. Nations that don’t win wars don’t pay reparations. Only countries that lose wars do…

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On June 17^th, President Trump signed a US-Iran armistice agreement in which the US capitulated to virtually all of Iran’s peace terms in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles which is exactly where Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles 107 years ago to the month bac in June 1919 but the agreement is mutually beneficial to both the US and Iran by ending this senseless war. During the signing of the agreement, Trump appeared dejected and defeated despite applause from fellow heads of state suggesting he understood the deal was more of a victory for Iran than it was for the US.

On June 17th, President Trump signed a US-Iran armistice agreement in which the US capitulated to virtually all of Iran’s peace terms in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles which is exactly where Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles 107 years ago to the month back in June 1919. It probably didn’t help the White House avoid comparisons to the German signing of the Treaty of Versailles that the agreement that it signed was Iran’s fourteen-point peace plan which it first submitted to US negotiators on May 2nd replacing Iran’s ten-point peace plan which Trump announced on April 7th were a workable basis for negotiations when he first announced the cease-fire ending major combat operations with Iran.

Germany also accepted a Fourteen Point Peace Plan authored by President Woodrow Wilson which served as the basis for the November 1918 armistice agreement when it conditionally surrendered to the Western Allies at the end of World War One. I have been waiting for one of the Israel First critics of President Trump’s Iran peace deal to denounce it as a modern-day Treaty of Versailles. I had predicted since the onset of the war that the Iran War would not end until Trump accepted Iran’s peace terms in some kind of conditional surrender and that is exactly what ended up happening.

As MS Now noted on June 18th, Trump has succeeded in alienating his entire base with his actions over the Iran War. First, he alienated his America First base voters by starting an unnecessary and unwinnable great power war with Iran and now he is alienating his neocon supporters by ending the war with an armistice agreement which was virtually hand-written by Iran’s Islamist regime. The report noted that Iran has become a lose-lose wedge issue for President Donald Trump; there’s no way he can get around alienating part of his coalition over it. When he launched his war on Iran, he infuriated the non-interventionist wing of his party who believed his promise that he’d start “no new wars.” Now his scramble to end the same war is alienating the hawkish sector of his party — who believe that Trump’s agreement with Iran to end the conflict looks like a humiliating surrender.

Some Republican Senators immediately began celebrating Trump’s decision to capitulate to Iran’s peace terms on June 14th with Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) calling on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize before he had even seen a draft of the temporary cease-fire MOU. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) praised him as “the Dealmaker in Chief.” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) called the armistice deal a “great birthday present” defending Trump’s turn to foreign policy realism strongly during cable TV interviews. On June 17^th, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who voted seven times to require President Trump to end the war and withdraw all US military forces from the conflict, criticized what he termed “regime change wars” and “endless military entanglements.” He argued that the individuals opposing Trump’s deal are the same ones responsible for past failed interventions. “This war must end. I stand with President Trump on peace,” Paul stated.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of Trump’s closest allies in the Senate, was initially more skeptical demanding Vice President JD Vance hand deliver a copy of the agreement to the US Senate to present it for Senate ratification, a call since repeated by notorious Israel First neocon talk show host Mark Levin. However, much like former President Barack Obama did with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, President Trump deliberately made this a non-binding framework MOU so the Senate couldn’t torpedo the agreement. Graham acknowledged Iran probably won’t agree to a deal to give up its nuclear enrichment program but argued it would be worth a try to reach a lasting deal to stop it from obtaining a nuclear weapon. “It opens up the strait, it continues the suspension of hostilities, it creates space to see if you can get a deal — I doubt if they can — on the nuclear program, but why not try?” Graham said. “If you can find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear ambitions, go for it. The MOU puts that in place,” he added.

In Iran’s previous ten-point peace plan, Iran demanded the US pay Iran hundreds of billions of dollars in reparations. Iran reportedly considers unfreezing of $100-200 billion of its assets under the US-Iran peace deal to be an acceptable form of US reparations to compensate it for the tens of billions of dollars US and Israeli air strikes it incurred along with the $300 billion ‘Marshal Plan’ reconstruction fund the US has agreed to facilitate setting up. In Article Eleven of the agreement, “The US undertakes that, in light of the progress of negotiations towards a final agreement, frozen or restricted funds and assets of Iran will be released and made fully available.” This wording suggests that the US agreed to give Iran full access to $100-200 billion of its frozen funds in the near future instead of the $24 billion reported by Iran. That is a much more expansive concession to Iran than the White House led us to believe. News reports indicate it already has $150 billion in funding available.

Without a doubt, the optics of Iran getting $400-500 billion in de facto reparations for US and Israeli strikes on its schools, hospitals and civilian critical infrastructure under this armistice agreement plus up to $75 billion a year in oil sales and transit fees aren’t good. While that is less than the $635 billion (in 2026 dollars) Imperial Germany was forced to pay the Western Allies after World War One, it’s still a huge sum for a country to receive that Trump claimed to have defeated fifty times in the past few months. These terms invite unfavorable comparisons to Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action under which the US sent $1.7 billion in cash to resolve a dispute while unlocking $150 billion in Iranian frozen funds.

Vice President JD Vance has defended the deal as a “win-win” for the U.S. On June 14^th, Vice President JD Vance touted the landmark agreement with Iran, saying the Trump administration had achieved its key objectives and predicting the deal could “fundamentally transform the Middle East” for decades to come. Vance said the agreement would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and permanently prevent Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon. The vice president said the deal would not only end the conflict but could usher in a new era of stability and economic growth across the region.

“It’s going to end the war. It’s gonna make the Middle East more investable. It’s going to mean a lot of prosperity, lower energy prices for the American people,” he said. “This region of the world has been a basket case for my entire life and longer than that, and what the president has really set us up to do is to certainly eliminate the nuclear threat of Iran... but now possibly to build to a new era of Middle East prosperity and success, where it’s not a region of world where the United States has to worry about so much, but where frankly we can generate a lot of prosperity for the American people out of that region,” he added.

During his White House press conference on June 18^th, Vance stated, “If the Iranians don’t change their behavior, their military and their nuclear program is still destroyed. If they do change their behavior, then they are going to have a transformative relationship with the Middle East, and the Middle East will have a transformative relationship with the people of Iran.” In terms of giving the administration a chance to reorient US foreign policy in a more America First direction in accordance with Trump’s outstanding National Security Strategy published in December, I think you can legitimately say that the armistice agreement is mutually beneficial to both the US and Iran by ending this senseless war.

But Vance’s claims that Iran’s military and nuclear program are destroyed have been debunked by US intelligence reports assessing that Iran retains 90 percent of its underground missile launch and missile production facilities as well as 91 percent of its coastal defense missile sites. Iran’s nuclear program remains “largely untouched” still intact and not substantially degraded. Its ballistic missile, cruise missile and drone force remain robust, capable of deterring future US and Israeli military strikes. Iran’s army remains at full strength. Most of Iran’s Air Force has survived the war. Iran did lose all eleven of its major surface combatants and perhaps a few of its submarines as well so that was perhaps the greatest US military success. Trump’s botched war against Iran has made it considerably stronger, not weaker, just as Biden’s war on Russia in Ukraine made Russia much stronger both economically and especially militarily. It has served to strengthen Iran’s Islamist regime and boost its regional power status while its military was not substantially degraded.

I think in terms of giving the administration a chance to reorient US foreign policy in a more America First direction in accordance with Trump’s outstanding National Security Strategy published in December, replacing our failed strategy of global hegemony, the armistice agreement is mutually beneficial to both the US and Iran. If it ends this senseless war with a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, it could salvage Trump’s presidential legacy. The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 merely served to sow the seeds of an even greater and more destructive war because it was incredibly unjust to Germany. However, this peace agreement is a much more equitable negotiated compromise agreement and is therefore extremely unlikely to fail as spectacularly as that infamous peace treaty did.

The Armistice Agreement is a Victory for Iran and a Defeat for the US

When the Iran war first began, I predicted that the war would continue indefinitely until Trump accepted Iran’s peace terms in recognition of a US strategic defeat. Now, it appears that my prediction is proving accurate. Signing this minimalist two-page peace framework agreement would be a very good move by Trump. This was his best chance since the he started the war to demonstrate his independence from his Israeli paymasters and he took it.

Now, he needs to focus on regaining the over sixteen million Trump voters who have deserted him over his illegal war fought on behalf of Israel and address the affordability crisis his war has created. Some of them came back right away like I did as soon as the temporary armistice agreement was signed on June 14^th. Others like America First heroes Tucker Carlson and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene have announced they are leaving the Republican Party. Carlson declared: “How could I or any American voter support a political party that’s not loyal to the United States that puts the interests of a foreign country above those of its own citizens. It’s not possible to vote for people like that, and I’m not going to.” Moments later, the former Congresswoman and staunch Trump ally echoed his sentiments and posted on X: “We are DONE with the America LAST Republican Party.”

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, former Fox News host and President Donald J. Trump enjoying a light-hearted moment together before Trump decided to blow up his MAGA coalition with an unnecessary war on Iran fought on behalf of a foreign power in polar opposition to US national security interests.

It seems unlikely they will ever come back unless Vice President JD Vance is the Republican presidential nominee in 2028 and its difficult to see the Republican Party retaining control of the White House without their support and the support of many other America First conservative leaders and podcasters Trump foolishly chased out of his 2024 election-winning MAGA coalition.

The terms of the sixty-day armistice agreement with Iran appear virtually unchanged from what was reported on May 24^th which reported it was based on Iran’s fourteen-point peace plan which it first provided the Trump administration three weeks earlier. That day, Trump called a meeting with his entire national security staff and Netanyahu did the same while Trump has made calls to the leaders of our Gulf allies which seem supportive of the deal. Two days later, the deal was ‘finalized’ between the US and Iran and sat on Trump’s desk for three days until he rejected it as I reported in my last article extending the war unnecessarily by another two and a half weeks.

As I have noted previously, the deal can rightly be seen as a victory for the Islamic Republic of Iran but it’s also the best deal Trump can negotiate for the US, so I view it as him returning to a foreign policy which puts America First rather than Israel First as he has been doing for the previous three and a half months because it prioritizes US national security interests over Israel’s. In addition, it has the potential to lead to a final peace agreement which permanently extricates the US from the Iran War quagmire. That said, it is also measurably worse than the deal Iran offered the US before Trump started the war because it leaves Iran in permanent control of the Middle East. Accordingly, by any measure it must be considered a humiliating US strategic defeat.

The chances of President Trump deciding to restart the war at the end of July when the agreement expires seems slim given it would only be a little over three months before the November midterm elections and would erase any gains he was able to achieve in reducing gas prices in the interim or limiting GOP losses in the US House and US Senate. So, it’s likely that the 60-day temporary armistice agreement will be extended indefinitely and the war is effectively over despite daily Israeli attempts to provoke Iran to restart the war with their daily bombing strikes on Iran’s Lebanese allies.

While Trump has misleadingly claimed the terms of the two-page peace framework agreement will ensure Iran never produces a nuclear weapon, the truth is that it does not do much to address Iran’s nuclear program at all. That said, I think Vice President JD Vance is correct in claiming talks with Iran regarding its nuclear program and other issues were productive this past Sunday given that they lasted over nine hours. The roadmap to achieve a permanent peace agreement with Iran could be based on Trump’s excellent Gaza War cease-fire, signed last fall, which had three phases of implementation. I think that Trump should offer to make the deal permanent in exchange for Iran down blending all 1,000 pounds of their Highly Enriched Uranium and limiting all future enrichment to 3.67 percent with a limited exception for enriching to twenty percent for medical radioactive isotopes which they have already offered to avert the need for any further potentially protracted negotiations.

Vance is claiming Iran agreed to the return of IAEA inspectors which Iran denies. Iran has already agreed to down blend its 1,000 pounds of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) as part of any deal but has refused to give up either it or its 22,000 pounds of Low-Enriched Uranium. Iran had reportedly previously considered agreeing to a 10-year moratorium on uranium enrichment (which would constitute a huge concession if true) but Iranian officials have repeatedly stated they will not agree to a nuclear deal until the fighting ends on all fronts including Lebanon.

US Senate Votes to Block Further US Military Action Against Iran

In a historic vote today, the US Senate voted 50-48 to join the US House of Representatives which voted 215-208 a few weeks ago in passing a War Powers Resolution prohibiting President Trump from engaging in any further offensive military action against Iran, presumably including a naval blockade, without first receiving specific congressional authorization. It further directs the president to remove U.S. troops from hostilities against Iran under the 1973 War Powers Act, though it excepts elements of the armed forces that would be necessary to protect U.S. assets or allies from imminent attack. Because it is a concurrent resolution of Congress, it cannot be vetoed by the President though it is non-binding. What this means is that if Trump restarts the war, it will officially be both an illegal war, under both US an international law (because it was an unprovoked war of international aggression), and an unconstitutional war. President Trump.

The Department of War is now requesting $80 billion in emergency spending to rebuild munitions supplies that have been depleted since the conflict with Iran began nearly four months ago providing us with the best estimate yet of the actual cost to the US military of the war which excludes the cost of rebuilding US military bases in the region. The Senate voted on the measure two days after Trump threatened to bomb Iran if it doesn’t rein in its militant proxies in Lebanon. Trump posted on Truth Social: “Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble,” Trump said Sunday. “If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!”

Back in May, Trump dismissed the House’s passage of the resolution as “a meaningless vote” and accused the four GOP lawmakers who voted with Democrats of being “grandstanders” and undercutting his negotiations with Iran to end the war. He can be expected to do the same with regards to the four Republican Senators that supported the resolution.

Neocon Backlash to the Armistice Agreement

Neocon Republicans have blasted the proposed peace deal. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) denounced Trump’s armistice deal as a betrayal of Israel. “History teaches that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is not a good idea,” he told reporters. “I think the president is receiving some very poor advice on this deal.” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Mo.) said that the $300 billion account to fund the rebuilding of Iran — one of the measures in the signed MOU‚ “would make Iran’s payoff under President Obama’s 2015 deal look like a pittance by comparison.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said it’s hard to argue that Trump’s decision to order joint missile strikes with Israel against Iran in late February produced an outcome to justify the cost in lives and munitions. Tillis said the deal appears weak “on its face.” “You got to do the balance of accounts: a hundred billion roughly, maybe more, spent today; 13 dead, 365 wounded, injured; our partners in the Middle East bombed, they’ve had casualties. There’s got to be a lot of return on that,” Tillis said, summing up the cost of the conflict. “We set out by saying we were going to drive down to zero their nuclear capability. Now we’re equivocating on that. We said that we were not going to make the mistake that Obama did by sending them a plane full of cash. I got to reconcile the numbers there,” he said.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said the lack of significant Iranian concessions on its nuclear program, its weapons arsenal and its long-standing practice of funding militant proxies throughout the Middle East raises serious concerns. He pointed out the deal doesn’t prevent Iran from continuing to enrich uranium or toll the strait, and “it gives them a lot of money they can use to fund their proxies.”

Nikki Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during part of Trump’s first term but went on to run against him in the 2024 presidential primary, wrote on social media that the Iranians will use any funds received to “further their nuclear ambitions and on terrorist proxies against us.” Haley added, “It’s a huge mistake to pay to rebuild the threat we just destroyed.” Neocon Israel First pundits have joined them in denouncing Trump’s armistice deal. The staunchly pro-Israel commentator Ben Shapiro called the deal a “disaster” during an interview with Fox News on Wednesday. Another prominent conservative commentator, Erick Erickson, wrote on social media that the accord was “an American surrender.”

Trump helped defeat Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) for re-election after he voted with the Democrats to impeach him on bogus charges in 2020. He has since proven the loudest GOP critic of Trump’s temporary armistice agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran in Congress. Cassidy even voted for the War Powers Resolution blocking Trump from restarting his war on Iran.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) had some of the most harsh criticism for the president’s armistice agreement saying, “It’s an awful deal. It’s kind of JCPOA-plus” comparing the MOU to the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which former President Obama negotiated with Iran in 2015. Trump withdrew from Obama’s Iran deal in May of 2018. At the time, the Trump administration said the Obama deal “enriched the Iranian regime and enabled its malign behavior.” The administration at the time also said it had delayed Iran’s “ability to pursue nuclear weapons” while “allowing it to preserve nuclear research and development.” Cassidy said Trump’s new MOU with Iran “is going to leave Iran stronger, and it’s going to leave our allies weaker, and it may commit U.S. taxpayer dollars.” The memorandum states the U.S. will work with “regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Cassidy said Iran now has leverage over the rest of the world through its demonstrated ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. “Now, Iran recognizes they can use their leverage over the Strait of Hormuz to extract from the other countries of the world whatever they want. And whereas before there was a credible threat that something would happen if they attempted to do so, I think that threat under this president seems to be exhausted,” he said.

Sen. Cassidy concluded by stating it was the “worst foreign policy blunder in decades.” “Reagan is rolling over in his grave. Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal,” Cassidy said. The Iran War has indeed proven the “worst policy blunder in decades” and it ended in a humiliating defeat. On the other hand, I believe this peace deal corrects that tragic mistake and was the right decision for President Trump and America as it represents the best terms he could get from Iran.

President Trump’s Welcome Return to Foreign Policy Realism

Just as I predicted in my last article published on June 17^th, we are seeing a historic break between President Trump and Israel and Israel First neocon critics of his peace agreement now that Trump is pivoting back to being an America First conservative peace president. The Trump administration has dumped its neocon rhetoric and actions and has adopted America First conservative foreign policy realism and restraint.

While taking questions during a press conference on June 17^th at the G-7 in Geneva, Switzerland, Trump cast his push to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as critical for American prosperity. He raised the specter of “economic catastrophe” in the absence of a deal and said he had no desire to end up analogous to former President Herbert Hoover, who is widely blamed for exacerbating the Great Depression. He admitted that he decided to sign the armistice agreement with Iran because there was no military solution from the US standpoint to re-open the Strait of Hormuz no matter how long the US bombing campaign had lasted just as I stated at the onset of the war. Trump said, “and they love the fact that the Hormuz — don’t forget if we were going to drop bombs … could be another three months … what do you have left, maybe nothing? But the strait would never be opened...We run out of reserves at about four weeks,” Trump said. “You know, there are reserves all over the world, and we would really run out, and there’ll be a time when you wouldn’t be able to get it.” He said it would be “bedlam” if the oil ran out. “What this does is it allows the ships to go,” he said of the Iran deal. “If we keep bombing, those ships won’t be going.”

The president defended letting Tehran have its arsenal of ballistic missiles, saying it will be one of the issues not related to Iran’s nuclear program that the U.S. will work on with Persian Gulf allies. He also suggested it would have been impossible to forbid Iran from having the missiles, which is a serious worry for Israel, when Iran’s rivals like Israel and Saudi Arabia have them. “I mean, they have to have some, because other people have some. You got to have some,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “I like some of these guys, but I … don’t think they’re smart. ‘Sir, you shouldn’t let them have any missile,’” the president said of unnamed advisers. “I said, ‘well, what am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can’t have them?’ ‘Yes, sir.’” “Doesn’t work that way, you know, it doesn’t work that way, and missiles aren’t the problem,” Trump said, adding that missiles “hurt a little location, but they don’t blow up the planet.” Iranian leadership has said that changes to its missile program were one of the red lines during diplomatic talks regarding the potential peace deal. Iran used its program to fire upon Israel and U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf.

Trump played down the permanence of the preliminary agreement during the news conference, saying it will fall apart if Iran does not honor its terms. “If they don’t honor the agreement, or some things aren’t even mentioned in the agreement, it’s a memorandum of understanding, but we have an understanding of certain things without writing it,” Trump told reporters. “If they don’t honor that, we’ll probably go back to bombing them until they honor it,” he continued, adding, “it’s amazing what bombs can do.”

During the press conference, Trump downplayed the importance of getting Iran to surrender its stockpile of 1,000 pounds of Highly Enriched Uranium and 22,000 pounds of Low Enriched Uranium likely due to the fact that he is unsure whether he will be successful in getting Iran to agree to do so saying that while the U.S. has “the equipment to get it” and that it would be “psychologically” satisfying to do so, “it’s actually not valuable. Not a lot of value.” President Trump was asked by a reporter if it is true that there is nothing in the fourteen-point armistice agreement that is enforceable that would prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. Trump responded by saying “there doesn’t need to be” indicating he knows that the agreement doesn’t constrain Iran’s nuclear weapons program after claiming it was fake news.

The next day, Trump appeared to be open to allowing Iran to continue enriching uranium for nuclear energy purposes indefinitely saying, “You know, it is a little hard though when other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you’re not letting them have it for the purpose of electricity and things like that. You have to use a little common sense.” However, during a White House press conference on June 18^th, Vice President JD Vance clarified that the US still wants Iran to agree to no nuclear enrichment. He also said that the agreement required the US to withdraw its military forces to prewar levels within 30 days after a final agreement was signed implying the US would maintain two carrier strike groups in the region there until a final agreement was signed.

America First champion Vice President JD Vance’s presidential prospects have been greatly bolstered by the US signing of the 60 day armistice agreement with Iran. Vance has been looking very presidential as he has led the defense of the deal with dozens of TV and major podcast interviews while leading negotiations with Iran to finalize a permanent peace deal. His primary presidential challenger Secretary of State Marco Rubio has remained virtually unseen since President Donald Trump signed the MOU.

President Trump was wise to select Vice President JD Vance to lead in person nuclear negotiations with Iran in Geneva on June 21^st instead of our do-nothing Secretary of State Marco Rubio who the Iranians don’t trust or respect. If anyone has a chance of negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran that achieves any of the White House’s objectives, it is Vice President Vance. As I have been stating since July 2024, if President Trump was serious about negotiating peace deal with Russia ending the war in Ukraine, he should send Vice President Vance to negotiate a bilateral peace deal with Russia in 48 hours and then pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept it.

On June 22nd, Vice President JD Vance stated that Iran agreed to allow nuclear inspectors back into the country as peace negotiations between the U.S. and Tehran continue. Speaking from Bürgenstock, Switzerland, he said allowing International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors back into Tehran is “a major milestone for the American people, and the first step in permanently denuclearizing or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran,” Iran announced it would suspend cooperation with the agency in July 2025, shortly after Washington’s strikes on the country’s nuclear enrichment facilities. The IAEA last had access to declared military sites in Iran in June 2025 — just before those strikes. And once the Iran war broke out in February 2026, the agency stopped all in-field verification activities, according to the group’s director general.

The MOU Trump signed with Iran last week called for Treasury to provide immediate sanctions relief to Iran. On June 22^nd, the US Treasury granted Iran permission to sell oil sanction-free for 60 days for the first time in decades. The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a general license allowing for the production, delivery and sale of Iranian oil through Aug. 21. It also allows the import of Iranian crude into the U.S. President Trump is so desperate to buy oil to avoid a financial crash and a huge spike in gas prices he has agreed to allow the US to buy Iranian oil for the first time in 47 years. It’s a smart move but it’s also a stunning reversal from US Iran policy for the past near half century which has sought to isolate and contain Iran and starve its Islamist regime of cash.

On June 22^nd, Vice President JD Vance admitted Iran has the right of self-defense, not just Israel and US allies. He says the US is working hard to operationalize the armistice agreement and lock in its mutually beneficial provisions to transform the region and ensure a more just and lasting peace and prevent future unnecessary wars as I have long advocated the US do. Neocon Secretary of State Marco Rubio hasn’t been heard from in over a week because he is not a supporter of the policy shift or Trump’s armistice agreement with Iran. He has never really done his job in meeting with Russian or Iranian leaders to negotiate peace agreements anyway. Vice President Vance is acting as America’s top diplomat now and he is doing an amazing job of it bolstering his prospects for victory in the 2028 presidential campaign.

Trump Pushing Back Against Netanyahu for Trying to Sabotage His Armistice Deal with Iran

At a news conference at the G-7 held on June 17^th, Trump had harsh criticism for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s conduct in Lebanon. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon and its continuing attacks amid battles with Hezbollah pose a serious threat to the U.S.-Iran peace deal — much to Trump’s irritation. A recent Israeli strike on Beirut was “unnecessary in my book,” the president opined saying “I feel bad for Lebanon.” Earlier in the news conference, he argued that Israeli actions in Lebanon generally are disproportionate. “I’m not saying they shouldn’t protect themselves,” the president said. “I’m saying when two drones are shot into the desert and drop harmlessly, you don’t have to knock down buildings in Beirut. They could behave better, and frankly they could do a better job.” The consternation from Trump’s remarks was immediately apparent. “Why on earth would Trump endorse Iran’s ballistic missile program?” ran the front-page headline of an op-ed in The Jerusalem Post. On the homepage of The Times of Israel, founding editor David Horovitz called Trump’s deal a “catastrophic capitulation.”

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu thought Israel would be the biggest winner of a US-led war on Iran. Instead, it has ended up being the biggest loser as the war has left Iran stronger than ever, replacing Israel as the rising hegemon in the Middle East with its nuclear-capable missile arsenal fully intact and unrestricted by the armistice agreement and hundreds of billions of dollars richer. With this deal, President Donald Trump has upended the half century long US policy of trying to isolate and contain Iran instead pursuing a policy of normalizing diplomatic and trade ties as a fellow great power.

President Trump reported denounced Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu is a ‘con man’ in a new book, entitled “Regime Change” that was released today that reveals Trump’s behind the scenes contempt for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump told an Israel skeptic in the early months of his administration that he didn’t want “any part” of a Netanyahu war with Iran. He told another adviser that Netanyahu was a “con man”. Trump has since added “f****** crazy” and “has no f****** judgment” to the list of insults he has hurled at Israel’s leader. Yet strangely, he still started an ill-considered, foolish, unnecessary and unwinnable war with a near peer adversary for the first time since the Korean War on Israel’s behalf despite his contempt for Netanyahu.

During the past few days, we have seen a flood of statements from President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance that have been very critical of Israel while White House’s pushback on critics of Trump’s armistice agreement in the US and abroad has been fierce. President Trump appeared furious at Netanyahu’s ceaseless bombing of Lebanon, he remarked: “You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody” – somebody to kill, that is – because “there are a lot of people in those apartment houses and they’re not all Hezbollah” Vice President Vance echoed Trump’s statement attacking Israel for continuing its air and ground offensive against Lebanon saying, “You’re a country of nine million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.” Vance’s statement served to rebut America Last neocon Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s absurd statement that “we negotiate with bombs.”

During a White House press conference on June 18^th, Vice President J.D. Vance warned Israel’s cabinet members who are vehemently opposed to Trump’s armistice agreement that they should be careful in how they think and talk about it. Vance said, “I will say, and this does bother me, is that you’ve seen people within Bibi’s cabinet who have come out and attacked the deal and, in some ways, very personally attacked the President of the United States.” “Number one, Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower,” Vance said. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.” “The other thing that I would say is that over the last 3 months, two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American Tax Dollars. The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump, and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the President of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.” Vance pointed out that two-thirds of Israel’s defense weapons have been built and paid for by Americans and that the problem for Israel “is not Donald Trump.” “Anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the President of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation in that country,” he added.

This kind of political courage in championing peace and calling out Israel is why I believe Vance was the best possible choice for VP in 2024 and is the best possible America First conservative GOP nominee for President in 2028. Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu will never release the full Epstein Files against President Donald Trump because he knows if he forced Trump out of office, he would have to deal with a President JD Vance who, unlike Trump, has committed no criminal acts Israel could blackmail him on.

Trump Called on Iran to Unconditionally Surrender to US but He Ended up Surrendering to Iran’s Peace Terms Instead

Over the past several weeks, President Donald Trump has posted his demand for Iran to surrender three times word for word. He has been living in a fantasy world where Iran is on the verge of unconditionally surrendering to the US on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln much as Imperial Japan surrendered on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri eighty-five years ago.

As I predicted when the war broke out, the war would not end until the US accepted Iran’s peace terms and it appears that Trump was so desperate to score a win by announcing an end to the war on his birthday that he offered last minute inducements to Iran to agree to the deal. On June 14^th, President Trump agreed to every single one of Iran’s peace demands as part of the 60-day cease-fire MOU in what was essentially an admission of Iran’s victory over the US.

Foreign Policy Expert Francis Fukuyama agrees that this agreement represents a US capitulation to Iran.

The MOU that Trump celebrated is a worse agreement than Obama’s 2015 deal, which Trump endlessly castigated in the past. Obama’s deal forbade Iran from enriching uranium beyond 3.67 percent for 15 years (far below the 90 percent enrichment necessary for bomb-grade purposes), and provided specific measures for removing enriched uranium from Iran. All of these provisions were to be overseen by outside inspectors, and Iran complied with its terms until Trump withdrew from the agreement. The major criticism of the deal, which U.S. hardliners stressed, was that it said nothing about Iranian support for regional proxies and that it provided sanctions relief at the start of the agreement.

Trump’s reported MOU, meanwhile, places no limits on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and makes no commitments about regional proxies. It does not provide for sanctions if Iran doesn’t concede by the end of the 60 days, though the Iranians have said that they will not proceed with final negotiations unless such relief occurs first. So Trump’s purported deal achieves considerably less than the agreement that Obama made.

Meanwhile, the American Conservative reported that some Democrats immiedately denounced the deal as Trump surrendering to Iran.

In a thread on X, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) offered the most comprehensive version of this reasoning, calling the deal “essentially surrender” while acknowledging that Americans “should be glad about it.” The deal negotiated by Trump is on “Iran’s terms,” according to Murphy. “They made one single concession - opening the Strait. And it’s not even a concession because the Strait was open before the war. Trump has humiliated America. He accomplished none of his goals. He was forced to surrender on Iran’s terms.” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) was even sharper in his criticism of Trump’s deal, calling it “an utter disaster” because the U.S. will be “releasing billions of dollars” to an “enemy” in Tehran who can use it to rebuild its military and fund proxy groups in the region. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) similarly ripped the reported agreement as “a terrible deal” and “basically a surrender document from Donald Trump to the Supreme Leader of Iran.”

Having realized Iran would never surrender and decided to cut his losses with the Iran war debacle he created by opting to surrender on Iran’s peace terms to get this stupid and unnecessary war in his rearview mirror and avert a US economic recession Despite this fact, on June 18^th, Trump told Axios the agreement amounted to “unconditional surrender” by Iran to the US despite the fact that he ended up caving to virtually all of Iran’s peace terms stating that “there are no limits” to his power.

The Most Important Lesson from the Iran War

On March 1^st, the day after the war began I wrote, “No matter how many operational victories the US and Israel have in this war the prospects for us to have a strategic defeat in Trump’s war against Iran are extremely high because we have no way to achieve any of these three main objectives by bombing strikes alone.” As I predicted before the war, a US war against Iran was always going to be unwinnable. In 2002, one of the most massive US military exercises in history—Millenium Challenge--came to the same conclusion. The reason that it is unwinnable is that we have no capability to achieve regime change in Iran without a massive US ground invasion because there is effectively no armed opposition to Iran’s Islamist regime. The US does not have the ground forces needed to stage a full-scale invasion of Iran and ensure success. In addition, Iran likely has nuclear MRBMs and IRBMs in its hardened underground missile silos which cannot be destroyed by conventional air and missile strikes alone but can only be destroyed with US nuclear first strike and I believe that President Trump has no intention of escalating to the nuclear level against Iran despite his three threats to do so. The US Navy, which is the mightiest conventional naval force on Earth, has repeatedly demonstrated it has no ability to overturn Iran’s control of the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.

When the Iran War began, I warned that Iran could prove the graveyard of the American Empire. Now that the armistice has been signed, it would be premature to say the American Empire is ending. However, the end of the war has produced a sea change in the regional power structure in the Persian Gulf region with Iran as the new regional hegemon and 13-16 US military bases destroyed or rendered unusable. Trump seems determined to end the war with a permanent peace agreement and has effectively declared independence from Israel for the first time since he authorized the Israeli offensive in Gaza in March 2025 in flagrant violation of his excellent January 19, 2025, cease-fire agreement.

The US war on Iran has depleted approximately 45 percent of our conventional offensive missile arsenal and missile defense interceptors during 38 days of high intensity combat. At that rate, it is very possible that the US would run out of missiles were the war to resume within six to seven weeks. By contrast, Iran retains 70 percent of its prewar stockpile including 5,600 ballistic missiles of all types, thousands of cruise missiles and likely tens of thousands of heavy combat drones. Thus, in any missile and drone war of attrition, Iran is likely to be capable of outlasting the US and Israel and win. It now appears that Trump has declared peace talks with Iran are dead and that he is prepared to restart a full-scale war, but the US military would likely decrease the tempo of our attacks substantially from the level of attacks during the first 38 days of the war to prevent the US missile arsenal too rapidly.

This war was the first major conflict that the US has fought against a great power near competitor since the Korean War ended in 1953 and the US lost the war in humiliating fashion. During this conflict the mighty US Navy was unable to retake control of the Strait of Hormuz against a second-rate great power even after we sunk all eleven of their surface combatants, forcing us to sign an armistice agreement in which the US capitulated to virtually all their peace terms. So, what makes US leaders think we could take control of the Taiwan Strait against a nation with the most powerful conventional military on Earth with a navy that has 370 deployable battle force ships as opposed to only 287 for the US Navy in their own backyard? If the Iran War has taught us anything, it is that we cannot defeat any nuclear great power in their own backyard even if we sink all their surface combatants and the war does not escalate to the nuclear level if they possess thousands of anti-ship missiles as Iran does. It is simply a matter of geography.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and previously served as National Security Policy Director for Sen. Mike Lee during his 2010 campaign. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published by the end of 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

May 26th—Interview with Mario Nawfal on his X podcast to discuss Trump’s unwinnable war on Iran and the latest on Netanyahu’s success in getting him to sabotage and abort the peace deal he was close to signing with Tehran with his maximalist demands. We will also discuss why my prediction that this would be a forever war that would end in US strategic defeat has proven true and crunch the numbers on why the US military campaign has been so ineffective.

May 29th—Interview with Paul Mills on his Off-Grid Farming podcast to discuss the latest news about Trump’s undeclared war on Iran and Trump’s Summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

May 30th-Interview with Mario Nawfal on his podcast to discuss Trump’s unwinnable war on Iran and the latest updates on Trump’s reported peace deal with Iran. We will also discuss how the war benefits China and Trump’s failed Beijing summit with Xi Jinping.

May 31st—Interview with Dr. Pascal Lottaz on his Neutrality Studies podcast to discuss whether Trump will agree to the 60 day cease-fire agreement which was negotiated on May 26th or whether the war will escalate with US military strikes and continue on into next year.

June 1st—Interview with Sotiris Danezis on the “Force” program on Greek ERT news to discuss the latest news about the Iran War, ongoing peace negotiations to end it and the US Naval blockade and limited military strikes against Iran and whether it will lead to a global recession.

June 1st—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his Moral Resistance podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to reject Iran’s peace offer negotiated on May 26th and give them a tougher counteroffer certain to be rejected. We will discuss where the Iran War is likely to go from here.

June 3rd—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss whether Trump will agree to the 60 day cease-fire agreement which was negotiated on May 26th or whether the war will escalate with US military strikes and continue on into next year.

June 3rd—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s war on Iran. We will discuss the status of peace negotiations with Iran and all the ways that the war has served to erode Trump’s popularity risking the loss of GOP control of both Houses of Congress in November. We also talked about why Trump’s claim that he had to go to war to save Iran from being nuked has no basis in fact.

June 6th—Interview with Mario Nawfal on his podcast to discuss reports of Iran’s warning to the US that it will conduct a nuclear test if Israel does not suspend its offensive in Lebanon or if the US escalates its undeclared war against Iran. We will always discuss my new comprehensive proposal to restore peace to the Middle East.

June 9th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych on his podcast to discuss the Russo-Ukrainian War and prospects for ending the Ukraine and Iran wars with negotiated compromise diplomatic settlements or whether Ukraine’s military will have to collapse entirely before Ukraine surrenders following Putin’s Victory Day statement that the war will end this year.

June 9th—Interview with Steve Yang on his Natural Resource Stocks podcast to discuss the likelihood that the Iran War will continue until the end of the year resulting in a US and global recession as well as what President Trump can do to end it.

June 10th—Interview with Paul Mills on his Off-Grid Farming podcast to discuss the latest news about Trump’s escalating war on Iran, the future of suspended peace talks and the impact of Iran’s warning to the US that if the war continues it will test a nuclear weapon.

June 11th—Interview with Nate on his Canadian Prepper podcast to discuss recent revelations that Trump was warned by Iran on Tuesday that it will test a nuclear weapon if Israel does not suspend its war on Lebanon or if the US escalates its war on Iran.

June 11th—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his Moral Resistance podcast to discuss the latest missile strikes exchanged between the US, Iran and Israel threatening a return to full-scale war and why this war is likely to drag on for many months if not years without a peace deal.

June 12th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss the latest developments with regards to the Ukraine and Iran wars and whether its possible that a peace deal can be negotiated ending either way or will the wars drag on with the war in Ukraine only ending with Ukraine’s military collapse this fall.

June 13th—Interview with Mario Nawfal on his podcast to discuss the increasingly influence of Israel over President Trump and the US Congress, Joe Kent’s claim that Trump is under duress from Israel and the chances that a 60 day cease-fire MOU will be successful in ending the war with Iran.

June 16th—Panel Interview with Brandon Weichert on Emerald Robinson’s show “The Absolute Truth” and former CIA officer Larry Johnson to discuss Iran’s threat to test a nuclear weapon if the US continued to escalate its missile strikes on Iran and Israel continues its offensive against Lebanon.

June 18th—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his Moral Resistance podcast to discuss the signing of the armistice agreement between the US and Iran in which we gave in to virtually all their terms and the chances that it will lead to a more just and lasting peace. We will also discuss Trump’s pivot to pursuing an America First peace policy again.

June 20th—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to sign an armistice agreement that includes all of Iran’s requested peace terms and whether it represents an abandonment of his neocon war policies and a return to pursuing an America First peace policy.

June 21st—Interview with Mario Nawfal on his podcast to discuss the signing of the armistice agreement between the US and Iran in which we gave in to virtually all their terms and the chances that it will lead to a more just and lasting peace. We will also discuss Trump’s pivot to pursuing an America First peace policy again.

June 23rd—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s war on Iran. We will discuss Trump’s armistice agreement with Iran in the context of a return to a courageous America First foreign policy which makes the US safer and more secure and whether Israel and its neocon allies will be successful in trying to blow up his Iran peace deal.

Upcoming Interviews

June 25th—Interview with Emerald Robinson on her “The Absolute Truth” show to discuss Trump’s war on Iran. We will discuss Trump’s armistice agreement with Iran in the context of a return to a courageous America First foreign policy which makes the US safer and more secure and whether Israel and its neocon allies will be successful in trying to blow up his Iran peace deal.

June 28th—Interview with Dr. Pascal Lottaz on his Neutrality Studies podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to sign an armistice agreement that includes all of Iran’s requested peace terms and whether it represents an abandonment of his neocon war policies and a return to pursuing an America First peace policy and whether the armistice deal will hold.

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President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on June 11th announcing planned US military strikes had been cancelled and a 60 day cease-fire Memorandum of Understanding would be signed in a few days.

The past few weeks have been one of the biggest roller-coaster rides in the history of US foreign policy. After months of dubiously claims the US and Iran were on the verge of finalizing a peace deal, it turned out President Trump was correct when he stated the US and Iran were on the verge of finalizing a 60-day armistice Memorandum of Understanding and suspending his unnecessary and unwinnable war with Iran over the past few weeks. Both President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed the document electronically today and US officials announced its implementation would begin immediately.

The full text of this stunning 60-day cease-fire Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which I would characterize as a temporary armistice with the potential of being a lasting peace agreement, formally suspending the war between the US and Iran was released by the White House earlier this afternoon and is now in the process of being implemented by both sides. In my estimation it represents a historic and potentially revolutionary break between President Trump and his neocon Cabinet members who have been privately critical of the peace agreement. This is because it throws all of the White House’s neocon propaganda talking points of the past several months out the window and represents a return to foreign policy reason, realism and restraint.

I think it is worth reviewing the events of the last few weeks that brought us to this historic moment before analyzing the terms of the agreement to remind everyone how we got to this point.

House Passes Iran War Resolution

On February 28^th, President Donald Trump took the nation to war with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which I have been reporting for the past four years is likely a nuclear great power, without any constitutional authority to do so. The War Powers Act only permits the president to take the US to war with a foreign power for up to sixty days in response to an attack upon the US. Since there was no Iranian attack on the US, Trump’s undeclared and unprovoked war of aggression against Iran has been illegal and unconstitutional from the very beginning. On June 3^rd, in one of the first attempts by Congress to reassert its constitutional power to declare war since the US war with Serbia in 1999, the GOP-led US House of Representatives voted 215-208 to force Trump to end the war on Iran with four America First House Republicans voting in favor. A similar Senate test vote passed 50-47 late last month but after the 60-day cease-fire MOU had been signed narrowly failed in another vote on June 16^th due to three Senate Democrat absences without a single vote being changed.

The House and Senate Iran War resolutions directing Trump to pull all US military forces out of the Iran War are non-binding concurrent resolutions meaning they cannot be vetoed by the president. All but ten House Republicans betrayed their America First base and violated our God-given Constitution in voting to give President Trump a blank check to fight his undeclared war against Iran indefinitely. We need to throw these America Last neocon warmongers out of office and elect America First conservatives to replace them. The next day, Trump responded to the vote by publishing a Truth Social post attacking the four House Republicans who helped pass the resolution as “grandstanders” claiming it was unpatriotic for them to vote to end the war when he was in the middle of final peace negotiations with Iran. The four House Republicans who voted for the Iran war resolution are America First conservative heroes for trying to end Trumps illegal, unconstitutional, unwinnable war of aggression.

The peace deal that the US and Iran signed on Sunday has been ready to sign for the past few weeks. It was first reported on May 23rd and the terms have likely remained largely unchanged. On May 28^th, it was reported that the US and Iranian negotiators reached a deal on a 60-day cease-fire framework agreement two days earlier. The following day, President Trump announced he was lifting the US naval blockade presumably as part of a 60-day cease-fire deal with Iran before his Secretary of War Pete Hegseth countermanded his order and declared “the blockade remains very much in place” in a stunning act of insubordination against him. Trump opted to request a few modifications to the MOU which Iran rejected.

On May 28^th, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he ordered the Israel Defense Forces to take control of 70 percent of the Gaza Strip – well beyond the portion of the enclave that Jerusalem was allowed to temporarily continue occupying as part of an October 2025 ceasefire deal with Hamas. The next week, he ordered IDF troops to cross the Litani River in Lebanon in blatant violation of Trump’s cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon in a failed attempt to sabotage the US-Iran peace deal.

Iran Cancels Peace Talks with US

On June 1^st, Iran announced that it had cancelled all peace talks with the US through Pakistani intermediaries in response to Irael’s egregious violations of the cease-fire in Lebanon. Iran demanded a full Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon as part of the 60-day cease-fire agreement which Iran claims Trump has since agreed to. However, this is something Netanyahu will never agree to as he has vowed to “deepen and expand” Israeli control over southern Lebanon so the peace talks are now effective dead and this war with Iran will continue indefinitely unless Trump either cuts off all US security assistance to Israel to get them to withdraw all Israeli military forces from Lebanon or unilaterally ends the blockade and pulls back US military forces from the Persian Gulf region. Iran had also threatened to get its Houthi allies to close the Bab al-Mandeb Strait if Israel does not comply with its demands.

Later the same day, Trump told CNBC, “I don’t care if they’re over, honestly. I really don’t care. I couldn’t care less. If they’re over, they’re over. If they’re not, you know, I think they took too much time. Frankly, I thought they started to get very boring.” He then he would continue the US naval blockade indefinitely until Iran surrendered. Next, President Trump called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to demand Netanyahu end the IDF terror bombing strikes and ground offensive in Lebanon. He wrote in a Truth Social post that he had spoken to Netanyahu and stated “there will be no Troops going to Beirut” and added that those on their way would turn back. He added that he spoke to the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant groups “through highly placed Representatives” and got their agreement that “all shooting will stop.”

The Lebanese government confirmed that Hezbollah had accepted Trump’s cease-fire proposal. However, Netanyahu responded by saying that Israel would “keep striking southern Lebanon as planned” in direct opposition to Trump’s directive at the same time he is violating Trump’s Gaza War cease-fire by re-occupying 70 percent of the Gaza Strip. President Trump then called Israel Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu a second time and attacked him furiously during a tense profanity laden phone call for blatantly violating Israel’s US mediated cease-fire with Lebanon with its escalating bombing strikes, invasion and occupation of that beleaguered country. Trump told Bibi “What the F--- are you doing? You’re f***ing crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everyone hates Israel because of this.” After his call with Netanyahu, Trump declared that “peace negotiations were proceeding at a rapid pace” and said “a deal could be reached over the next week.”

On June 2^nd, the same day that Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified to Congress that the war was over, Iran struck US military bases in Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Barhain and the UAE in response to a US attack on an Iranian aligned tanker and attacks on Qeshm Island. One Iranian missile fired at a Kuwaiti airport wounded 63 civilians. On June 3rd, the United States military again conducted strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island following Iranian missile launches targeting US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. Air raid sirens were activated in both countries, and defensive systems were deployed. The Trump administration succeeded in negotiating a new cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon on June 4^th but immediately began violating it with multiple bombing strikes on Lebanon.

Both Sides Violate April 7^th Cease-Fire

US military strikes against Iran occurred almost every day from May 25th onward followed by Iranian retaliatory strikes. At a White House press conference held on June 3^rd, President Trump was asked what a cease-fire meant. He replied that a cease-fire with Iran just means that the war is continuing to be fought at a lower-intensity level. That is certainly how the White House and CENTCOM has been defining it as the US has bombed Iran repeatedly as part of alleged ‘self-defense strikes’ accordance with the cease-fire. In a rare moment of candor, President Trump admitted that heavy US military strikes over the previous two nights had somewhat provoked Iran and they had reciprocated with their own military strikes on US military bases. During his interview, Trump seemed to concede the fact that each of the US military strikes have been unprovoked meaning the US has fired first and then Iran has launched retaliatory attacks in response to our strikes on them or Iranian allied tankers. But that’s not surprising because the Trump administration has been arguing that the entire Iran war was started as a matter of ‘self-defense’ in an attempt to divert attention from the fact it was an unprovoked war of aggression.

US Central Command subsequently issued a false statement when it claimed all Iranian missiles were intercepted over Kuwait. Iranian missile strikes resulted in massive damage to this Kuwaiti airport. We have seen the Trump administration lie about every aspect of the Iran War since it began because US military strikes have proven surprisingly ineffective and Iran’s military strikes have proven far more ineffective than we predicted they would be. We still have the best- trained military in the world but it is grossly immoral for Trump to misuse it to fight unwinnable wars on behalf of Israel.

Iran and Israel Trade Missile Strikes

On June 7^th, Iran responded against Israeli bombing strikes on Beirut by launching a ballistic missile strike on Israel with at least 20 ballistic missiles in six successive waves in a measured attack to try to drive a wedge between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu since Trump is working hard to negotiate a peace deal while Israel’s continued strikes and cease-fire violations against Lebanon in a calculated bid to sabotage his peace deal to try to get the US to continue fighting a war against Iran indefinitely. As such, Iran was clearly operating in the belief that they hold most of the cards and was behaving as a rival regional hegemon to Israel in demonstrating escalation dominance to the US. What is unique about this strike on Israel is that it is the first time in history that Iran has directly attacked Israel in response to Israeli strikes on a third country rather than in retaliation for the US or Israel directly attacking it.

Israel responded by launching missile strikes at multiple Iranian targets including a target near Tehran. President Trump was reportedly very angry with Israel and is saying he didn’t authorize Netanyahu to violate Israel’s cease-fire with Lebanon and bomb its capital city again. Although Trump urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to reciprocate, Israel responded with strikes of its own during the early hours of Monday morning, ignoring Trump’s calls for restraint. The Israel Defense Forces said they had struck facilities in Iran used to store missiles and manufacture missile components, while Iranian state media reported explosions in Tehran, Isfahan, Karaj and Tabriz provoking Iranian retaliatory strikes on Israel The next day, one source reported that Netanyahu claimed Israeli missiles strikes on Iran were conducted to prevent an Iranian nuclear strike on Israel.

On June 8^th, he had stated that an acceptable peace offer had been received from Iran and that it would likely be signed within a few days. The next day he told reporters that “I don’t think there are any sticking points,” in efforts to make a deal, adding that officials are in the “final throes” of negotiating an agreement. Trump also said he has been meeting directly with Iran’s Supreme Leader Muqtada Khamenei and has also met with Hezbollah to help negotiate a cease-fire in Lebanon. There is no evidence that he has met with either. Hours later, Iran shot down an Apache helicopter without killing either of its crew members and Trump overreacted by resuming heavy bombings of Iran including sites forty miles from its capital.

The following day, Trump said Iran “waited too long to make a deal” and now Iran “will pay the price” and ordered missile strikes on multiple targets in Iran all along Iran’s southwestern coast as well as near the Iranian capital of Tehran including 49 Tomahawk missiles. He said the US military strikes on Iran would continue until Iran signed the deal and said if they didn’t, he would “bomb the s*** out of them.” He threatened to resume an all-out war with Iran by making good on his threats to destroy Iran’s energy infrastructure. Iran promised such a massive escalation of the war would result in Iran destroying the energy infrastructure of our Gulf allies. The last time we had this kind of a ‘tit for tat’ war, it was with the Houthis and Trump ended up caving to their peace terms instead of trying to get then to accept his and called it a victory. That’s exactly the model I advocated he should employ with Iran to end his foolish undeclared war today which was to accept the deal the US negotiated with Iran on May 26^th and spin it as ‘a complete and total victory’ for the US which is essentially what Trump decided to do on June 14^th.

On June 10th, President Donald Trump also claimed 200 tankers constituting ten percent of the pre-war traffic level have made it through the Strait of Hormuz with 100 million barrels of oil with US naval assistance since Iran closed it over 100 days ago neglecting to note that the vast majority are Chinese or Iranian-friendly tankers that paid the transit fee. The next day, Trump posted at some point in the near future “we will be taking full control of Kharg Island and Iran’s oil and gas industry” claiming we would only need a relatively small number of troops to do so despite the fact it fields an army of nearly a million men. Hours later, Trump announced he was canceling bombing strikes saying that the final points of a peace agreement had been agreed to just one day after stating that Iran “waited too long to make a deal” and “will now pay the price” with massive bombing strikes. Trump stated that the deal would be signed this weekend in Europe.

“Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening. Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved, including the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and others. The Naval Blockade will remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized — Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly.”

That was the 39^th time, Trump stated we were close to signing a peace deal with Iran.

Later that day, Trump declared he had “ended the war in Iran” and said a formal peace treaty would be signed in the coming days. “I don’t know if you heard, but we ended the war with Iran today,” Trump said on a call aired during a campaign rally held in Georgia. That was the 40^th time he said we were going to sign a peace deal with Iran and this time he told the truth.

Israel Bombs Lebanon in Desperate Attempt to Derail Trump’s Iran Peace Deal

On Sunday morning, Israel bombed Beirut again in a desperate but ultimately failed attempt by Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to prevent the signing of a 60-day armistice agreement between the US and Iran today on President Trump’s 80th birthday claiming the attack was conducted in response to a few Hezbollah rockets that hit northern Israel but did no damage and killed no one. This incident has proven yet again that Trump will remain weak and powerless to reign Israel in or control its rogue state like behavior unless and until he threatens to end the US alliance with Israel and permanently terminate all US security assistance to Israel.

Not only did Israel bomb Lebanon on Sunday morning causing Trump to angrily condemn Israel’s military strikes but they also bombed Iran again on Sunday afternoon and on Monday and Tuesday after Trump demanded they cease the bombings. In an expletive-laden comment, he fumed at Netanyahu for ordering the attack: ‘Why did Bibi [Netanyahu] have to do a f***ing attack? I was so pissed off. I let him know. He has no f***ing judgement. I let him know that. ‘It is so bad - I couldn’t believe it. An hour before we are supposed to sign the deal.’

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has acted triumphantly over the past few months after successfully tricking President Donald Trump into fighting an unwinnable war for Iran believing he would be able to keep controlling the president and even boasting that Israel had become a global superpower with the US military at his beck and call acting as Israel’s Foreign Legion. However, now he seems much more subdued now that his war has backfired and Trump has signed an armistice agreement with Iran that will cement its regional hegemony over the Persian Gulf and enrich Iran’s Islamist regime in a massive setback for Israel.

Trump’s profanity-laced condemnation of Israel in response to Netanyahu’s brazen attempt to blow up his sixty day armistice deal with Iran was reminiscent of his reported conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister on June 1st after he had previously announced an end to the US naval blockade on May 29th when he had the terms of a peace deal that had been agreed to by the US and Iran sitting on his desk for signature. The UK Independent reported on the tense phone conversation between the US and Israeli leaders on June 1^st which Trump subsequently confirmed he cussed out Netanyahu during an interview with New York Post reporter Miranda Devine.

The US president was reportedly furious after Iran threatened to suspend peace talks with the US over Israel’s strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Trump is said to have yelled at Netanyahu over the phone, saying, “You’re f****** crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your a**. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this,” Trump said, according to a US official’s summary of the remarks. Another source who briefed Axios about the call said Trump was “p***ed” and at one point yelled at Netanyahu: “What the f*** are you doing?” Trump’s intervention came after Israel expanded its ground operations in southern Lebanon. Israel and Hezbollah agreed a fragile ceasefire in mid April, but the militant group resumed attacks after Israeli strikes in Lebanon that Israel characterised as self-defense. Trump was concerned by the fact that many Lebanese civilians have been killed in Israeli strikes and objected to Israel knocking down buildings to take down a single Hezbollah commander, a US official said.

The Hill is now reporting that tensions between the US and Israeli leaders have reached a new high with daily Israeli bombings of Lebanon threatening to blow up Trump’s armistice agreement with Iran after it has been formally signed on Friday highlighting an increasing divergence of US and Israeli interests over the path forward with Iran and Lebanon.

Trump Declares War is Over, Blockade Will be Lifted Immediately

On his 80^th Birthday, President Trump posted another Truth Social declaring a peace deal with Iran has been finalized and would be signed in Geneva on June 19^th and that he was ordering the immediate lifting of the US naval blockade.

President Trump was so desperate to get the deal signed on his birthday and to not allow Netanyahu to disrupt it that he totally capitulated to all of Iran’s remaining terms in dispute. I have long been arguing that the only way that Trump could end the war was either if he signed a separate peace agreement with Iran since Israel continues to refuse peace or to unilaterally withdraw US military forces from the Persian Gulf region and end the blockade in exchange for Iran’s agreement to re-open the Strait of Hormuz without a comprehensive peace agreement. Accordingly, I welcome this temporary armistice deal even though some of the terms of the agreement are unfavorable for the US.

President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Israeli Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf have now electronically signed the 60 day two-page 14-point armistice MOU the full text of which, noted blow, was released hours ago by the White House. While many are claiming this is nothing but an extension of the April 7th cease-fire, I would differ. The so-called cease-fire that has been in place for the past ten weeks has been largely a farce as the missile strikes on both sides and the US naval blockade have continued all of which are acts of war. This 60-day MOU implements a real cease-fire or what I refer to as a ‘temporary armistice,’ that is extendable by agreement of both parties, in which there will not be any exchanges of missile strikes, with both the US and Iranian blockades lifted. Furthermore, despite it only being two pages in length, it is in fact a very wide-ranging and comprehensive agreement which could be extended indefinitely if Trump wanted it to be either before or after a final nuclear agreement has been concluded with Iran. That is the biggest win for the US given that this unnecessary war of choice was almost as much of a drain on US economic and military resources than it was for Iran and was a terrible mistake to fight in the first place.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mujtaba Khamenei, whom Trump has praised as more rational and reasonable than his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was assassinated by Israel with US support on February 28th. Iranian leaders have been claiming victory over the US since the deal was finalized on Sunday. I was one of a few who predicted that Iran would end up inflicting a strategic defeat on the US at the onset of the war that would transform the regional balance of power in Iran’s favor.

The US is clearly offering Iran an immediate lifting of the blockade and the unfreezing of $100 billion of its frozen assets. Iranian TV channels are understandably declaring victory for Iran over the US and Israel saying Iran forced the US to end its naval blockade and that the deal does nothing to limit Iran’s missile program or arms shipments to its regional allies like Yemen and Hezbollah. Iran is also demanding the withdrawal of all US military forces from the region. However, CENTCOM is contradicting the president just like Secretary of War Pete Hegseth did when Trump claimed the blockade was being lifted on May 29^th and is announcing that blockade will stay in place to inspect Chinese ships to make sure they are not shipping arms to Iran. So that could be interpreted by Iran as a violation of the cease-fire agreement relating to the withdrawal of US military forces from the area around Iran as well as ending the blockade. However, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran claimed on Sunday that the draft MOU incorporates all of Iran’s peace demands and his assertion has now been proven correct. That means that even if Israel continues to bomb Lebanon, Iran will be highly incentivized to sign the deal to bring further pressure on the US to pressure Israel to comply with the peace agreement. Iran can use any major US or Israeli cease-fire violations as an internationally justifiable pretext to justify their resumption of retaliatory strikes.

Iran was in the middle of preparing to strike Israel on Sunday with multiple missile barrages when Iran’s Fars News Agency reported President Trump offered a few last-minute concessions guaranteeing Lebanon’s territorial integrity, an Israeli withdrawal from the Lebanon border area, an immediate lifting of the US naval blockade, and Iran-Oman coordination to regulate Persian Gulf maritime traffic. Trump made an offer to Iran they could not refuse which was total US capitulation to all Iranian demands. Iran has been stating that the US has committed to get Israel to withdraw all its troops from Lebanon in exchange for Iran signing the deal. However, the US side was unwilling to include that commitment in writing. Trump claims that Iran has agreed not to charge any tolls. However, Iran is stating that while they will not charge any tolls, but that they will be charging navigation, environmental and maintenance fees after sixty days and they are clearly allowed to do so under the terms of the MOU.

The White House refused all requests both by Republican members of the US Senate and by Israel to see a copy of the MOU which he electronically signed on Sunday until this afternoon. Now, we know the reason for their delay which is that it is extremely favorable to Iran. It will be interesting to see the reaction of his neocon allies in Congress like Sen. Lindsey Graham, and regime media on Fox News like Sean Hannity during the next couple of days before it is formally signed because it goes against everything they claimed they wanted to see and one would expect them to attack it as a modern-day Munich Pact and try to stop Vice President JD Vance from signing it. While the White House denounced leaks of the MOU from Iranian media as propaganda, their release of the full text of the agreement indicates it is even more favorable to Iran in some respects like the Iranian frozen assets than Iranian state media suggested it was.

Terms of the Sixty-day armistice Memorandum of Understanding

In breaking news this afternoon, the White House has released the long awaited text of the 60-day armistice agreement between the US and Iran. Here are the terms as reported by CNN a couple of hours ago.

1 — The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war are signing this MOU to declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. The final deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon and other provisions of this paragraph. (This non-aggression pact is highly significant in that the US agrees not only to never attack Iran but to refrain from even engaging in the threat of force against it. Ensuring the territorial integrity of Lebanon means that the US agrees to oppose any attempt by Israel to annex any part of southern Lebanon.)

2 — The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs. (The US agrees to drop all its demands for regime change against the Islamic Republic of Iran)

3 — The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran commit to negotiating and achieving the final deal in maximum 60 days, extendable with mutual consent.

4 — Immediately upon the signing of this MOU, the United States of America will begin the removal of its naval blockade and any disturbances or impediments against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and will fully end the naval blockade within 30 days. During this period, the traffic of vessels will be in proportion to the numbers of pre-war traffic being restored by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States of America further undertakes to remove its forces from the proximity of the Islamic Republic of Iran within 30 days after the final deal. (Depending how the phrase “from the proximity” is interpreted the last sentence appears to suggest the US will commit to remove all its military forces from states neighboring Iran)

5 — Upon the signing of this MOU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge, for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles, and demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran will be instated within 30 days. The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialog with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz in discussion with other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with the applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz. (Iran agrees not to charge any tolls for a period of sixty days but is not prohibited from charging transit fees to ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz thereafter. This is a default admission by the US that Iran will control the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz more or less indefinitely.)

6 — The United States of America undertakes with regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least USD 300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The mechanism for the implementation of this plan will be finalized as part of a final deal within 60 days. All required licenses, waivers and permissions needed for the relevant financial transactions will be granted by the United States of America. (The US has reportedly already procured $150 billion for this $300 billion Iran reconstruction fund which essentially US war reparations to Iran though not paid by US taxpayers.)

7 — The United States of America undertakes to terminate all types of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the United Nations Security Council resolutions, IAEA Board of Governors resolutions, and all unilateral US sanctions, primary and secondary, in an agreed upon schedule as part of the final deal. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America acknowledge the critical importance of the sanctions termination issue above mentioned, and expressed their intentions to immediately address these issues in the negotiations in order to achieve mutual agreement on them. (The elimination of all primary and secondary economic sanctions is huge and will result in a financial windfall for Iran.)

8 — The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran have agreed to resolve the disposition of stockpiled enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon in accordance with the schedule mentioned in paragraph seven, with the minimum methodology to be down blended on site under the supervision of the IAEA. The two parties also agreed to discuss the issue of enrichment and other mutually agreed matters related to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear needs, based on a satisfactory framework being agreed upon in the final deal. The final deal will confirm the provisions of this paragraph. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran acknowledge the critical importance of the nuclear issues above mentioned. They express their intention to immediately address these issues in the negotiations in order to achieve mutual agreement on them. (Iran reiterates its willingness to dilute all 1,000 pounds of its Highly Enriched Uranium to 3.67 percent. President Trump stated earlier today he has no objection to Iran continuing to enrich uranium up to that level as necessary for its nuclear energy program. This is a huge concession on the part of the US that will make the finalization of a nuclear deal much more achievable.)

9 — Pending the final deal, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran agree to maintain the status quo. The Islamic Republic of Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program, and the United States of America will not impose any new sanctions and will not deploy additional forces in the region. (This paragraph states that this MOU does not constrain Iran’s nuclear weapons program in any way pending finalization of a nuclear deal months from now contradicting President Trump’s claims that it would ensure Iran never has nuclear weapons)

10 — The United States of America undertakes that immediately upon the signing of this MOU and until the termination of sanctions, US Department of Treasury will issue waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products and derivatives, and all associated services, including banking transactions, insurances, transportation, etc. (Along with the blockade, the elimination of all US sanctions on Iranian gas and oil experts will provide Iran with tens of billions of dollars a year to restore its economy to prewar levels.)

11 — The United States of America undertakes to make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the implementation of this MOU. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran will mutually agree on the procedures related to the release of these funds during negotiations. Such funds, whether retained in the original account or transferred, shall be made fully usable for payment to any ultimate beneficiary designated by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States of America undertakes to issue all necessary licenses and authorizations accordingly. (President Trump confirmed today that the US has to release all $100 billion of Iran’s frozen assets so people will continue investing in the US dollar.)

12 — The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran agree that an executive mechanism will be established to monitor the successful implementation of this MOU and the future compliance of the final deal.

13 — After signing this MOU, and subject to the beginning of the implementation of paragraphs 1, 4, 5, 10 and 11 of this MOU, and the continuing implementation of these measures, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran will start negotiations regarding the final deal exclusively on the other paragraphs. (Given the US is already in the process of implementing these sections in good faith, Iran’s Foreign Minister has announced that negotiations for a final nuclear deal will commence after the formal signing of the MOU on Friday.)

14 — The final deal will be endorsed by a binding UNSC resolution.

Given the myriad of concessions to Iran and near total capitulation to all their peace terms, it is hard not to conclude that this agreement is not a conditional surrender by the US to Iran as I predicted would occur months ago.

Iran’s Khorramshahr 4 IRBM which has a range of 3,000 miles and can strike anywhere in Europe or the Middle East. This missile is nuclear capable and Iran reportedly warned Secretary of State Marco Rubio on May 28th that it would conduct a test of one of its nuclear warheads if the US refused to sign the armistice agreement. I will address whether Iran’s nuclear threat spooked President Trump into capitulating to all of Iran’s peace terms in one of my upcoming articles.

Trump claimed yesterday that the 60-day armistice MOU constitutes “a wall against nuclear weapons.” But when he was asked at the G-7 meeting this morning whether the text of the agreement was final, he responded, “No, its not final. It’s a memorandum of understanding. If I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs on their heads.” So, at the same time he is claiming the deal will prevent Iran from ever having nukes he is saying its not legally binding so he can violate it with impunity if he decides he wants to. Of course, if the US can violate the MOU terms with impunity so can the Islamic Republic of Iran meaning that the agreement doesn’t actually do anything whatsoever to constrain Iran’s nuclear weapons production in any way. Nevertheless, he vowed Iran would pay the “ultimate consequences” for reneging on a deal yet to be negotiated which would end their nuclear aspirations. However, the White House released text of the agreement reveal Iran will be allowed to continue its current nuclear program including nuclear enrichment unrestricted unless and until a final peace agreement is reached at which point Iran has committed to dilute its 1,000 pounds of Highly Enriched Uranium to 3.67 percent.

There is one important concession that the White House appears to have gotten from Iran and that is that the portion of Article 14 released by the Mehr News Agency relating to taking Iran’s ballistic missile program and support of Iranian regional allies off the agenda for future talks was deleted. But the agreement still does not prohibit Iran from building a massive ballistic missile force on top of the 5,600 they already have or continuing to provide heavy arms to their regional allies like Hezbollah and the Houthis as demanded by Israel. The US would only withdraw its military forces from the area around Iran within thirty days of a final peace deal on Iran’s nuclear program being signed. The lifting of all primary and secondary international sanctions on Iran following the signing of a final peace agreement is also a huge concession on the part of the US.

Instead of signing the agreement as written, Trump should modify this Framework Agreement from a temporary armistice agreement to a permanent peace agreement so he can walk away from the Iran war quagmire he created as his former Director of the Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent has long advocated.

War on Iran Reveals Limits of US Military Power

President Donald Trump knows that the Iran War has revealed US strategic weakness to the world as the mighty US Navy has been powerless to reverse Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf and the war has exposed a massive shortfall in the US military’s conventional missile stockpile as the US expended nearly half of its offensive and defensive missile stockpile in just thirty-eight days of intense combat operations. In addition, the war has caused gas, food and other prices in the US to spike causing his popularity to plummet along with the chances of the Republican Party retaining control of either House of Congress. On June 17^th, President Trump acknowledged that the US was powerless to pressure Iran to re-open the strait militarily stating, “The alternative would be a worldwide depression. Stupid people want to have a worldwide depression. They are stupid people. Number one, the strait would never open.”

His desire to avert a US economic recession and even a depression explains why he has spent the past few months begging Iran to make a deal even on unfavorable terms for the US. Since the war began, Iran has damaged or destroyed a total of twenty US military sites and bases with precision missile strikes. The US has sought to limit satellite analysis of the conflict by requesting Planet, a major provider, to impose an “indefinite” restriction on new images of Iran and most of the Middle East in an attempt to conceal the extent of the damage as it contradicts White House claims that the war on Iran has proven a massive military victory for the US.

The robust Iranian military responses to US strikes over the last few weeks shows that they understood that they must strike the US back hard against every US missile strike or else the US might have returned to bombing Iran with impunity. The Islamic Republic of Iran is now acting as a regional hegemon in attacking other countries in the Gulf region with the same degree of impunity that the US and Israel have been attacking Iran in a way it has never done since it first came into existence nearly half a century ago. I predicted that no matter how many US military strikes he authorizes against Iran or how long he decides to unnecessarily prolong this stupid war, Iran’s peace demands would not change because Iran is the winner of this war and the losers do not get to dictate the terms of the post-war peace.

One of the biggest takeaways from Trump’s war on Iran is the limits of US military power not just in terms of our inability to significantly degrade Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities but the inability of the US naval blockade which lasted just over ten weeks to compel Iran to accept our maximalist peace terms. I had been predicting Iran could endure the US naval blockade by at least a few years because it is surrounded by friends and trading partners. Six out of seven of its neighbors with which it shares a land border have very extensive trade relations with Iran. Only Azerbaijan does not. Also, Iran can trade with its Russian and Kazakh treaty allies via the Caspian Sea and trade with China by rail via Pakistan which is also a treaty ally. while importing arms from Russia and China via both routes The IMF had predicted that even with the US conducting a full-fledged naval blockade, Iran will only lose 6.1 percent of its GDP by year’s end. By way of comparison, Ukraine lost 30% of its GDP after ten months of war and it is still fighting over four years later.

It took over four years for the British naval blockade to force Imperial Germany to surrender following the loss of one-third of its GDP. But this is an existential war for self-defense and independence for Iran so I don’t think they would surrender even if they lost one-third of their GDP after four years of a US naval blockade. Unfortunately for us, time is not on our side and if President Trump continues the blockade past September, a US economic recession will be all but guaranteed and if he continues it to mid-2027, we may find ourselves in an economic depression. The American people and their representatives in the US Congress are going to pressure Trump to say “uncle” and end the blockade long before Iran does.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has served as the leader of the neocon warmonger wing of the Trump administration. He is likely going to emerge as one of the biggest losers of Trump’s new armistice agreement with Iran as he was the only Cabinet member to urge Trump to start an unwinnable war with Iran and has angered President Trump by opposing his armistice agreement to the point where he is at risk of being fired. Hegseth reportedly plans to run for president but his presidential prospects have been badly tarnished by the war.

While President Trump, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio keep stating that the US controls the Strait of Hormuz, the facts paint a different picture. Trump canceled his much trumpeted ‘Project Freedom’ the day after three US Navy destroyers came under Iranian anti-ship cruise missile and drone attack as they were forced to beat a hasty retreat out of the Strait three days later. The only US navy ships operating in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz have been 24-foot Corsair autonomous drone vessels which does not appear to carry any armaments but seems optimized for recovery of downed pilots as in the case of the Apache helicopter that was shot down by the Iranians early last week. The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Daryl Caudle, recently testified to Congress that the US Navy lacks the resources to conduct full naval escort operations for over 1,500 ships stranded in the Persian Gulf. So, if the US Navy can’t maintain a single manned ship in the Strait of Hormuz it’s an objective and irrefutable fact that it is Iran, not the US, that controls the Strait of Hormuz and there is no way the US could change that militarily.

Caudle noted the Navy maintains an effective blockade of Iranian ports but highlighted the operational strain of full escort or mine-clearing missions in a contested chokepoint. He emphasized that such efforts would stretch resources beyond sustainable levels without a ceasefire or de-escalation. Admiral Daryl L. Caudle addressed this during his May 21, 2026, testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Defense Subcommittee. Key quotes from Caudle on the Navy’s ability to force open the Strait of Hormuz via escorts or related operations: “There are many things we can continue doing to enhance the blockade, but to actually start doing something where I’m providing escort services through a contested strait will, in my military opinion, exceed the capacity of the Navy to do that effectively.” “If we go try to do escort with that, we have looked into that. That’s a very challenging mission in that narrow strait when it’s contested, and so when you’re in a contested environment to de-mine the strait of Hormuz or to do escort duty — is not something that’s easy to do. So we’re going to have to get to a place that that strait is open with a generally accepted ceasefire before that can be turned on en masse.”

After an over ten weeklong US naval blockade, Iran’s currency is now worth nearly eight percent more than it did before the war broke out measured against the US dollar. This fact exposes the White House’s claims that the US succeeded in crushing Iran’s economy as farcical. Meanwhile, the White House’s claims that we crushed Iran’s military have been blown away by US intelligence reports assessing that Iran retains 90 percent of its underground missile launch and missile production facilities as well as 91 percent of its coastal defense missile sites. Trump’s botched war against Iran has made it considerably stronger, not weaker, just as Biden’s war on Russia in Ukraine made Russia much stronger both economically and especially militarily. It’s high time the US replace its failed strategy of global hegemony with Trump’s outstanding 2025 National Security Strategy which he has yet to implement.

Trump Pivots to Put America First Again

Both President Trump and Iranian leaders have now declared the war between the US and Iran to be over. Iran has re-opened the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has lifted the US naval blockade except for inspections of Chinese ships to make sure they are not shipping arms to Iran. The US has suspended all sanctions on Iranian oil and gas sales and Iran in turn has agreed to begin negotiations for a nuclear deal on Friday after the armistice agreement has been formally signed in Geneva on Friday.

On June 16^th, President Donald Trump on Wednesday described Iran’s leadership as “rational,” a notable softening of his previous characterization of Tehran as a destabilizing force. “They have a very rational leadership now, I think,” He also praised them as ‘smarter’ than past Iranian leaders. “We’re dealing with people that I think are very rational people,” Trump said Tuesday. “They were nice to deal with. They were strong people, smart people. I think actually they’re smarter than the first and second group, but they’re not radicalized and they’re, you know, looking to help their country.” I think it is worth noting that Trump was unable to get anywhere with his peace deal while he was falsely claiming Iran’s leaders were crazy lunatics instead of rational and restrained as was actually the case. Once he returned to a realist foreign policy framework and conceded that Iran is a country with leaders that could be reasoned with, however much we may differ with their Islamist regime, he was able to quickly negotiate a peace deal that gave both sides what we wanted and needed.

Of course, Trump neglected to note in his statements that Iran has had the same President, Masoud Pezeshkian, the same Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, and the same Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, that it had before the war at a time when he was condemning Iran’s leaders as crazy. It is almost universally accepted that Iran’s new Supreme Leader Moqtada Khamenei is more of a hard-liner than his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was assassinated by the US and Israel along with many members of the current Supreme Leader’s family including his wife and sister on the first day of the war. Only four days earlier, he denounced Iran’s leaders as “weak”, “pathetic” and “very dishonorable.” During the same interview, Trump said he never really cared about regime change in Iran despite the fact that he called for regime change many times before and after the war began. He also said he didn’t think getting rid of Iran’s Highly Enriched Uranium was that big of a deal in an attempt to downplay expectations regarding negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program scheduled to begin on Friday.

Trump’s unnecessary and unprovoked war on Iran have made things a lot worse for US economic and national security and has likely flushed the GOP majorities in both the House and Senate down the drain. Fighting another forever war based entirely on lies in the Middle East likely to last until the end of his presidency would have been the epitome of America Last. Iran is much more powerful today than it was before the war started because Trump’s war has transformed Iran into the regional hegemon of the Persian Gulf region. Before the war they feared us. Now, they don’t. Before the war, Iran was deterred. Now, they aren’t as demonstrated by the fact that they repeatedly attacked Israel and US military bases with relative impunity almost daily during this so-called ‘cease-fire.’ Thankfully, Trump showed he got tired of allowing himself to be dog walked by Bibi Netanyahu’s to do his bidding by continuing to fight Israel’s war indefinitely.

Perhaps the biggest and most impactful news this week is not the suspension and possible end of the Iran War but the fact that President Trump appears to have turned against Israel and the Israel First neocons in his own administration and party that got him into this mess and is going back to championing an America First foreign policy. When he decided to become a full-fledged neoconservative when he started this war back in February at the behest of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, ninety-eight percent of Republicans in Congress followed him into the neocon abyss by voting half a dozen times to allow him to continue fighting the war in perpetuity in abrogation of their constitutional oaths.

However, the same loyalty they showed to Trump in doing so as his MAGA acolytes means that most of them will likely support his decision to do a 180 degree turn and go back to supporting an America First foreign policy that eschews fighting any more forever wars in the Middle East. That should give America First conservatives real hope that we can not only reduce Republican losses in the November 3rd mid-term election but more importantly that there is still a fighting chance to save our great country from an unnecessary Third World War that would likely end in the destruction of the United States of America.

Now, President Trump has an amazing opportunity to course-correct, salvage what remains of his presidential legacy, and put America First again as he did during the entirety of his first term as president and during the first few months of his second term. Trump has been pivoting back to being an America First President for the past few days by cutting Netanyahu out of the peace deal and signing it over his vehement opposition, verbally attacking Netanyahu and trying to forge a more just and, hopefully, lasting peace in the Middle East ending what neocons claim is a near half-century long war with Iran. President Trump has also been openly and vehemently criticizing Israel for their terror bombings of Lebanon. This is a wise move strategically because by doing so he greatly increases Iran’s incentive to not violate their armistice agreement with the US in response to Israel’s ongoing bombings of Lebanon. He is likely doing so in response to Netanyahu’s brazen attempts to go against him and sabotage all of Trump’s previous peace attempts which have understandably angered the president.

Essentially, the US peace deal with Iran is a separate peace agreement that did not include Israel in a minimalist ‘skinny deal’ that left most of the details and the thorny nuclear issue for future discussions which is exactly the kind of peace deal I have been advocating since the onset of the war. President Trump should build on the success of his Iran peace agreement by employing the Iran separate peace deal model to end our proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. He can do so by providing Russia with positive economic and other incentives in a separate peace agreement instead of thinking he can compel Russia’s behavior with threats. To have any chance of achieving a workable peace agreement, he must give up his insistence on obtaining Ukrainian or EU approval for a peace deal since neither have any desire to end the war and have repeatedly sabotaged all of Trump’s peace attempts just like Netanyahu tried and failed to sabotage Trump’s peace deal with Iran. Trump could send Vice President JD Vance to negotiate a bilateral peace deal with Russia in 48 hours based on the terms for a just and lasting peace I have been advocating since July 2024 and chalk up another major win for his presidential legacy.

One US official is saying President Trump is considering firing a few of his top neocon Cabinet members who have been critical of his armistice agreement with Iran. We know that Secretary of State and Interim National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe all opposed the deal. However, Rubio is reportedly safe from being dismissed from Trump’s cabinet at this time. There is probably nothing Trump could do that would be more America First than to fire all the Israel First neocon subversive and saboteurs in his Cabinet including Hegseth, Ratcliffe, Rubio, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz and Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin. That is, assuming he replaced them with America First conservatives like JD Vance and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

Vice President JD Vance is the biggest winner of the Iran War peace deal because he looks increasingly presidential as he has conducted multiple interviews championing the peace deal he helped negotiate to end an unnecessary, costly and unwinnable war he was almost alone in vehemently opposing. If Trump follows through and ends the war, the America First wing of the Trump administration, led by Vance, may become dominant again and Secretary of State Marco Rubio may not even challenge Vance for President in 2028.

This past weekend, President Trump wisely chose to follow Vice President Vance’s advice to sign the temporary armistice agreement with Iran instead of follow Rubio’s counsel to reject it. If the Iran war ends with a durable peace between the US and Iran, a re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz, a US military exit from the Middle East, the firing of prominent Israel First neocon subversives and saboteurs in the White House like Secretary Hegseth and CIA Director Ratcliffe and with a divorce of the US from Israel it will all be worth it in my estimation.

It is worth noting that only 30% of Americans think Trump made the right decision to go to war with Iran and the vast majority of American voters support his decision to end it with an honorable and enduring peace agreement. Accordingly, returning to supporting a policy of ‘peace through strength’ instead of ‘war through weakness’ with Iran is the path Trump can purse to regain the support of the over sixteen million Trump voters who have abandoned him over his broken promises not to start any new wars, reduce Republican losses in the mid-term elections and rehabilitate his presidency. Furthermore, if Rubio continues to break with Trump on his decision to make peace with Iran with the acceptance of most if not all its peace terms, then he will be much more likely to endorse Vice President JD Vance for President in 2028 instead of Rubio or at least remain neutral allowing Vance to defeat him as the candidate of peace and prosperity as Trump campaigned on enabling him to win the 2016 and 2024 elections. To quote the Mandalorian, “this is the way.”

I was proud to support President Trump over the past decade but when he betrayed his pledge not to start any new wars by starting an unnecessary war with Iran for Greater Israel back in February he lost my support. If Trump persists in honoring this agreement establishing a lasting peace with Iran and returning to being an America First peace president, he will have my full support not just with regards to his Middle East foreign policy but overall as president as well.

Netanyahu can be counted on to continue to violate its June 4th cease-fire with Lebanon on a daily basis. Iran is likely to react to continued Israeli violations of its June 4th cease-fire with Lebanon and its ongoing refusal to withdraw all its troops from southern Lebanon by re-closing the Strait of Hormuz perhaps the day after the 60-day armistice agreement is signed. It could also retaliate by cutting off all negotiations with the US over its nuclear weapons program. The question is will Trump react to that by re-imposing the US naval blockade on Iran and/or restarting the cycle of ‘tit for tat’ bombing strikes all over again or will he react by threatening to cut off all US security assistance to Israel if Netanyahu refuses to withdraw all Israeli troops from Lebanon? That is what will likely determine whether this temporary armistice agreement endures or the war starts in a couple of months, a couple weeks or even a couple of days after it is formally signed in Geneva later this week.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and previously served as National Security Policy Director for Sen. Mike Lee during his 2010 campaign. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published by the end of 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

May 18th—Interview with Brandon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the latest developments relating to the Ukraine War and Trump’s Beijing Summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

May 20th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych on his podcast to discuss the Russo-Ukrainian War and prospects for ending the Ukraine and Iran wars with negotiated compromise diplomatic settlements or whether Ukraine’s military will have to collapse entirely before Ukraine surrenders.

May 22nd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on “The National Security Hour” to discuss the latest news regarding Trump’s great power war with Iran and how it has proven a strategic, military, economic and political debacle for him. We will also discuss the Trump-Xi Beijing Summit and how Trump is now trying to make the US more dependent on Communist China.

May 26th—Interview with Mario Nawfal on his X podcast to discuss Trump’s unwinnable war on Iran and the latest on Netanyahu’s success in getting him to sabotage and abort the peace deal he was close to signing with Tehran with his maximalist demands. We will also discuss why my prediction that this would be a forever war that would end in US strategic defeat has proven true and crunch the numbers on why the US military campaign has been so ineffective.

May 29th—Interview with Paul Mills on his Off-Grid Farming podcast to discuss the latest news about Trump’s undeclared war on Iran and Trump’s Summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

May 30th-Interview with Mario Nawfal on his podcast to discuss Trump’s unwinnable war on Iran and the latest updates on Trump’s reported peace deal with Iran. We will also discuss how the war benefits China and Trump’s failed Beijing summit with Xi Jinping.

May 31st—Interview with Dr. Pascal Lottaz on his Neutrality Studies podcast to discuss whether Trump will agree to the 60 day cease-fire agreement which was negotiated on May 26th or whether the war will escalate with US military strikes and continue on into next year.

June 1st—Interview with Sotiris Danezis on the “Force” program on Greek ERT news to discuss the latest news about the Iran War, ongoing peace negotiations to end it and the US Naval blockade and limited military strikes against Iran and whether it will lead to a global recession.

June 1st—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his Moral Resistance podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to reject Iran’s peace offer negotiated on May 26th and give them a tougher counteroffer certain to be rejected. We will discuss where the Iran War is likely to go from here.

June 3rd—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss whether Trump will agree to the 60 day cease-fire agreement which was negotiated on May 26th or whether the war will escalate with US military strikes and continue on into next year.

June 3rd—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s war on Iran. We will discuss the status of peace negotiations with Iran and all the ways that the war has served to erode Trump’s popularity risking the loss of GOP control of both Houses of Congress in November. We also talked about why Trump’s claim that he had to go to war to save Iran from being nuked has no basis in fact.

June 6th—Interview with Mario Nawfal on his podcast to discuss reports of Iran’s warning to the US that it will conduct a nuclear test if Israel does not suspend its offensive in Lebanon or if the US escalates its undeclared war against Iran. We will always discuss my new comprehensive proposal to restore peace to the Middle East.

June 9th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych on his podcast to discuss the Russo-Ukrainian War and prospects for ending the Ukraine and Iran wars with negotiated compromise diplomatic settlements or whether Ukraine’s military will have to collapse entirely before Ukraine surrenders following Putin’s Victory Day statement that the war will end this year.

June 9th—Interview with Steve Yang on his Natural Resource Stocks podcast to discuss the likelihood that the Iran War will continue until the end of the year resulting in a US and global recession as well as what President Trump can do to end it.

June 10th—Interview with Paul Mills on his Off-Grid Farming podcast to discuss the latest news about Trump’s escalating war on Iran, the future of suspended peace talks and the impact of Iran’s warning to the US that if the war continues it will test a nuclear weapon.

June 11th—Interview with Nate on his Canadian Prepper podcast to discuss recent revelations that Trump was warned by Iran on Tuesday that it will test a nuclear weapon if Israel does not suspend its war on Lebanon or if the US escalates its war on Iran.

June 11th—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his Moral Resistance podcast to discuss the latest missile strikes exchanged between the US, Iran and Israel threatening a return to full-scale war and why this war is likely to drag on for many months if not years without a peace deal.

June 12th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss the latest developments with regards to the Ukraine and Iran wars and whether its possible that a peace deal can be negotiated ending either way or will the wars drag on with the war in Ukraine only ending with Ukraine’s military collapse this fall.

June 13th—Interview with Mario Nawfal on his podcast to discuss the increasingly influence of Israel over President Trump and the US Congress, Joe Kent’s claim that Trump is under duress from Israel and the chances that a 60 day cease-fire MOU will be successful in ending the war with Iran.

June 16th—Panel Interview with Brandon Weichert on Emerald Robinson’s show “The Absolute Truth” and former CIA officer Larry Johnson to discuss Iran’s threat to test a nuclear weapon if the US continued to escalate its missile strikes on Iran and Israel continues its offensive against Lebanon.

Upcoming Interviews

June 18th—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his Moral Resistance podcast to discuss the signing of the armistice agreement between the US and Iran in which we gave in to virtually all their terms and the chances that it will lead to a more just and lasting peace. We will also discuss Trump’s pivot to pursuing an America First peace policy again.

June 20th—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to sign an armistice agreement that includes all of Iran’s requested peace terms and whether it represents an abandonment of his neocon war policies and a return to pursuing an America First peace policy.

June 21st—Interview with Mario Nawfal on his podcast to discuss the signing of the armistice agreement between the US and Iran in which we gave in to virtually all their terms and the chances that it will lead to a more just and lasting peace. We will also discuss Trump’s pivot to pursuing an America First peace policy again.

June 23rd—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s war on Iran. We will discuss Trump’s armistice agreement with Iran in the context of a return to a courageous America First foreign policy which makes the US safer and more secure and whether Israel and its neocon allies will be successful in trying to blow up his Iran peace deal.

June 25th—Interview with Emerald Robinson on her “The Absolute Truth” show to discuss Trump’s war on Iran. We will discuss Trump’s armistice agreement with Iran in the context of a return to a courageous America First foreign policy which makes the US safer and more secure and whether Israel and its neocon allies will be successful in trying to blow up his Iran peace deal.

June 28th—Interview with Dr. Pascal Lottaz on his Neutrality Studies podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to sign an armistice agreement that includes all of Iran’s requested peace terms and whether it represents an abandonment of his neocon war policies and a return to pursuing an America First peace policy and whether the armistice deal will hold.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during US sponsored peace talks for a two-state solution in 2010.

Over the past few months, we have witnessed how perilous Israeli influence over the US government has become as both President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have admitted that the US started a war with Iran because an Israeli attack against Iran was imminent and they feared Iran would strike US military bases if it did. In so stating, they ignored the fact that US military action against Iran served to guarantee Iran would not only attack but destroy or render unusable 13-16 US military bases in the region. The only way that the US could have ensured Iran did not attack US military bases would have been for the US to threaten to suspend all US security assistance to Israel if it attacked Iran or, alternatively, to tell Iranian leaders that the US would remain neutral in any Israel-Iran War so long as Iran refrained from attacking our bases and Gulf allies in the region.

The Iran War, which President Donald Trump first suggested would only last four to seven days has now lasted 97 days with no end in sight with Iran having suspended peace talks with the US on Monday in response to Israel’s continuing assault on Lebanon while Iran is reportedly now threatening to conduct a nuclear test to restore deterrence with the US. As I predicted, the war has transformed the regional order in favor of Iran with Iran being catapulted into the new regional hegemon of the Persian Gulf with Iran retaliating to almost daily US military strikes on southern Iran which robust retaliatory strikes against US military bases. Before the war, Iran feared the Trump administration, ordering its proxies not to attack the US after President Trump returned to office and making every attempt to negotiate a good faith agreement curtailing its nuclear program to avoid the outbreak of war. Now, the US has lost its ability to deter Iran as it no longer fears us and has expressed a willingness to continue fighting the war indefinitely and even threaten to escalate the war with attacks on US military bases in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean as well if the US does not agree to its minimal peace demands.

US military strikes on Iran’s deep underground nuclear and missile launch and production facilities have proven surprisingly ineffective with Iran retaining 70 percent of its missiles and 90 percent of its deep underground missile launch and production facilities and 100 percent of its stockpile of Highly Enriched Uranium. Meanwhile, the US naval blockade will likely prove no more effective in compelling Iran to capitulate to the White House’s maximalist peace demands. Trump’s undeclared war on Iran resulted in serious and lasting damage to the US and global economy while the US has expended nearly half of its offensive and defensive conventional missiles stockpile risking our continued conventional military superpower status and placing its ability to deter Communist Chinese aggression against Taiwan in the Western Pacific in serious question. Given the fact that the war has likely caused Iran to accelerate its nuclear warhead production efforts and its ability to potentially employ nuclear, super-Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) and cyber weapons to catastrophically attack the US homeland and destroy most, if not all, US critical infrastructure with little to no warning, the outcome of the war has made the US far less safe and secure than it was before the war.

On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives voted for an Iran War Resolution directing President Trump to end the war with Iran and withdraw all US military forces from the conflict. Instead of attacking those who voted for the resolution as “grandstanders”, he should act to put America First by immediately complying with the resolution, declaring ‘mission accomplished’ and repeating his claim that we set back Iran’s military by twenty years. He should terminate the US naval blockade of Iran and announce a strategic reset to redeploy all US military forces out of the region in return for Iran agreeing to re-open the Strait of Hormuz.

Then, he can hold a military parade in Washington DC commemorating our “complete and total victory” over Iran and its ‘unconditional surrender’ on June 14th which is his 80th birthday. After that, he can focus like a laser on fixing our affordability crisis in the hopes of rescuing Republican control of the US Senate, which his unnecessary war of choice has rendered unlikely. Given Iran’s demand that Israel withdraw all its military forces from Lebanon before it agrees to a peace deal ending the war, the only other alternatives he has are to implement a maximum pressure campaign against Israel to do so or else continue the US naval blockade indefinitely and push the US and the world into another great recession just before Election Day.

The unmitigated and humiliating strategic defeat which the US has suffered as a result of its decision to fight an unwinnable war with the Islamic Republic of Iran should compel US leaders to re-evaluate the wisdom of our decades long neo-imperialist foreign policy of fighting endless unprovoked wars of aggression, particularly in the Middle East, in an effort to expand US imperial control over various countries and regions of the world. There is no way the US would have bungled into this war if it were not for the US alliance with Israel and the presence of US military bases throughout the Middle Eastern region.

Thus, the only way to ensure the US is never forced to fight another forever war for Israel is to either end the US military alliance and/or security assistance to Israel, close our military bases in the Middle East or support a radical political transformation of Israel from a rogue apartheid state into a responsible international actor that supports peace and stability in the region. I have supported the State of Israel my whole life until the Gaza War at which point I began supporting a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue. Up until last year I supported the continued existence of the Jewish state. Now, I support a one-state solution which would see the formation of a unitary state where Israel would annex all of Gaza and the West Bank in exchange for granting the rights of full citizenship to all Palestinians excluding those who have been adjudged to have committed terrorist acts against Israel. Hamas’ military wing would be completely dissolved, and Hamas would be banned from running in national elections.

Under a new Israeli constitution, there would be a power sharing arrangement between 7.6 million Jews and 10.6 million Palestinians totaling over 18 million Israelis with the Prime Minister being elected by Israel’s Jewish citizens. Israel’s Jews would elect a one-seat majority of the members of its Senate while the remainder of the Senate seats would be elected by the Palestinian Arabs. Israel’s President and the lower House of the Knesset would be elected by popular vote of all Israeli’s citizens. As is currently the case, the President would serve in a largely figurehead role as Israel’s head of state as is currently the case.

The Prime Minister would serve as the head of government with limited powers but would not be able to wage war without specific authorization by the Knesset unless Israel was first attacked. Under this power sharing arrangement all Israeli laws would have to be passed in collaboration with both elected Jewish and Palestinian representatives. Eight of the members of Israel’s Supreme Court would be chosen by the Prime Minister and seven would be chosen by the President. The head of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) would be selected by the Prime Minister, and the Deputy Commander would be selected by the President. Enlistment in the IDF would be open to both Jewish and Palestinian citizens with promotion based exclusively on merit, rather than ethnicity.

The US would serve as a guarantor of Israel’s new constitutional order. There would be a right of return for Palestinians that were forced to leave their homes and autonomy/self-rule for Gaza and the West Bank. Unlike the case today, there would be no official state religion in Israel’s new, secular constitutional republic. Alternatively, there could be two official state religions—Judaism and non-Sharia Islam to ensure both religions were protected. The rights of women to receive higher education, dress as they pleased and not be oppressed by men would continue to be guaranteed by law. Implementation of this proposal would put an end to Israel’s wars of aggression and give the Palestinians the rights they deserve while leaving Israeli Jews in power in Tel Aviv. However, they would be unable to take any actions or pass laws resulting in the persecution of Palestinians as has been done routinely in the past thereby ushering in an unparalleled new era of unity, security, peace and prosperity not just for Israel’s Jewish citizens but for Palestinian residents as well.

Meanwhile, the termination of Israeli involvement in the Iran War and the withdrawal of the IDF from all occupied territories in Syria and Lebanon would allow the establishment of a general peace between Israel and its neighbors and bring a permanent end to the perpetual conflict. The US would encourage the formation of a Middle East Strategic Partnership between Israel and its Muslim neighbors expanding upon the gains of the Abraham Accords while encouraging the normalization of diplomatic and trade ties between Israel and its Muslim neighbors including Iran.

The US should suspend all security assistance to Israel until it implements these constitutional reforms. They would have the important benefit of largely ending, or else rendering irrelevant, Israel’s malign influence over US politicians because it would no longer be able to get us to fight its wars of aggression even if Section 224 of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act ,which would merge US defense industrial production and our military technological base with Israel’s, were to pass. Given the fact that AIPAC wields substantial control over 314 of the 435 elected members of Congress in the US House of Representatives and over the vast majority of US Senators as well, that would be a massive victory for America First.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and previously served as National Security Policy Director for Sen. Mike Lee during his 2010 campaign. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published by the end of 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

April 3rd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on “The National Security Hour” to discuss Trump’s great power war with Iran that is threatening to escalate to World War Three and how it has proven a strategic, military, economic and political debacle for him.

April 8th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran “back into the stone ages where they belong” and destroy Iran’s civilization in one night seeming to imply the use of nuclear weapons to kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 10th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on Lindell TV to discuss what happens if Iran doesn’t meet Trump’s ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday night and whether Trump’s threat is serious or a bluff which he has no intention of carrying out.

April 10th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran back into the stone age and the ramifications of him threatening to target and destroy Iran’s electrical power plants and potentially kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 21st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss the latest news relating to Trump’s Great power war with Iran and his ongoing attempts to start World War III in flagrant violation of his campaign pledges to prevent the outbreak of a Third World War.

April 21st—Interview with Pascal Lottaz on his “Neutrality Studies” podcast to discuss the ramifications of Trump’s unwinnable great power war against Iran for the US and the world, Trump’s plans for escalation and the prospects for peace before it escalates to World War Three.

April 23rd—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast. We will discuss Trump’s indefinite cease-fire with Iran and continued blockade and whether Iran will succeed in getting Trump to capitulate to Iran’s peace terms.

April 29th—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to break off in person peace negotiations with Iran and Iran’s response in refusing to limit its nuclear program so long as the US naval blockade continues.

April 30th—Interview with Afshin Rattansi on his Going Underground TV show which is broadcast on RT to discuss the state of Trump’s unjust war of aggression against Iran. We will talk about whether Trump is likely to escalate or de-escalate the conflict as well as the ramifications for the war in terms of transforming Iran into a new regional great power/hegemon of the Persian Gulf.

May 7th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to suspend “‘Project Freedom’ and resume bombing strikes against Iran a day before he hoped Iran would respond to his offer of a one-page peace framework that would phase out the blockade and end hostilities between the US and Iran within thirty days.

May 13th—Interview with Scott Anderson on Lindell TV to discuss the latest with regards to US-Iran peace talks, Trump’s statement on the cease-fire and whether the US will resume full-scale bombing strikes on Iran in the coming days.

May 15th—Interview with Russia’s TV Channel One News to discuss the prospects for negotiating a peace deal ending the war in Ukraine, ending the war in Iran, improving relations between Russia, the US and the EU and Trump’s summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

May 18th—Interview with Rafael Machado for a German news magazine to discuss Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s decisions to continue NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and continue Germany’s deindustrialization.

May 18th—Interview with Brandon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the latest developments relating to the Ukraine War and Trump’s Beijing Summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

May 20th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych on his podcast to discuss the Russo-Ukrainian War and prospects for ending the Ukraine and Iran wars with negotiated compromise diplomatic settlements or whether Ukraine’s military will have to collapse entirely before Ukraine surrenders.

May 22nd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on “The National Security Hour” to discuss the latest news regarding Trump’s great power war with Iran and how it has proven a strategic, military, economic and political debacle for him. We will also discuss the Trump-Xi Beijing Summit and how Trump is now trying to make the US more dependent on Communist China.

May 26th—Interview with Mario Nawfal on his X podcast to discuss Trump’s unwinnable war on Iran and the latest on Netanyahu’s success in getting him to sabotage and abort the peace deal he was close to signing with Tehran with his maximalist demands. We will also discuss why my prediction that this would be a forever war that would end in US strategic defeat has proven true and crunch the numbers on why the US military campaign has been so ineffective.

May 29th—Interview with Paul Mills on his Off-Grid Farming podcast to discuss the latest news about Trump’s undeclared war on Iran and Trump’s Summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

May 30th-Interview with Mario Nawfal on his podcast to discuss Trump’s unwinnable war on Iran and the latest updates on Trump’s reported peace deal with Iran. We will also discuss how the war benefits China and Trump’s failed Beijing summit with Xi Jinping.

May 31st—Interview with Dr. Pascal Lottaz on his Neutrality Studies podcast to discuss whether Trump will agree to the 60 day cease-fire agreement which was negotiated on May 26th or whether the war will escalate with US military strikes and continue on into next year.

June 1st—Interview with Sotiris Danezis on the “Force” program on Greek ERT news to discuss the latest news about the Iran War, ongoing peace negotiations to end it and the US Naval blockade and limited military strikes against Iran and whether it will lead to a global recession.

June 1st—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his Moral Resistance podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to reject Iran’s peace offer negotiated on May 26th and give them a tougher counteroffer certain to be rejected. We will discuss where the Iran War is likely to go from here.

June 3rd—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss whether Trump will agree to the 60 day cease-fire agreement which was negotiated on May 26th or whether the war will escalate with US military strikes and continue on into next year.

June 3rd—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s war on Iran. We will discuss the status of peace negotiations with Iran and all the ways that the war has served to erode Trump’s popularity risking the loss of GOP control of both Houses of Congress in November. We also talked about why Trump’s claim that he had to go to war to save Iran from being nuked has no basis in fact.

Upcoming Interviews

June 6th—Interview with Mario Nawfal on his podcast to discuss reports of Iran’s warning to the US that it will conduct a nuclear test if Israel does not suspend its offensive in Lebanon or if the US escalates its undeclared war against Iran. We will always discuss my new comprehensive proposal to restore peace to the Middle East.

June 9th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych on his podcast to discuss the Russo-Ukrainian War and prospects for ending the Ukraine and Iran wars with negotiated compromise diplomatic settlements or whether Ukraine’s military will have to collapse entirely before Ukraine surrenders following Putin’s Victory Day statement that the war will end this year.

June 9th—Interview with Steve Yang on his Natural Resource Stocks podcast to discuss the likelihood that the Iran War will continue until the end of the year resulting in a US and global recession as well as what President Trump can do to end it.

June 10th—Interview with Paul Mills on his Off-Grid Farming podcast to discuss the latest news about Trump’s escalating war on Iran, the future of suspended peace talks and the impact of Iran’s warning to the US that if the war continues it will test a nuclear weapon.

June 11th—Interview with Nate on his Canadian Prepper podcast to discuss recent revelations that Trump was warned by Iran on Tuesday that it will test a nuclear weapon if Israel does not suspend its war on Lebanon or if the US escalates its war on Iran.

June 11th—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his Moral Resistance podcast to discuss the latest missile strikes exchanged between the US, Iran and Israel threatening a return to full-scale war and why this war is likely to drag on for many months if not years without a peace deal.

June 12th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss the latest developments with regards to the Ukraine and Iran wars and whether its possible that a peace deal can be negotiated ending either way or will the wars drag on with the war in Ukraine only ending with Ukraine’s military collapse this fall.

June 13th—Interview with Mario Nawfal on his podcast to discuss the increasingly influence of Israel over President Trump and the US Congress, Joe Kent’s claim that Trump is under duress from Israel and the chances that a 60 day cease-fire MOU will be successful in ending the war with Iran.

June 16th—Panel Interview with Brandon Weichert on Emerald Robinson’s show “The Absolute Truth” and former CIA officer Larry Johnson to discuss Iran’s threat to test a nuclear weapon if the US continued to escalate its missile strikes on Iran and Israel continues its offensive against Lebanon.

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President Donald J. Trump answering questions from the US media in the Oval Office. Trump ran for president as an America First conservative peace candidate but has governed as an America Last neocon war president while saying he is not concerned at all by the economic pain he is causing US citizens from his undeclared war on Iran causing his poll numbers to dip precipitously.

Trump Rejects Iranian Response to His Proposed Peace Framework

On Sunday, Iran provided their response to the Trump administration’s proposed one-page peace framework. They are proposing to separate nuclear talks from the negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while the Trump administration wants nuclear commitments up front while Trump has refused to lift the US naval blockade until Iran agrees to suspend all nuclear enrichment for a period of 15-20 years and surrender its entire Highly Enriched Uranium stockpile to the US. As part of its peace proposal, Iran agreed to end its blockade on the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an end to the US naval blockade on Iran, a guarantee that the US and Israel would never attack Iran again, lifting US economic sanctions, un-freezing Iranian financial assets and some mechanism to reimburse Iran for war damages such as a toll on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

President Donald Trump responded by rejecting Iran’s response to a U.S. proposal to bring an end to the war in the Middle East, posting Sunday afternoon. “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘Representatives.’ I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” Trump said on Truth Social. He also denounced it as “stupid” and “a piece of garbage” throwing a temper tantrum because Iran has yet to surrender to his maximalist peace demands over ten weeks after the war began. Yesterday, he suggested that a full-scale war with Iran would resume very soon if Iran continued to refuse to capitulate to his maximalist peace demands. During a press conference yesterday morning in which he said a peace deal with Iran remains “very possible” after claiming last week that Iran had already agreed to all US peace terms, President Trump stated that his own declared ceasefire with Iran is “unbelievably weak” and on “massive life support.”

Politico reported on Trump’s remarks at his press conference:

“I would call [the ceasefire] the weakest right now, after reading that piece of garbage they sent us,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. “I didn’t even finish reading it. … The ceasefire is on massive life support, where the doctor walks in and says ‘Sir, your loved one has an approximately 1 percent chance of living.’” The U.S. will have a “complete victory” over Iran, he added, having already kneecapped Iran’s military forces, battering its navy and missile arsenals, and taking out several key leaders. “A lot of people said, ‘Well, does he have a plan?’ Yes, the best plan ever,” Trump said on Monday. “It’s a very simple plan. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And they won’t.” However, Trump said that there is still room for a diplomatic solution between the two nations. “It is very possible. I’ve had a deal with them four or five times,” Trump said. “They change their mind. They are very dishonorable people, the leadership.”

According to Iranian media, Tehran’s proposal included a demand for war damage compensation, as well as an end to the US blockade in the Strait of Hormuz with no further attacks and a lifting of sanctions. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei claimed Iran’s proposal was “generous and responsible” and Washington continued to put forward “unreasonable demands.”

Iranian Member of Parliament Ebrahim Rezaei responded by stating that “One of Iran’s options in the even of another attack could be 90 percent enrichment” showing how the US war of aggression is pushing Iran to put its nuclear weapons program on overdrive to deter future US and Israeli attacks which is the polar opposite of what the administration is saying it is trying to achieve. Trump’s claim that he “had a deal with Iran four or five times” has no factual basis whatsoever as he has rejected every peace deal that Iranian leaders have offered him since March 2025. Following Trump’s latest tirade, a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran appears farther away than ever before with no end in sight to his undeclared war with Iran, which has lasted two and a half months to date.

Trump’s statement that the cease-fire has “a one percent chance” of lasting means that he is saying there is a ninety-nine percent chance of his forever war resuming into a full-scale shooting war with Iran as it was during the first five and a half weeks of the conflict. Indeed, CNN reports that some of his aides are saying he is more seriously considering a resumption of major combat operations against Iran than he has in weeks. CNN notes that some, including officials in the Pentagon, have argued for a more aggressive approach to pressuring the Iranians to the table — including targeted strikes that further weaken Tehran’s position. Others, however, are still pushing to give diplomacy a fair shot, the sources said. One official said it does not appear that Iran is listening or taking anyone seriously, a regional official said yesterday. This official said that the US and Iran are operating on two different tolerances and timelines in their approach to negotiations, and Tehran has withstood economic pressure for decades.

Tucker Carlson Condemns Trump’s Iran Nuke Statement as “The World’s Dumbest Talking Point.”

America First conservative champions and former Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly have come under heavy attack from President Donald Trump as he has abandoned his conservative principles and joined the Deep State. Tucker strongly criticized Trump’s oft-repeated propaganda line of “Do you want Iran to have nuclear weapons"? as “the world’s dumbest talking point.”

While taking questions from the press on the White House lawn today, President Trump said the financial suffering of Americans stemming from his undeclared war on Iran are not motivating him at all to negotiate a peaceful end to the war with Iran. He told reporters, “Not even a little bit…I don't think about Americans' financial situation; I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.” This is why Trump is destined to be remembered as a failed president because he has admitted he doesn’t care about the people he was elected to represent and is refusing to put America First as he did during his first term. He says his only motivation is to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon (in furtherance of Israeli interests) even though they likely have had a modest nuclear arsenal for many years and there is absolutely nothing he can do to change that short of a US nuclear first strike.

The truth is that Trump has fought this war on false pretenses. This war has nothing to do with Iran having nuclear weapons as underscored by the fact that the US has failed to reduce the amount of Iranian Highly Enriched Uranium by even one pound since he started bombing Iran eleven months ago. It has everything to do with expanding US and Israeli imperial control over the Middle East region and it has objectively failed to do so on both counts.

During his interview on the Megyn Kelly show last week, Tucker Carlson remarked that President Trump’s statement which he mutters every day to try to justify his failed war in the Middle East, “Do you want Iran to have nuclear weapons?” is “the world’s dumbest talking point.” I’ve been thinking the same thing for the past year since he began saying it. The only people saying it are those who are unable to think for themselves. I believe that Tucker and Megyn are two of the most courageous America First conservative champions in the country. They have consistently stuck to their conservative principles unlike Trump who abandoned them when he started a forever war for Israel against Iran.

One of my friends recently remarked that Trump’s war against Iran is “ridding the world of the threat of nuclear weapons,” apparently blissfully unaware of the far greater nuclear threats posed by the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China and North Korea. It amazes me that so many people have been misled to believe that a few atomic bombs in Iranian hands pose a more existential threat to the US and the world than 16,000 Russian nuclear weapons, 4,000 Chinese nuclear weapons, 150 North Korean nuclear weapons, none of which Trump appears to be overly concerned about at all. The reality is that Iran has had the ability to produce nuclear weapons since 2003 and likely already has a modest nuclear arsenal so there is nothing we can do to change that short of executing a nuclear first strike to destroy it. Iran’s leaders have never even threatened to use them proving they are rational, containable and deterrable and proving all the Israeli/neocon warmonger Iran talking points completely bogus.

The Jerusalem Post reported that Trump is considering a wide range of options including resuming his ‘Project Freedom’ operation for US warships to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz and intensifying the US bombing campaign on Iran following US missile strikes on three Iranian ports last week.

US President Donald Trump said he was considering renewing Project Freedom while speaking to Fox News on Monday, adding that the renewal would expand beyond escorting vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump noted he has not made a final decision on the matter. Meanwhile, Trump convened a meeting with senior administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and top National Security Council officials, to discuss whether to resume strikes against Iran. A US official told The Jerusalem Post that, in terms of military readiness and forces on the ground, everything is prepared should Trump decide to order renewed military operations against Iran. Some officials within the administration believe the president will refrain from launching an attack until after returning from China.

However, officials added that Trump is unlikely to pursue any of those options until he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing from May 14-15th, which will be his first summit meeting with Xi in Beijing since 2017.

Trump Plan to Sell Out US to Communist China and Annex Communist Venezuela

President Donald J. Trump smiling at Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Seoul summit in October 2025. He says he is looking forward to giving the murderous Communist dictator a hug while he prepares to sell out US factories and businesses to America’s main Communist adversary.

In late April, Trump wrote on Truth Social that “President Xi will give me a big fat hug when I get there in a few weeks. We are working together smartly and very well. Doesn’t that beat fighting?” The PRC has killed 1,600 times more Americans with their COVID-19 biological first strike on the US that killed 1.2 million Americans as well as the fentanyl they have used to kill 400,000 Americans in the past half dozen years than Iran has killed in the past half century. Yet paradoxically Trump seems to view them as a mere ‘economic competitor’ rather than an enemy like he views Iran while looking forward to a big hug from the leader of the most genocidal regime in the world today. If the US were not allied with Israel and did not have any military forces deployed in the Persian Gulf region, we would never have gone to war with Iran and Trump might have a similar outlook with Iran which poses a much lesser threat to the US than does the PRC underscoring the importance of ending America’s entangling alliance with Israel to prevent us from getting bogged down in new forever wars in the Middle East.

Trump’s visit to Beijing comes at a time when the US has suffered its greatest strategic defeat since the Vietnam War in his failed war against Iran while Xi is preparing to blockade and/or invade Taiwan due in large part to the fact that the US military has expended too many of its conventional missiles to effectively deter Chinese aggression. I have been urging President Trump to mediate a confederation agreement between the PRC and Taiwan to prevent a Chinese airborne and amphibious invasion of Taiwan which could quickly escalate to a nuclear World War Three. He has stated he plans to discuss US arms shipments to Taiwan and that China wants us to stop them.

Air Force One is now enroute to the PRC with sixteen US CEO’s including Starlink CEO Elon Musk and Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, with Trump saying “we make a lot of money from China” and looking to make a massive trade deal with Beijing. Yesterday, it was reported that Trump plans to ask China to build $1 trillion worth of factories in the US and potentially buy up US land, resources and businesses which would serve to make the US more, not less, dependent on our main Communist enemy than ever before.

The Hill reported on Trump’s potential betrayal of US national security to our Communist Chinese adversary:

Reports that President Trump is considering a deal that would allow China to invest $1 trillion in the U.S. are setting off alarm bells among conservative Republicans. China last October reportedly offered to ramp up investment in the U.S. in exchange for the Trump administration rolling back national security restrictions on Chinese deals and providing a break on tariffs for any factories built on American soil, according to Bloomberg.

This development comes at a time when he should be eliminating all US dependence on China for our civilian and military supply chains just over a year after he declared ‘Liberation Day’ and America’s economic independence from Beijing with steep tariffs on Chinese goods on April 2, 2025.

New York Times columnist Oren Cass wrote in a Friday op-ed that Trump “may be on the verge of tying the United States to China irrevocably,” describing the $1 trillion investment scenario outlined in Bloomberg’s reporting as “an unforced error of world-historic proportions” if it goes through. “Even a fraction of that amount would blow apart what remains of our economic defenses, weakening national security and supply-chain resilience, handing the Chinese Communist Party a powerful tool with which to subvert our market, undermining the basic logic of the president’s own trade agenda and kneecapping our efforts at rebuilding domestic industry,” wrote Cass, the chief economist at conservative think tank American Compass.

The prospect quickly drew negative attention from some of Trump’s most ardent supporters, including conservative columnist and author Gordon Chang, who has repeatedly warned against China’s influence in the U.S. “China’s regime will use investments in America to subvert and destroy our country,” Chang wrote on X. “Do not allow our enemy more bases of subversion here.” China has been a longtime central focus of MAGA foreign policy under Trump’s leadership, with many in the president’s core base viewing the global superpower as the most consequential threat to the U.S.’s long-term economic, technological and military future.

Yesterday, he said he is “seriously considering making (Communist) Venezuela the 51^st state,” which would help ensure permanent Democrat control of both Houses of Congress and the White House. That combined with his plan to have Communist China invest such a vast sum of money could see it buying up US companies or building manufacturing plants with tens of thousands of US citizens working for Chinese companies shows how little he understands about the real threat which is Communist China. President Donald Trump’s undeclared forever war on Iran is causing the US economy to teeter on the edge of an economic depression. His refusal to negotiate a peace deal with Iran except on maximalist US terms has caused him to become so desperate he is willing to bend the knee to Chinese President Xi Jinping in exchange for him throwing him an economic lifeline.

Trump reposted this Stalin-like image of a golden statue of him doing the Communist fist salute in Miami, Florida weeks after he posted a picture of himself depicted as the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The message has been consistent. He wants Americans to revere and worship him as godlike figure.

Trump ran as an America First conservative candidate but his reported plan to sell out the US to China like Biden tried to do and his decision to allow Israel to order him to fight its wars show that he is one of the most America Last presidents, if not the most America Last president in modern history. Last week, Trump posted a picture of a golden statue of himself doing the Communist fist salute reminiscent of statues of Lenin, Stalin and Mao. I see his followers worshipping him like a proverbial golden calf every day like he is a messiah-like figure who can do no wrong when he lies and puts America Last every day. His undeclared Deep State forever war on Iran is making Americans less safe and secure than ever before while making us poorer and more economically distraught while his plan to sellout the US to Communist China further weaken US national security and economic independence.

Secretary Hegseth Admits Iran Posed No Imminent Threat to US

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s testimony to the House Armed Services Committee on April 29^th makes it clear that Trump’s claim that the US had to start a great power war with Iran to prevent it from building an atomic bomb was completely misleading and false. Hegseth testified that Iran’s nuclear weapons program was completely obliterated following US airstrikes in June and admitted there was no imminent threat from Iran when Trump started his unwinnable and unnecessary forever war against Iran two months ago. He stated that “Trump saw Iran at his weakest moment” so he started the war to degrade Iran’s conventional ballistic missile shield. Instead, Hegseth, testified that Iran’s failure to give up its nuclear ambitions was the reason that Trump decided to go to war against Iran, which is a very flimsy excuse to go to start a great power war that has greatly degraded US military power and is causing severe economic damage to the US and global economy. The fact is that Iran is never going to give up its nuclear ambitions, so Hegseth’s war rationale gives Trump an open-ended pretext to continue fighting his war on Iran indefinitely.

Not only did Hegseth admit that Iran didn’t pose an imminent threat to the US, but he also admitted Iran had never been weaker before the war began which leads reasonable minds to question what was the point of starting a war with Iran in the first place given it posed us no threat. Throughout history, strong nations have attacked weak countries to obtain more power and control over them. In this case, the reason President Trump decided to attack Iran which it viewed as weak and posed little threat to us is because he wanted to expand US and Israeli imperial regional hegemony into Iran and take their oil. Trump’s unstated national security strategy, which differs substantially from his excellent National Security Strategy which he released in December, has been to push back or even eliminate the influence of all US rivals for global hegemony throughout the world outside of Russia and China itself which are the only countries he views as equals. However, with regards to his war on Iran it has had the exact opposite effect making China, Russia and Iran stronger and more powerful than they were before the war began as I will discuss later in this article.

During a hearing addressing the Pentagon’s request for its $1.5 trillion Department of War funding request, House Armed Services’ Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) concluded: “As we sit here today, Iran’s nuclear program is exactly what it was before this war started,” Smith says. He is absolutely right. US intelligence has assessed that US military strikes during Operation Midnight Hammer and Operation Epic Fury failed to reduce Iran’s Highly Enriched Uranium stockpile which it can use along with its thousands of centrifuges to produce nuclear weapons. Smith added, “You can win a whole lot of... small battles and lose the war.” “I don’t think we know what realism means.” Today at the Politico Security Summit, he said of the Iran war, “It is very clear that the president has absolutely no idea where to go from here.” As Dr. John Mearsheimer has stated during the Vietnam War, we won all the battles and still lost the war. That will undoubtedly prove to be the case with regards to Trump’s war on Iran as well.

While the War Department testified that the price of the Iran war to date was estimated at $25 billion at the congressional hearing Hegseth gave his remarks at, one academic predicted that the price of the war could reach $1 trillion by the next decade in terms of lost US GDP and higher costs in food, fuel and other necessities. “I am certain we will reach $1 trillion for the Iran war,” said Professor Linda Bilmes, public policy expert at the Harvard Kennedy School, in an internal interview. Her research, published two days before the temporary ceasefire announcement on April 8, identified several reasons why this military operation could have catastrophic consequences for the U.S. national debt well into the future that will be paid for by the next generation of US citizens. The price of gasoline was $4.50 a gallon as of May 12th up from $2.91 before Trump started his unwinnable and unnecessary war on Iran representing an increase in price of nearly 55 percent. This is what I called ‘the Trump War Tax’ and it is a tax that will continue to increase substantially with every passing week that the US war on Iran continues.

Secretary Pete Hegseth sparring with Senate Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing on January 14, 2025. I strongly defended Hegseth believing him to be an America First conservative but he has since emerged as the leader of the dominant neoconservative wing of the White House and the most ardent warmonger in the Trump administration. In addition to his incessant lies about the Iran War, he has ordered the bombing of civilian targets in Iran in violation of US and international law exposing himself to potential prosecution as a war criminal after the war has ended.

Yesterday morning, in response to a question by Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), Secretary of War Pete Hegseth testified during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Iran War budget that “Iran had three drone aircraft carriers” and “battleship capability.” In doing so, Hegseth showed his ignorance of naval capabilities since there is no nation in the world currently has battleships in active service in their naval forces. Coons stated that the US had a tradition of going to war unless there was an ‘imminent threat’ from the country we are attacking rightly concluding that the Trump administration has provided no evidence whatsoever that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States. Hegseth was unable to rebut his statement. Coons then asked him if the Trump administration had a plan to break Iran’s stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz and Hegseth completely dodged the question showing the administration has no clue how to break Iran’s control of the Strait and the Persian Gulf.

Coons drew attention to the fact that Hagseth had fired both the US Army Chief of Staff and the Secretary of Navy without cause in the middle of a war. “I’m stunned that you fired the 44-year chief of staff of the Army in the middle of a hot war and dismissed the Secretary of the Navy in the middle of a naval blockade. As dozens of senior flag rank officers have been dismissed, I am worried about what that does to focus and morale.”

Coons noted the president was distracted by finishing his $1 billion White House ballroom and had lost interest in the Iran War focusing on building expensive new battlecruisers which have no real mission other than a non-strategic nuclear role that could be filled by smaller ships.

“We have a president who seems more focused on a billion-dollar ballroom and a victory arch rather than achieving actual victory…And a piece, a small piece of the $1.5 trillion request in front of us is for a new Trump class of battleships, a so-called golden fleet, which I think goes in the wrong direction.”

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) noted that “US intelligence has assessed that Iran could potentially last out the blockade for years” and noted multiple examples throughout history where countries were able to ride out massive economic sanctions and blockades including Cuba whose Communist regime has successfully weathered sixty-four years of a comprehensive US trade embargo. Hegseth replied by stating that the US is using a variety of means to get Iran to capitulate not just the blockade without providing any meaningful examples. Murphy also cited US intelligence assessment that 75% of Iran’s missiles have survived noting that Trump had falsely claimed that only 18-19% have survived and asked General Dan Caine to explain the disconnect between what Trump has claimed and what US intelligence has stated. Both Hegseth and Caine refused to answer to the question while Hegseth only stating the US intelligence report “might or might not be true.”

US Intelligence Estimates Show Iran is Far from Defeated, Military Capabilities Still Intact

In a March 13 Truth Social post, President Trump claimed that Iran was “totally defeated” and said in a post the following day, “We have already destroyed 100% of Iran’s military capability.” On April 21^st, Trump stated, “We’ve taken out their navy, we’ve taken out their air force, we’ve taken out their leaders.” During a Pentagon briefing on April 8^th, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stated, “Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield, a capital V military victory.” He added, “By any measure, Epic Fury decimated Iran’s military and rendered it combat ineffective for years to come.” But US intelligence officials have challenged their statements. CBS News reported late last month that Iran’s military remains much more capable than Trump and Hegseth are claiming. After thirty-eight days of continuous largescale bombing strikes in which the US reportedly hit over 13,000 Iranian targets, the US was only successful in destroying thirty percent of Iranian missile launchers, forty percent of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy ships and one-third of its air force according to US intelligence officials.

Furthermore, a Central Intelligence Agency assessment prepared for President Trump last week assesses that Iran could likely successfully weather a US naval blockade for several months before it suffers a major economic impact while also estimating that Iran retains seventy-five percent of its prewar missile launchers and seventy percent of its missile stockpile nearly two months after President Trump misleadingly claimed the US had “destroyed one hundred percent of Iran’s military capability.”

A CIA assessment presented to Trump administration officials this week reportedly found that Iran still possesses roughly 70% of its prewar missile stockpile even after weeks of U.S. and Israeli strikes. The Islamic regime also retains about 75% of its mobile launchers, according to a report from The Washington Post. An intelligence source familiar with the analysis confirmed its existence to The Daily Wire. American intelligence officials believe Tehran has managed to reopen underground storage facilities, repair damaged missiles, and continue assembling weapons that were near completion before the conflict began. Despite launching repeated attacks against Israel, neighboring Arab countries, and U.S. military sites in the region, much of that arsenal appears to remain intact.

The findings appear to conflict with comments President Donald Trump made on Wednesday, when he said Iran’s missile capabilities had been largely “decimated.” “Their missiles are mostly decimated, they have some, they have probably 18, 19 percent,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “Not a lot by comparison to what they had.” One U.S. official cited by the Post warned that Iran may be more capable of enduring a prolonged conflict than the CIA’s assessment suggests. “The leadership has gotten more radical, determined and increasingly confident they can outlast U.S. political will and sustain domestic repression to check any resistance” inside Iran, the official said. “Comparatively, you see similar regimes lasting years under sustained embargoes and airpower-only wars.” The CIA assessment also found Iran may be able to withstand the current U.S. naval blockade for several more months, though the restrictions have sharply reduced oil exports and strained the regime’s economy.

I previously reported that the IMF estimated that Iran would only lose 6.1% of its GDP if the US naval blockade continued until year’s end. By way of comparison, Ukraine lost 30% of its GDP in the first ten months of its war with Russia and is still fighting the war four years later. I believe Iran would prove similarly resilient especially given the fact that the CIA estimate also assesses that Iran retains the bulk of their missiles to use against US military bases and US warships if Trump opts to resume a full-scale war with Tehran.

During a press conference back in March, Trump revealed that Iran possessed around 7,500 missiles before the war meaning Iran could still have over 5,600 missiles remaining if US intelligence prewar estimates are accurate while the Pentagon has reported Iran retains approximately four thousand long-range one-way combat drones. President Trump has stated his belief that the US naval blockade could cause Iran to surrender within days but the US intelligence reports show his assumptions to be overly optimistic. Fox News reported on Friday that the White House had yet to comment on the leak of these CIA estimates.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Muqtada Khamenei alongside Iran’s nuclear capable IRBM—the Khorramshair-4 two of which were fired at the US military base at Diego Garcia which is located 4,000 kilometers from Iran.

According to a recent article in the American Conservative, US intelligence now assesses that two-thirds of Iran’s air forces and sixty percent of IRGC Navy remain operational. The article notes that some of Iran’s missile launchers that US intelligence assessed it was successful in destroying were dummy decoy launchers. This is likely what led the CIA to increase its estimates of surviving Iranian missile launchers from sixty to seventy-five percent over the past couple weeks.

But some of the missile launchers the Americans hit were dummy decoys, and an untold number of launchers and missiles remain safely hidden deep underground. Many that the U.S. struck were repaired and reactivated within hours. Even Hegseth now admits that Iran is “digging out” its struck missiles and launchers. One likely reason that Trump pushed for a ceasefire on April 8 and then extended it 13 days later is that the U.S. had unexpectedly failed to demolish Iran’s retaliatory capabilities. But Iran’s retention of its strike capabilities is only one half of the story. The other half is that the U.S. may have burned through nearly the same percentage of its missiles as the percentage of Iranian missiles it had managed to destroy. According to a report by the Center for Strategic Strategies and International Studies (CSIS), in the 39 days of fighting before the ceasefire, the U.S. military expended 45–60 percent of its Patriot interceptors, 50–80 percent of its THAAD interceptors, at least 30 percent of its Tomahawk cruise missiles, 25 percent of JASSM cruise missiles, and potentially its entire inventory of Precision Strike Missiles.

However, the real concern, Kavanagh explained, “is for future crises and the U.S. ability to respond in case there are threats that (unlike Iran) really do affect U.S. interests.” Internal Department of Defense estimates tell the story of inventories so depleted that the White House should think twice about restarting the war on Iran, even if the U.S. could technically sustain that war for a long while. The munitions used so far will take years to replenish, leaving the U.S. inadequately prepared for any conflict with a real competitor like China, the CSIS report observes. The Pentagon has already had to transfer missiles and Patriot and THAAD interceptors from Europe and Asia to the Middle East, weakening its position in the strategic competition with Beijing. Restarting the war could lead to acute shortages of critical munitions and the depletion of cheaper weapons.

Furthermore, the Iranian Army remains at full-strength. So, Trump’s and Hegseth’s claim that the US won a total and complete victory against Iran and wiped out its military has proven to be entirely false.

Iran is “Still Very Much Poised to Wreak Absolute Havoc Throughout the Entire Region.”

Five days before the current US-Iran cease-fire went into an effect, Daily Mail reported on a US intelligence assessment that indicated that Iran retains thousands of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and combat drones stockpiled and ready for use against US military bases, ships and allies in the region.

Three well-placed sources told CNN that the latest American intelligence assessments indicate Iran retains significant firepower. The estimates may include launchers that are inaccessible, such as those that have been buried by strikes, but not destroyed. Iran still has access to roughly half of its original drone stock, two of the sources suggested, which would number well into the thousands. A large proportion of its coastal defense cruise missiles, the weapons that allow Iran to threaten traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, are also thought to remain intact. These may have survived because America’s air campaign has been focusing its effort elsewhere. One source concluded: ‘They [Iran] are still very much poised to wreak absolute havoc throughout the entire region’

Microsoft News reported further on both Iran’s retention of its military capabilities as well as the erosion of nearly half of the US military’s offensive and missile capabilities.

New intelligence assessments reveal Iran retains about half its ballistic missile stockpile, 60% of its IRGC naval arm, and two-thirds of its air force despite Operation Epic Fury. These figures sharply contrast with President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s claims that Iran’s navy and air force were destroyed. Officials warn Iran can still inflict serious damage on U.S. and allied forces, underscoring the persistence of its regional threat. DIA Director Marine Lt. Gen. James Adams testified to Congress that: “Iran retains thousands of missiles and one-way attack UAVs that can threaten U.S. and partner forces throughout the region, despite degradations to its capabilities from both attrition and expenditure.” Analysts caution that replenishing [US missile] stockpiles could take years, creating a vulnerability window if tensions escalate with major powers such as China. This depletion, combined with Iran’s remaining arsenal, complicates U.S. strategic planning for simultaneous or future conflicts. COL. Mark Cancian, (USMC Ret.) warned, “The high munitions expenditures have created a window of increased vulnerability in the western Pacific. It will take one to four years to replenish these inventories and several years after that to expand them to where they need to be.”

Meanwhile, the Times of Israel reported on the existence of a secret Israeli military base in a remote area of the desert southern Iraq near the Saudi border that has been protected by the US which it built for the express purpose of bombing Iran. The base was reportedly built with US assistance and with the US helping to cover up its existence from the Iraqi government. Previous US presidents from George W. Bush to Joe Biden had refused to provide authorization to Israel to bomb Iran even following hard-sell briefings by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Only President Trump was foolhardy enough to fall into his trap to embroil the US in a no-win war with Iran that could last more than a year.

The New York Times reported today that US intelligence is briefing members of Congress that Iran’s military remains strong and highly capable. They note that over ninety percent of Iran’s coastal defense missile sites remain operational along with ninety percent of its underground missile storage and launch facilities months several weeks after White House administration officials led by President Trump began misleadingly claiming that Iran’s military capabilities had been destroyed by US air and missile strikes.

The Trump administration’s public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors, according to classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities. Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway. Military intelligence agencies have also reported, based on information from multiple collection streams including satellite imagery and other surveillance technologies, that Iran has regained access to roughly 90 percent of its underground missile storage and launch facilities nationwide, which are now assessed to be “partially or fully operational,” the people with knowledge of the assessments said.

The US fought a war in Iraq against to oust Iran’s number one enemy—Saddam Hussein at a cost of over 36,000 US military casualties, including both killed and wounded, only to hand it over to Iranian proxy control in 2005. Iraq and Iran signed a defense cooperation pact on June 9, 2008, during Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s visit to Tehran and has since incorporated the Iranian-backed Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) into their armed forces. Since the war began, the PMF and other Iranian backed militia forces have attacked US forces six-hundred times.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the Iranian-backed Iraqi militia attacks on US forces on Iraq:

U.S. facilities in Iraq have experienced over 600 attacks since the onset of war, according to a senior U.S. official, underscoring how Iran-aligned militias in Iraq have turned the country into a major proxy battleground between Washington and Tehran. The U.S. is looking for concrete actions from incoming Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi to crack down on pro-Iran militias in the country, the senior official said. The escalation of militia attacks on U.S. diplomatic and military compounds in Iraq triggered a significant diplomatic crisis between Washington and Baghdad after the Trump administration accused some members of the Iraqi government of having close links to the militias. The Trump administration last month suspended U.S. dollar shipments to Iraq for oil sales in a bid to pressure Iraq to dismantle pro-Iran militias.

If Trump were to decide to launch a ground invasion of mainland Iran, it would have to be from Iraq and US forces would likely be subjected to far worse attacks by Iranian backed militias in Iraq.

White House Declares Iran War Will Continue Until all Objectives Have Been Achieved

During the first week of the war, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says Trump took the nation to war with one of the strongest regional powers in the Middle East on the basis of “a feeling” Iran was going to attack us one day. We know from media reports since that Trump was warned by Vice President JD Vance, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine and the National Intelligence Council that the US could not win a war against Iran and that the risks of fighting a war against it far outweighed the benefits. Even neocon Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the idea that we could overthrow Iran’s Islamist regime was “BS,” but Trump decided to attack Iran anyway because he had a feeling that one day in the future, they might attack us so paradoxically he decided to go to war with them to guarantee they would attack us.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is currently on maternity leave, has been forced to defend Trump’s failed and unjustifiable war while spouting White House propaganda talking points which have as little basis in truth or reality as those spouted by her predecessor in the Biden administration.

Meanwhile, CNN reported that even from the start of the war Trump’s advisors were worried his forever war in Iran might present a political nightmare scenario that may help ensure an Republican electoral wipeout in the November mid-term elections if he didn’t end the war quickly and declare victory.

The US assault on Iran has stoked fears among Trump’s aides and advisers about the political consequences of being drawn into a prolonged war with no clear endgame and little buy-in from the public, according to several people familiar with the matter. The stock market is in turmoil and gas prices are rising, endangering key pillars of Trump’s midterm pitch. And inside the administration, aides are still struggling to explain why the nation went to war — and what exactly comes next. Still, while Trump has taken that early progress as a sign that the public may support a continued offensive, some advisers and close allies are quietly arguing the opposite, pressing him to accelerate his timeline and declare victory as soon as he credibly can. “No one thinks this war is popular,” said Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist and former Trump State Department official. “At best, this is a distraction from the priority of the economy. But at worst, this could be political disaster, and it could be a disaster for generations in Iran and for the Republican Party.”

But behind the scenes, aides and advisers have been acutely aware of the danger that the war poses to Trump’s presidency and the myriad ways the situation could spiral out of control. Trump officials in the lead-up to the weekend’s strikes warned the president that striking Iran could generate unpredictable political repercussions, stressing that it was difficult to pinpoint how the offensive would play out over time, people familiar with the matter said. Trump allies have urged the administration to lay out a more specific plan for eventually extracting the US from the Middle East, amid worries the war is upending a GOP midterm strategy dependent on convincing voters the party is focused on economic issues closer to home.

Over the last couple months, we have seen their concerns come true with an open-ended war that has no end in sight that is causing severe economic pain and has caused Trump’s approval numbers to plummet to the thirties and, along with it, Republican chances to retain control of either House of Congress.

On March 2^nd, Trump declared he was willing to fight his war on Iran “forever” just sixteen months after being re-elected president based on his promise to keep the US out of forever wars. On March 4^th, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated the President had revised his military objectives to destroy Iran’s navy, destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles and production facilities, ensure Iran “can never obtain a nuclear weapon” and ensure Iran’s proxies in the Middle East can “no longer harm Americans.” She added that “victory will be determined” once those objectives have been “full realized” without providing any details as to how or when that might occur. However, none of those stated White House objectives have been achieved yet. That means by Leavitt’s own admission, Trump’s war in Iran likely won’t end until they have been. Even if Trump were to restart his bombing campaign and invade Iran, it could take a couple years or even a couple of decades to accomplish them like the Afghan War with the loss of tens of thousands of US military servicemembers.

Iran escalated the conflict to a full-blown regional war on Day One of the war which reported shocked Trump administration officials especially Secretary of War Pete Hegseth who reportedly told President Trump two weeks before the war began that he believed a war with Iran would be a relatively easy and assured victory for the US that we could terminate after one week. That’s why Trump is flailing about not knowing what to do belatedly realize he has become George W. Bush 2.0 who started Iraq War 2.0. The US military’s operational successes have obscured the fact that Trump started the war with no real strategy and no clear plan on how to end it. On April 27^th, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared the Trump administration is being “humiliated” by Iran’s Islamist regime and lacks a clear strategy to end the conflict. He said the U.S. had misjudged the Iranian regime and entered the war without a clear exit plan. “The Iranians are clearly stronger than expected and the Americans clearly have no truly convincing strategy in the negotiations either,” Merz said, according to German Press Agency dpa. “A whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership.”

Trump has just been ad hoc making up his war strategy as he goes along. He doesn’t really know what he is doing because he planned for a four-day war and he’s getting a months’ long strategic military debacle and forever war of the kind he campaigned so strongly against when he ran for re-election as President in 2024. When the war first begun, he called on the Kurds to spearhead an invasion of Iran with the assistance of US Special Forces only to say he changed his mind after the Kurds responded by stating they weren’t interested in doing so. Trump has admitted the US sent a lot of weapons to Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq to provide to up to a million Iraqi protesters but apparently has no idea what happened to U.S. military weapons that were sent overseas as part of a failed bid to spark an uprising in Iran. Trump had originally disclosed that the U.S. was sending weapons to protesters in April, telling Fox News, “We sent guns to the protesters, a lot of them. And I think the Kurds took the guns.”

Now, some Iran War backers like General Jack Keane (USA Ret.) seem to think we can send tens of thousands of US troops to successfully invade Iran when it would likely take six to twelve months just to mass half a million troops along Iran’s western border. Iran destroyed or rendered unusable thirteen US military bases in the Middle East in the first few weeks of the war. An America First conservative US president like Ronald Reagan would respond to Iranian attacks on US military bases in the Middle East by pulling US troops out of harm’s way but Trump is doing the exact opposite by surging tens of thousands of US troops, sailors and airmen to the Middle East.

In an interview with Time magazine, Trump was asked whether US citizens should expect Iranian retaliatory terrorist strikes on the US homeland, he replied “yeah I guess…“Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.” So if Iran kills a few thousand US civilians, Trump thinks we should not unduly bothered by it because that’s what happens in war and he started it knowing that would likely happen and he decided that sacrificing the lives of thousands of Americans was a small price to pay to fight a war with Iran to expand Israeli regional hegemony across the entire Middle East. The US and Israel have killed over 1,700 Iranian civilians in their bombings of Iranian cities to date in addition to an estimated 436 Iranian civilians that were killed during US and Israeli bombing strikes in June. According to Dr. Steven Starrt, the US and Israel have bombed 900 Iranian schools, thirty universities, 300 health and medical centers including fifty hospitals. Again, one would assume Trump believes that’s what happens when you start an unprovoked war of aggression against another country.

Trump Threatens Nuclear Strikes on Iran

On May 7th, President Trump again threatened to mass murder tens of millions of Iranian civilians with a US nuclear first strike.: “If there’s no ceasefire… you’re just going to have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran. They better sign the agreement fast… If they don’t sign, they’re going to have a lot of pain.”

An artist depiction of an Ohio-class nuclear submarine launching two of its Trident 2 Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles. Trump ordered the USS Alaska to surface near Gibraltar to send Iran a message that he may decide to launch a nuclear first strike against it if they do not surrender to the US in the coming days.

The Hill reported that the Trump administration conducted some strategic signaling against Iran that the US could conduct a nuclear first strike against Iran without warning if Iran does not surrender as one of our Ohio-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines—the USS Alaska--visited the port of Gibraltar on Sunday.

The Pentagon revealed the location of a U.S. Navy nuclear-armed submarine in a rare move a day after President Trump rejected the latest peace proposal from Iran. The Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine arrived in Gibraltar, a British territory on Spain’s south coast, on Sunday, the U.S. Sixth Fleet said on Monday. “The port visit demonstrates U.S. capability, flexibility and continuing commitment to its NATO allies,” the Sixth Fleet said in a press release. “Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines are undetectable launch platforms for submarine-launched ballistic missiles, providing the U.S. with its most survivable leg of the nuclear triad.”

It is extremely rare for US nuclear missile submarines on patrol to surface because there are only two of them on patrol station at any time in the Atlantic Ocean and another two in the Pacific Ocean and a nuclear adversary could sink them with conventional or nuclear hypersonic missiles while they are surfaced. President Trump has previously ordered a US nuclear missile submarine to surface following his veiled nuclear threat against Russia back in July to end its war against Ukraine. At that time, the USS Maryland surfaced in the North Atlantic Ocean near Portugal’s Azores islands.

US Nuclear Expert Estimates Iran Has Enough Plutonium to Produce 210 Nukes

A couple weeks before Trump issued his latest nuclear threat against Iran, a top US nuclear expert, Henry Sokolski who serves as the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, has assessed that even if Iran gave up all its estimated stockpile of 22,000 pounds of Low Enriched Uranium and its 1,000 pounds of High Enriched Uranium (HEU), that would still leave it sufficient plutonium to produce at least 210 nuclear weapons. Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran gave up 25,000 tons of Low Enriched Uranium to Russia and agreed to IAEA inspections of its nuclear enrichment sites, but that agreement also included the same loophole for Iran which failed to address the plutonium which Iran has been producing at its Russian Bushehr nuclear reactor over many years.

Accordingly, there is little reason for Trump to be threatening to nuke Iran if it doesn’t agree to give up its HEU which is sufficient for at most fifteen nuclear weapons when they likely could produce well over 200 nuclear warheads using their plutonium stockpile. The Trump administration must understand that there is no military solution for the Iran nuclear issue short of a US nuclear first strike against Iran. The US should suspend its naval blockade on Iran to allow peace negotiations to resume and focus on pursuing a peaceful diplomatic solution similar to the JCPOA to address its concerns. Indeed, Trump’s proposed nuclear agreement appears very similar to the JCPOA leading some to conclude that if he had not committed the tragic mistake of discarding that agreement in 2018, he would have never had a reason to go to war with it

Vance Questions Pentagon’s Misleading Claims of Victory

Neocon Bob Kagan published an article in the neoliberal Atlantic magazine on Sunday that the U.S. has “suffered a total defeat” in Iran that has no precedent in U.S. history and can “neither be repaired nor ignored.” He added, “just a few weeks of war with a second-rank power have reduced American weapons stocks to perilously low levels, with no quick remedy in sight.” “America’s allies… must wonder about American staying power in the event of future conflicts.” He wrote:

Defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character. It can neither be repaired nor ignored. There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done. The Strait of Hormuz will not be “open,” as it once was. With control of the strait, Iran emerges as the key player in the region and one of the key players in the world. The roles of China and Russia, as Iran’s allies, are strengthened; the role of the United States, substantially diminished. Far from demonstrating American prowess, as supporters of the war have repeatedly claimed, the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started. That is going to set off a chain reaction around the world as friends and foes adjust to America’s failure.

Kagan’s article is a stunning indictment on the scale of the US strategic defeat in Trump’s undeclared war on Iran at a time when President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth continue to misleadingly claim that Trump’s war on Iran has been a total and unqualified victory and success. A recent YouGov poll reported on May 1^st showed that 62 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the war on Iran while only 36 percent approve. Most Americans believe the war is not going well and 59 percent say that Trump made the wrong decision to take the US to war with Iran. A previous CBS/YouGov poll that came out on March 20^th showed that 57 percent of Americans believed the Iran war was going either ‘somewhat badly’ or ‘very badly.’

Top US military leaders are claiming that we are winning Trump’s war on Iran and that the US retains a robust stockpile of offensive and defensive missiles. However, reports indicate that Iran retains 70 percent of its missile launchers, 75 percent of its missiles, 60% of its IRGC Navy patrol combat ships and missile boats and two-thirds of its air force. Internal reports show that the US has expended nearly half of its conventional offensive and defensive missile arsenal while two national security experts have estimated that the US would run out of missile defense interceptors after 24 hours of intense combat operations with the PRC in the Western Pacific.

America First conservative champion Vice President JD Vance staunchly opposed Trump’s decision to start an illegal forever war against Iran warning President Trump of the potential political, economic and military risks, but Trump dismissed his concerns. Now, he is reportedly telling Trump that Hegseth’s claims that we are winning his war against Iran are not supported by US intelligence and that the war is seriously weakening the US ability to fight future great power wars and deter Communist Chinese aggression against Taiwan.

It has also been reported that Vice President JD Vance has been deeply skeptical of the Pentagon’s claim that the US is winning the repeatedly expressing concern that the depletion of a huge percentage of our missile arsenal greatly imperils our ability to deter Communist Chinese aggression against Taiwan. Microsoft News reported on Vance’s concerns that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has been deliberately misleading the president into a false belief the US is winning to get him to continuing to fight the Iran War seriously eroding the US military’s ability to fight future wars in the process:

According to The Atlantic, Vice President JD Vance has “repeatedly questioned” whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon is providing President Donald Trump with a full and accurate picture of the Iran war. Two senior administration officials confirmed Vance has raised doubts about the toll on U.S. weapons stockpiles and the actual damage to Iranian forces. Some of Vance’s confidantes believe Hegseth’s positive portrayal risks misleading the president about the war’s trajectory. “Officials and outside advisers told us that the use of key weapons — including interceptors that defend against Iranian missiles, and offensive weapons such as Tomahawk and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff missiles — has produced a serious shortage that erodes America’s ability to fight future wars, despite an effort to quickly manufacture replacements,” The Atlantic reported. “Vance has raised concern about munitions shortages in meetings with the president and other national-security officials.”

Vice President Vance was questioned on Fox News about these media reports the week after they came out and while he disputed the claim that the leaked report came from one of his staffers, he did not deny his concerns that Trump’s war on Iran has seriously weakened the US military’s conventional warfighting capabilities.

How Trump Can End the War in Iran and Declare Victory

The US cannot overthrow Iran’s Islamist regime without the use of nuclear weapons. Given this war never had any US national security rationale to begin with, the discussion should not be how to defeat Iran, but rather how to extricate us from the Iran War quagmire that Trump allowed Netanyahu to persuade him to get us into. The answer to that question begins with accepting Iran’s offer to re-open the Strait in exchange for the US dropping its naval blockade. I provided a comprehensive ten point peace plan in one of my recent articles. If Trump were serious about ending the war with Iran, he would end the US naval blockade in exchange for Iran re-opening the Strait of Hormuz, threaten to withdraw US security assistance to Israel if it didn’t stop terror bombing Lebanon, and fire Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Secretary of State, Interim National Security Advisor Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

Once the blockade has been lifted, Trump could give Vice President JD Vance full authority to negotiate the best deal with Iran he possibly can which he could easily accomplish in forty-eight hours and permanently withdraw US military forces from the Persian Gulf region and bring them home to the US. Then, he could declare victory and schedule a victory parade with them in Washington, DC, on June 14^th, which is his 80^th birthday. Then, Trump could put his Iran war fiasco in his rearview mirror and work on lowering food and fuel prices to try to salvage GOP control of the US Senate in the November elections. That is the only hope he has to save his Presidency and regain the support of many of the over seventeen million Trump 2024 voters like me who would be happy for him to give us a reason to support him again.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and previously served as National Security Policy Director for Sen. Mike Lee during his 2010 campaign. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published by the end of 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

April 3rd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on “The National Security Hour” to discuss Trump’s great power war with Iran that is threatening to escalate to World War Three and how it has proven a strategic, military, economic and political debacle for him.

April 8th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran “back into the stone ages where they belong” and destroy Iran’s civilization in one night seeming to imply the use of nuclear weapons to kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 10th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on Lindell TV to discuss what happens if Iran doesn’t meet Trump’s ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday night and whether Trump’s threat is serious or a bluff which he has no intention of carrying out.

April 10th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran back into the stone age and the ramifications of him threatening to target and destroy Iran’s electrical power plants and potentially kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 21st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss the latest news relating to Trump’s Great power war with Iran and his ongoing attempts to start World War III in flagrant violation of his campaign pledges to prevent the outbreak of a Third World War.

April 21st—Interview with Pascal Lottaz on his “Neutrality Studies” podcast to discuss the ramifications of Trump’s unwinnable great power war against Iran for the US and the world, Trump’s plans for escalation and the prospects for peace before it escalates to World War Three.

April 23rd—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast. We will discuss Trump’s indefinite cease-fire with Iran and continued blockade and whether Iran will succeed in getting Trump to capitulate to Iran’s peace terms.

April 29th—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to break off in person peace negotiations with Iran and Iran’s response in refusing to limit its nuclear program so long as the US naval blockade continues.

April 30th—Interview with Afshin Rattansi on his Going Underground TV show which is broadcast on RT to discuss the state of Trump’s unjust war of aggression against Iran. We will talk about whether Trump is likely to escalate or de-escalate the conflict as well as the ramifications for the war in terms of transforming Iran into a new regional great power/hegemon of the Persian Gulf.

May 7th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to suspend “‘Project Freedom’ and resume bombing strikes against Iran a day before he hoped Iran would respond to his offer of a one-page peace framework that would phase out the blockade and end hostilities between the US and Iran within thirty days.

Upcoming Interviews

May 13th—Interview with Scott Anderson on Lindell TV to discuss the latest with regards to US-Iran peace talks, Trump’s statement on the cease-fire and whether the US will resume full-scale bombing strikes on Iran in the coming days.

May 15th—Interview with Russia’s TV Channel One News to discuss the prospects for negotiating a peace deal ending the war in Ukraine, ending the war in Iran, improving relations between Russia, the US and the EU and Trump’s summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

May 18th—Interview with Rafael Machado for a German news magazine to discuss Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s decisions to continue NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and continue Germany’s deindustrialization.

May 18th—Interview with Brandon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the latest developments relating to the Ukraine War and Trump’s Beijing Summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

May 20th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych on his podcast to discuss the Russo-Ukrainian War and prospects for ending the Ukraine and Iran wars with negotiated compromise diplomatic settlements or whether Ukraine’s military will have to collapse entirely before Ukraine surrenders.

May 22nd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on “The National Security Hour” to discuss the latest news regarding Trump’s great power war with Iran and how it has proven a strategic, military, economic and political debacle for him. We will also discuss the Trump-Xi Beijing Summit and how Trump is now trying to make the US more dependent on Communist China.

May 26th—Interview with Mario Naval on his X podcast to discuss Trump’s unwinnable war on Iran and the latest on Netanyahu’s success in getting him to sabotage and abort the peace deal he was close to signing with Tehran with his maximalist demands. We will also discuss why my prediction that this would be a forever war that would end in US strategic defeat has proven true and crunch the numbers on why the US military campaign has been so ineffective.

May 29th—Interview with Paul Mills on his Off-Grid Farming podcast to discuss the latest news about Trump’s undeclared war on Iran and Trump’s Summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

May 30th-Interview with Mario Naval on his podcast to discuss Trump’s unwinnable war on Iran and the latest updates on Trump’s reported peace deal with Iran. We will also discuss how the war benefits China and Trump’s failed Beijing summit with Xi Jinping.

May 31st—Interview with Dr. Pascal Lottaz on his Neutrality Studies podcast to discuss whether Trump will agree to the 60 day cease-fire agreement which was negotiated on May 26th or whether the war will escalate with US military strikes and continue on into next year.

June 1st—Interview with Sotiris Danezis on the “Force” program on Greek ERT news to discuss the latest news about the Iran War, ongoing peace negotiations to end it and the US Naval blockade and limited military strikes against Iran and whether it will lead to a global recession.

June 1st—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his Moral Resistance podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to reject Iran’s peace offer negotiated on May 26th and give them a tougher counteroffer certain to be rejected. We will discuss where the Iran War is likely to go from here.

June 3rd—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss whether Trump will agree to the 60 day cease-fire agreement which was negotiated on May 26th or whether the war will escalate with US military strikes and continue on into next year.

June 3rd—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her DC Dispatch show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump's war on Iran. We will discuss the status of peace negotiations with Iran and all the ways that the war has served to erode Trump's popularity risking the loss of GOP control of both Houses of Congress in November. We also talked about why Trump's claim that he had to go to war to save Iran from being nuked has no basis in fact.

June 5th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych on his podcast to discuss the Russo-Ukrainian War and prospects for ending the Ukraine and Iran wars with negotiated compromise diplomatic settlements or whether Ukraine’s military will have to collapse entirely before Ukraine surrenders following Putin’s Victory Day statement that the war will end this year.

June 8th—Interview with Nate on his Canadian Prepper podcast to discuss recent revelations that Trump was warned by Iran on Tuesday that it will test a nuclear weapon if Israel does not suspend its war on Lebanon or if the US escalates its war on Iran.

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US Arleigh Burke class destroyer launching one of its ninety-six missiles from its Vertical Launch System. Iran reportedly attacked all three US Navy destroyers operating near the Strait of Hormuz earlier this week with cruise missiles, combat drones and fast attack boats. The US retaliates by disabling or sinking seven IRGC missile boats.

The Microsoft Network (MSN) reported on the details of one of the ten reported Iranian attacks on US ships that took place on May 4^th saying that Iran launched cruise missiles, combat drones and waves of fast attack boats targeting three US Navy destroyers—the USS Truxtun (DDG 103), USS Rafael Peralta (DDG 115) and USS Mason (DDG 87)—sailing near the Strait of Hormuz. These ships were attacked as they entered the Persian Gulf on the first day of the implementation of ‘Project Freedom.’ Iran had warned it would attack any US warships entering the Strait of Hormuz and it made good on its threat. US CENTCOM reported that it shot down all the incoming missiles and drones and sunk or disabled seven Iranian missile boats in response during a three-hour period. Iran than retaliated to the US attacks on its missile boats by firing fifteen ballistic and cruise missiles at the UAE port of Fujairah striking one of their ships causing multiple injuries and fires.

Iranian forces launched cruise missiles, drones, and waves of fast attack boats at U.S. Navy destroyers escorting commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz on the morning of May 4, 2026, local time, sparking the most intense direct military clash between Washington and Tehran in the Persian Gulf in decades. American warships intercepted the incoming fire and sank seven Iranian attack craft within roughly three hours, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command spokesman Col. Patrick Ryder. Separately, Iranian missiles and drones struck the UAE port city of Fujairah and targets in Omani waters, injuring civilians and igniting fires at commercial facilities. The fighting did not stay confined to the strait. The UAE publicly acknowledged that Iranian missiles and drones struck civilian infrastructure and port facilities in Fujairah, causing injuries and fires. Omani authorities reported separate ship fires linked to drone strikes in their territorial waters, extending the geographic scope of the attacks across hundreds of miles of coastline.

President Trump stated earlier today that the three US Navy destroyers that had been assisting with ‘Operation Freedom’ have escaped out o the Persian Gulf and have rejoined the US naval blockade. On May 5^th, at a Pentagon press briefing, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine said there are currently 1,550 ships trapped in Persian Gulf. He also downplayed the Iranian attacks on US Navy destroyers the previous day stating, “Since the cease-fire began Iran has attacked US ships ten times--all below the threshold of combat operations at this point” where the US would restart the bombing campaign presumably because none of the Iranian missiles had struck US warships. At the same briefing, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth boasted that the US had established a “powerful red, white and blue dome” of air and missile defenses over the Strait of Hormuz to secure international shipping routes. He added, “American destroyers are on station, supported by hundreds of fighter jets, helicopters, drones and surveillance aircraft providing 24/7 overwatch for peaceful commercial vessels.”

Trump & Rubio Declare ‘Operation Epic Fury’ Over Despite No US Objectives Being Achieved

On May 1^st, President Trump issued a letter to Congress certifying that his war against Iran has been terminated even though both the US and Iran continue to conduct acts of war including blockades in violation of the April 7^th cease fire. During his White House Press Conference on May 5th, Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed, “Operation Epic Fury is concluded” and that all our objectives had been achieved. The truth is that the US failed to achieve any of our objectives including regime change, eliminating Iran’s nuclear program, eliminating Iran’s medium range and intermediate range ballistic missiles and stopping Iran from continuing to arm its regional proxies. The Strait of Hormuz is now firmly under Iranian control making Iran the regional hegemon of the Persian Gulf. Most US military bases in the region have either been destroyed or rendered unusable by Iranian precision drone and missile strikes. US alliances and the petro-dollar system have been weakened while Iran and its allies Russia and China have been strengthened. Half of US offensive and defensive missiles have been depleted increasing the incentive for China to invade Taiwan while we are weak.

Deadbeat Secretary of State, Interim National Security Advisor and now Acting White House Press Secretary Marco Rubio leading a White House press conference on May 5th. Rubio has shirked from doing his job as Secretary of State refusing to negotiate peace deals with US adversaries giving him a lot of time on his hands to fill in for White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt who announced she had her baby earlier today.

Rubio insisted that ‘Project Freedom’ was an entirely defensive operation not an offensive operation and that we would not fire at them unless they fired upon us. So basically, he stated it was the exact opposite of Operation Epic Fury in which we had no pretense of self-defense because we attacked them without them having attacked us. He also stated the goal of Trump’s illegal war of aggression against Iran has shifted from achieving Iran’s unconditional surrender to restoring the Strait of Hormuz “back to the way it was” before Trump started the war in Iran. So basically, Rubio is admitting that the war was fought for nothing and all our economic suffering US citizens have had to endure from the Trump War Tax in the form of higher fuel and food prices, lost US jobs and rising inflation could have been totally averted. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) misleadingly claimed that the shooting had stopped so there was no need for Trump to seek congressional authorization to continue fighting his war against Iran.

Trump Aborts ‘Project Freedom’ After Gulf Allies Refuse US Basing Rights

US Gulf allies reacted angrily with both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait suspending US military access to their bases, airspace, and overflight rights in furtherance of ‘Project Freedom’ due to the fact they feared they would incur military retaliation by the new regional hegemon of the Persian Gulf which is the Islamic Republic of Iran. This forced President Trump to suspend ‘Project Freedom’ just one day after it had begun and mere hours after Hegseth and Rubio were pushed out by the administration to hype up its supposed success. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman blocked the US from flying aircraft out of Prince Sultan Airbase or through Saudi airspace, completely grounding the operation. Bin Salman was “furious” after Trump announced Project Freedom on Truth Social without notifying them. Qatar and Oman were also blindsided, with Trump only contacting them after the operation began. A direct call between Trump and the Crown Prince failed to resolve the situation. Trump may have also suspended out of concern that Iran could resume its drone and missile strikes on US Navy destroyers that could cause dozens if not hundreds of casualties to US military personnel.

The loss of the use of our Saudi and Kuwaiti air bases on Tuesday essentially eliminated the US air defense umbrella protecting ships transiting the Strait forcing Trump to cancel Project Freedom after just one day in yet another major humiliation for President Trump and the US. Trump decided to invent the fake news story that he was suspending the operation because the US and Iran were making great progress in negotiations when in fact, we have made no progress in negotiations since Trump abandoned peace talks on April 11^th and refused to restart them. Fox News host and Trump sycophant Jesse Walters was caught by surprise starting his show by claiming Project Freedom would bring us victory in Trump’s war over Iran an hour and a half after Trump posted on Truth Social that he had cancelled the operation. Watters then claimed it must have been so successful that it forced Iran to capitulate to US maximalist peace terms after a single day.

Thus, Iran has largely succeeded in their objective to eject the US military from the Gulf region and its likely that its dominance over the US in the region will end up being permanent underscoring the scale of America’s strategic defeat in Trump’s foolish war against Iran. A French owned ‘CMA CGM SAN ANTONIO’ following a US guided missile destroyer approaching the Strait was also struck by an Iranian projectile showing the US Navy was unable to protect it. A few weeks earlier, In a Truth Social post, Trump referred to the Strait of Hormuz as “the Strait of Iran” causing some to wonder if that was a slip or a reference to Iran’s new dominance of the Strait.

Trump Teases Iran May Sign One Page Peace Framework This Week

President Donald J. Trump at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. While he claims he wants peace and an end to his unnecessary war with Iran, he continues to engage in military strikes against it while demanding Iran’s surrender ensuring the US naval blockade and the war will continue indefinitely, leading to a US and global recession. He has reportedly told his aides he is impatient with Iran and is anxious to end the war but doesn’t understand why they haven’t capitulated to US maximalist peace demands yet.

On March 2^nd, Trump declared he was willing to keep fighting his war against Iran “forever” just sixteen months after being re-elected president based on his promise to keep the US out of forever wars. Last week, he suggested the Iran war should wind down on “a similar timetable” as Russia’s war with Ukraine which has lasted four years and over two months to date making it sound like he is planning for a multi-year forever war with Iran. On May 5^th, President Donald Trump dismissed ​Iran’s military capability and said Tehran “should wave ‌the white flag of surrender” suggesting he is no mood to compromise and is still insisting Iran accept his maximalist peace terms. Trump told reporters in ​the Oval Office that Iran’s military ​has been reduced to firing “peashooters” and ⁠that Tehran privately wants to make a ​deal despite its public saber-rattling. “They play games, ​but let me just tell you, they want to make a deal. And who wouldn’t, when your ​military is totally gone?” he said.

On May 6^th, Axios reported that the Trump administration has agreed to a one-page Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which appears to be a modified version of Iran’s fourteen-point peace plan. Iran would commit to a moratorium on nuclear enrichment, and the U.S. would agree to lift its sanctions and release billions of frozen Iranian funds. Presumably the moratorium would be for five years as Iran proposed on April 11th because Iran will never agree to the fifteen year one proposed by the US. Both sides would agree to lift blockades in the Strait of Hormuz. One Pakistani source confirmed that was the main issue in contention stating, “The main hurdle is the duration of enrichment restrictions. There is no final deal yet.” Axios reports that the U.S. was still awaiting Tehran’s responses on several key points of the one-page peace framework in the next 48 hours, and nothing had been agreed to yet. Iran reported that it is considering the US peace proposal, but that Iran’s nuclear program is not being discussed at this stage.

Fox News cited Axios in reporting the deal would include a complete and total block on Iranian underground nuclear facilities, and an end to Iranian restrictions on international shipping moving through the Strait and either a total ban on Iranian nuclear enrichment or a twelve to fifteen year suspension all of which are certain dealbreakers for Iran. A top Iranian government official is denying that the two sides are anywhere close to a peace deal or that it is willing to compromise with the US any more than what it agreed to during April 11th peace talks which included a five-year moratorium on Iranian nuclear enrichment and the dilution of all 1,000 pounds of Iran’s Highly Enriched Uranium.

Trump posted on Truth Social that: “[a]ssuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is, perhaps, a big assumption, the already legendary Epic Fury will be at an end, and the highly effective Blockade will allow the Hormuz Strait to be OPEN TO ALL, including Iran. If they don’t agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before.”

Iran’s advisor to the Supreme Leader, Ebrahim Rezai, says Axios report is more of an American “wish list” than reality “Americans will not gain anything in a losing war that they have not gained in face-to-face negotiations, Iran is ready to pull the trigger. If they do not surrender and make the necessary concessions, or if they themselves or their puppets try to misbehave, we will give a harsh and regrettable response.” It’s highly unlikely that Iran will agree to Trump’s proposed changes to their fourteen-point peace plan until the US ends its naval blockade. Accordingly, Trump’s claim that Iran has accepted US peace demands are almost certainly fake news to provide him with political cover for his embarrassing decision to completely abort his overhyped ‘Project Freedom’ after just one day and the chances of peace being achieved anytime soon remain low. If Trump were serious about accepting most of Iran’s peace terms and then declaring victory, we could see an end to this stupid war, but we should never underestimate Trump’s penchant to snatch endless war from the jaws of peace as he has done countless times before with both his Ukraine and Iran forever wars. This seems like yet another attempt by Trump to claim peace is at hand when it is nowhere close to being achieved. If we can’t even agree on a one-page peace MOU which is not legally binding and does not create any enforceable obligations, chances are that this war will continue for many months to come.

Iran Announces ‘Persian Gulf Strait Authority’ to Enforce Tolls on Persian Gulf Shipping

Yesterday, in response to Trump’s recently aborted “Project Freedom”, Iran created a new “Persian Gulf Strait Authority” mandating that all ships seeking passage through the Strait of Hormuz pay toll fees and fines in Iranian currency and bank guarantees to pass through. All US, Israeli and other ships that sanctioned Iran will be blocked. Iran is threatening that any non-compliance will result in the seizure of all vessels attempting to transit the strait. The Islamic Republic of Iran is asserting its new regional hegemon status over the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.

Iranian Peykaap III-class missile boats which are armed with two anti-ship missile launchers which carry Chinese Kowsar anti-ship subsonic cruise missiles or Iranian Nasr anti-ship missiles with ranges of 25-35 kilometers. Iran claims that one of these missiles would be sufficient to destroy an enemy corvette-size warship of 1,500 tons or less. The US is reportedly employing two stealthy Littoral Combat Ship frigates in the Arabian Sea as part of the US naval blockade which are over twice that displacement.

This does not look like Iran is preparing to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the US ending the war re-opening the Strait to me, but the announcement could also be a bargaining chip to pressure Trump to sign a peace framework on Iranian terms. To be clear, the one-page framework agreement would not be a peace deal in and of itself but rather would provide for the winding down of each side’s blockades and the negotiation of a final peace agreement within a thirty day period.

Iran’s newly created Persian Gulf Strait Authority has reportedly emailed shipping companies with stranded vessels in the Gulf, laying out its instructions for passing through the Strait of Hormuz:

1. Payment of tolls in Iranian Rials

2. Guarantees issued within the Iranian banking system

3. Countries that caused or contributed to damages during the war must pay reparations before obtaining a permit. Countries that sanctioned Iran or blocked its assets abroad are banned entirely

4. All documents must use the name “Persian Gulf”

5. Non-compliance results in vessel seizure and a fine of 20% of cargo value

6. All vessels must follow designated corridors and comply with Iranian Armed Forces instructions

7. Israeli-flagged vessels and any ship going to or from Israeli ports are banned.

Later the same day, Trump seemed to backtrack on the claim he had made a couple hours earlier that the terms of a US-Iran peace deal had already been agreed to by Iran and was ready to be signed and told the New York Post it was too soon to talk about face-to-face peace talks with Iran. After Israel heard Trump saying a peace deal was about to be finalized, Netanyahu decided to blatantly violate Israeli’s four-week cease-fire with Lebanon by ordering Israel’s terror bombing campaign on Beirut to resume killing and wounding hundreds of Lebanese civilians to prevent a peace deal from being signed. Meanwhile, both the US and Iran continue their cease-fire relations with reported Iranian attacks on Kurdish rebels in Iraq and attacks on the UAE while an F/A-18 Super Hornet from the USS Abraham Lincoln fired on and disabled an Iranian tanker that was attempting to reach an Iranian port yesterday.

Trump Resumes Bombing Strikes on Iran Ending One-Month Cease-Fire

Earlier this afternoon, the Trump administration opted to placate Kuwait and Saudi Arabia by resuming US bombing strikes on Iran for the first time since the cease-fire went into effect one-month ago to the day in exchange for them allowing US aircraft to resume use of their military bases. The US conducted bombing strikes against the Iranian ports of Qeshm, Bandar Kangan, and Bandar Abbas in response to Iran’s strikes on the UAE port of Fujairah three days ago. Iran also reported explosions in Tehran which may have been from US bombing strikes on the Iranian capitol. The US bombing strikes were undertaken the day before Trump reportedly hoped Iran would issue its response to his offer of a one-page peace framework that would phase out the blockade and end hostilities between the US and Iran within thirty days.

Fox News Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported on Thursday that the U.S. attacked an Iranian port city with airstrikes, which were initially believed to be carried out by the United Arab Emirates. “NEW: US military just carried out strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Port and Bandar Abbas: Senior US official tells me, but this is NOT a restarting of the war,” Griffin wrote on X. Griffin’s report came amid ongoing talks between Iran and President Donald Trump’s administration for a long-term end to the conflict.

Griffin added more details to her initial post, writing, “A senior US official tells me that it was a US military strike on Iran’s Qeshm port and Bandar Abbas moments ago but added this is NOT a restarting of the war or end to the ceasefire.” She added: The strike on one of Iran’s oil ports comes two days after Iran fired 15 ballistic and cruise missiles at UAE Fujairah Port, eliciting anger from Gulf countries after top Pentagon leaders said Tuesday that the Iranian strikes did not rise to the level of breaking the ceasefire, calling it low level attacks that didn’t rise to that level.

President Trump abruptly called off Project Freedom to open the Strait of Hormuz and guide ships through the strait after announcing the start of the military operation on Sunday. A senior US official confirms to me the @wsj_com reporting from today that the Saudis and Kuwaitis abruptly halted permission for the US to use its bases and air space for Project Freedom, a decision that this official said has been reversed. Saudi officials reportedly were angry at the Pentagon downplaying the Iranian strikes on Monday.

With the US-Iran cease-fire in tatters, the prospects for a peace deal are lower now than at any time since the cease-fire agreement was reached one month ago today. Reports indicate that Iran had planned to present their response to the US peace framework today but following the US bombing strikes on three Iranian ports they announced a pause on all peace negotiations. The renewed US bombing strikes on Iran suggest Trump is insincere in his professed desire for peace with Iran. Despite White House denials the US bombing strikes on two Iranian ports and perhaps its capitol city of Tehran as well show that the war is back on, albeit not a full-scale war as was the case during the first thirty-eight days, with an increasing number of air, missile and naval strikes being conducted by both sides. Today is Day 68 of Trump’s unprovoked war of aggression against Iran and it will remain an illegal war unless or until it obtains congressional authorization to continue Trump’s unprovoked war of aggression against Iran.

Now that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have allowed resumed US access to their airbases, Trump is reportedly considering reviving US naval escort operations under ‘Project Freedom’ which he was forced to abort by them two days ago. However, I believe he is unlikely to do so after three US Navy destroyers came under heavy attack by subsonic Iranian cruise missiles on Monday just like the USS Abraham Lincoln did on the first day of the war and had to use their Phalanx point defense system to shoot them down at point blank range. What most people don't realize is that Iran has yet to employ their supersonic and hypersonic antiship missiles and if they had wanted our three destroyers sunk they could have sunk them in the Persian Gulf very easily. Those slow missiles were Iran's equivalent of warning shots to give them a chance to vacate the Persian Gulf and yesterday they did.

Iran's leaders are far from crazy but instead are acting with restraint showing they have escalation dominance over the US without actually escalating indicating they are sincere in wanting peace if Trump agrees to let them maintain control of the Persian Gulf and continue low level enrichment following a five-year suspension period. Meanwhile, US officials have announced that Israel and Lebanon will hold a third round of talks next week following Israel resuming terror bombing strikes on Beirut over the past couple of days in an effort to disrupt US-Iranian peace deal which Trump stated could be reached soon.

Some analysts are suggesting the Trump administration may be hoping Iran will strike US warships to give it a pretext to restart a massive air and missile bombing strikes against it in the hopes of regaining public support for the war which two-thirds of Americans now oppose. However, I believe Trump is sincere in wanting to avoid resuming a full-scale war with Iran and is wanting to phase it out over the next month. Unfortunately, he remains unwilling to make the difficult compromises with Iran necessary to do so, afraid that if he relents from demanding Tehran agree to his maximalist peace terms, the war may be viewed as a US strategic defeat.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published by the end of 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

April 3rd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on “The National Security Hour” to discuss Trump’s great power war with Iran that is threatening to escalate to World War Three and how it has proven a strategic, military, economic and political debacle for him.

April 8th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran “back into the stone ages where they belong” and destroy Iran’s civilization in one night seeming to imply the use of nuclear weapons to kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 10th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on Lindell TV to discuss what happens if Iran doesn’t meet Trump’s ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday night and whether Trump’s threat is serious or a bluff which he has no intention of carrying out.

April 10th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran back into the stone age and the ramifications of him threatening to target and destroy Iran’s electrical power plants and potentially kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 21st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss the latest news relating to Trump’s Great power war with Iran and his ongoing attempts to start World War III in flagrant violation of his campaign pledges to prevent the outbreak of a Third World War.

April 21st—Interview with Pascal Lottaz on his “Neutrality Studies” podcast to discuss the ramifications of Trump’s unwinnable great power war against Iran for the US and the world, Trump’s plans for escalation and the prospects for peace before it escalates to World War Three.

April 23rd—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast. We will discuss Trump’s indefinite cease-fire with Iran and continued blockade and whether Iran will succeed in getting Trump to capitulate to Iran’s peace terms.

April 29th—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to break off in person peace negotiations with Iran and Iran’s response in refusing to limit its nuclear program so long as the US naval blockade continues.

April 30th—Interview with Afshin Rattansi on his Going Underground TV show which is broadcast on RT to discuss the state of Trump’s unjust war of aggression against Iran. We will talk about whether Trump is likely to escalate or de-escalate the conflict as well as the ramifications for the war in terms of transforming Iran into a new regional great power/hegemon of the Persian Gulf.

May 7th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to suspend "‘Project Freedom’ and resume bombing strikes against Iran a day before he hoped Iran would respond to his offer of a one-page peace framework that would phase out the blockade and end hostilities between the US and Iran within thirty days.

Upcoming Interviews

May 13th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on Lindell TV to discuss the latest with regards to US-Iran peace talks, Trump’s statement on the cease-fire and whether the US will resume full-scale bombing strikes on Iran in the coming days.

May 15th—Interview with Russia’s TV Channel One News to discuss the prospects for negotiating a peace deal ending the war in Ukraine, ending the war in Iran, improving relations between Russia, the US and the EU and Trump’s summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

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Operation Midnight Hammer was a US air and missile strike on three Iranian nuclear sites which President Donald Trump declared totally obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program in June and set in back by many years making future negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program unnecessary. Eight months later, he claimed Iran was just two weeks from building an atomic bomb necessitating the US going to war against Iran a second time. But Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth rebutted Trump’s claim during his testimony to the House Armed Services Committee a week ago today stating that Iran’s nuclear program was never reconstituted but that that we had to go to war against them because they never gave up their nuclear ambitions.

A few years ago President Trump’s AI Czar David Sacks wrote an X post entitled “A War of Lies” exposing the ways in which Biden deliberately provoked Russia to invade Ukraine by refusing to agree to issue a written guarantee that NATO would never expand eastward and then lied and claimed Russia engaged in an unprovoked war of aggression. While Russia has been understandably condemned for invading Ukraine, its war with Ukraine has been one of the most provoked wars in modern history. Likewise, Trump’s War on Iran has also proven to be ‘a war of lies.’ Perhaps, the biggest lie of all is that the war is being fought to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Every day that President Trump or his administration officials are asked about the ever-increasing economic costs of the US naval blockade to the US or global economy or are asked how much longer the war will last, they lecture us that US citizens should be willing to pay any cost to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

I’ve studied military history and national security for the past forty-six years. My articles and interviews on matters of war and peace and national security strategy have been published in a dozen languages. I was thrilled when Trump was elected three times in a row because his America First conservative foreign policy he championed from 2015 to May 2025 was the one I have fought for my entire life. During his first term he consistently put America First with a policy of peace through strength and started no new wars but for the past twelve months he has put America Last with a policy of war through weakness. It’s as if we elected a Reaganite peace president in 2024 and got a neocon war George W. Bush-like president instead.

In a 2008 video that has since gone viral, President Trump declared that the greatest foreign policy mistake a US president has ever made was lying the US into a forever war in the Middle East and called on George W. Bush to be impeached over it. Trump was elected President in 2024 on a promise to be a president of peace, end America’s forever wars, end our regime change wars, prevent new wars from breaking out and save America from the outbreak of World War Three. He even promised to end the Ukraine War on Day One of his presidency.

That is why I proudly voted for him. Last May, he decided not to end Biden’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine but fight it indefinitely. Now, he has embroiled the US in yet another no-win military quagmire in the Middle East in flagrant opposition to US national security interests, forcing our brave US military servicemembers to fight and die on behalf of a foreign power that he admitted two months ago might last forever. This has left millions of America First conservatives like me feeling betrayed. Trump’s forever war in Iran has completely fractured his America First conservative base. I fear it has likely torpedoed any chance we have of retaining control of either House of Congress in the November mid-term election and threatens to ensure a Democrat victory in the 2028 presidential election as well.

Trump’s lies about the war are too numerable to list in a single article. At a rally in Kentucky, on May 11^th, Donald Trump repeatedly claimed the US had already “won” the war with Iran before quickly warning against declaring victory. As he spoke about the war, a bizarre moment came when Trump declared victory over Iran at least five times within just 13 seconds during his speech. Then, Trump said that “you have to be careful” before declaring victory. The conflicting statements and the subsequent backtracking went viral on social media. “We’ve won,” Trump said. “You never like to say too early that you’ve won, but we’ve won. In the first hour, it was over.” Trump repeated the claim that the US won his war against Iran on the first day of the war yet inexplicably refuses to end the war and lift the US naval blockade against Iran he claims we won over two months ago. In a March 13 Truth Social post, President Donald Trump claimed that Iran was “totally defeated” and said in a post the following day, “We have already destroyed 100% of Iran’s military capability.” He’s offered similar assessments daily since then yet the US Navy continues to be unable to break Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by an Iranian military he claims no longer exists in a war his supporters claim is not a war.

White House Lies About Iran’s Nuclear Capabilities

Following the US air and missile strikes on three deep underground Iranian nuclear processing sites on June 21^st, President Trump has claimed that the US had “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program as a result of US airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear enrichment sites in June and set it back by many years. Hegseth went even further saying the US had successfully obliterated Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Interestingly, Trump claimed that the reason for his decision to start of what Fox News called his “special military operation” against Iran was to “stop the war” which is the exact same justification Russian President Vladimir Putin used when he launched Russia’s special military operation against Ukraine in February 2022.

A CNN report published four days before the outbreak of the war asked why Trump was considering bombing strikes on Iran and claiming Iran was one or two weeks away from building an atomic bomb eight months after claiming it was totally destroyed:

“Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” he said the day of the operation, June 21. Trump repeated the claim on social media. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in his own comments on June 22 went even further, declaring that not only were the facilities obliterated, but so too were Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “Thanks to President Trump’s bold and visionary leadership and his commitment to peace through strength, Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been obliterated,” Hegseth said. By June 24, Trump followed Hegseth’s lead. “It was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability, and then, STOP THE WAR!” Trump said on social media.

CNN further reports that on September 20^th, Trump stated, “But I also obliterated Iran’s nuclear hopes, by totally annihilating their enriched uranium” and stated three weeks later Iran no longer had a nuclear program. On January 20^th, he stated the US had “obliterated Iran’s nuclear enrichment capability.” Even two weeks before the war on February 13th, he stated the bombings were successful in “achieving total obliteration of the Iran nuclear potential capability — totally obliterated.” So, Trump not only claimed the US had destroyed all 22,000 pounds of Iran’s enriched uranium months before the war, he claimed he destroyed Iran’s ability to enrich any more.

Then, on March 4^th, just three weeks after Trump made that statement, he said the US had no choice but to start another war against Iran telling congressional leaders, “If we didn’t hit within two weeks, they would’ve had a nuclear weapon.” However, on March 18^th, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that Iran did not rebuild its uranium enrichment capability following joint U.S.-Israeli strikes against its nuclear program last year. “As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There have been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability. The entrances to the underground facilities that were bombed have been buried and shuttered with cement,” Gabbard wrote in an opening statement ahead of the hearing. The question is what changed to cause Trump to claim Iran was two weeks away from building a nuclear weapon three weeks after he re-affirmed Iran’s nuclear program had been completely obliterated. The answer of course is that he had taken the US to war with Iran without any national security justification, so he needed to make up and invent some reasons to justify his war of aggression in the minds of the American people.

The Khorramshahr-4 IRBM—Iran’s longest-range operational ballistic missile. Two of them were fired at the US military base at Diego Garcia which is located 4,000 kilometers from Iran catching US intelligence off guard.

In his State of the Union address on Feb. 24, Trump said Iran was “working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.” During the March 18^th congressional hearing, Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., asked if Ratcliffe could confirm that Iran might have an ICBM in “as few as six months,” during the March 18^th congressional hearings, Ratcliffe replied: “If left unimpeded, yes, senator, they would have the ability to range missiles to the continental U.S.” But Ratcliffe gave no timeline.

A report on Army Recognition seemed to confirm Ratcliffe’s statement in reporting on the existence of an Iranian ICBM under development.

According to Mehr News on July 27, 2025, Iran may have developed or prepared for testing its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), designated Khorramshahr-5. This missile is reportedly capable of a range up to 12,000 kilometers, a speed of Mach 16 (approximately 20,000 km/h), and the ability to carry a warhead weighing around two tons. If verified, these figures would place Iran among the few countries capable of conducting missile strikes across continents and significantly extend its strategic reach beyond the previously declared range limit of 2,000 kilometers. However, no official test has yet been acknowledged to date by the Iranian Ministry of Defense or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

In September, Iranian MP Mohsen Zangeneh announced on IRIB state television that Iran had successfully tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Iran has had an active ICBM program since 2005. It is worth noting that no other country in the world has pursued an ICBM program without first possessing nuclear weapons suggesting that Iran likely does possess a modest nuclear arsenal. That said, the pictures of the test suggest the test may not have been successful so there is no reason to believe the Iranian ICBM is currently operational.

Meanwhile, while testifying to the House Armed Services Committee on April 29th, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth admitted Iran had been unsuccessful in reconstituting their nuclear program since the US obliterated it in June but insisted that the US had to go to war against Iran because Iran “refused to give up its nuclear ambitions” to build a nuclear weapons some years in the future. Hegseth testified to the House Armed Services Committee that President Trump started the war on Iran when Iran was at its weakest point. Strong nations typically attack weaker nations not because the weaker nations pose a threat to them but because they want to conquer and subject them. Hagseth’s admission that “Iran was at its weakest point” strongly suggests that the real reason Trump started a war with Iran was to make it a US vassal state so he could pick their leaders and take their oil. Trump has admitted as much.

So, based on his testimony, not only did Iran not pose an imminent threat to the US but it posed the weakest threat it has ever posed to us since the Islamist regime took power nearly half a century ago. That leads reasonable minds to wonder what the point was of engaging in an unprovoked war of aggression against Iran when according to the testimony of Trump’s uber hawk neocon Secretary of War they posed us no meaningful threat. His statement in this regard is reminiscent of the Biden administration which claimed that Russia was so strong it was planning on invading our NATO allies in Eastern Europe while simultaneously claiming Russia was so weak that if the US just sent Ukraine one more US weapon system they could halt advancing Russian troops in southeast Ukraine and retake control of all of its lost territory. Either one or the other can be true but not both.

Dr. Peter Pry, the courageous and visionary founder and Executive Director of the Task Force on National Security which I help lead. In 2016, he co-wrote an article that Iran likely already has nuclear weapons, an assessment I have long agreed with. If true, Trump is fighting a great power war against a nuclear power that could escalate to the nuclear level with Iranian nuclear mushroom clouds over US cities or worse a super-EMP detonation over the center of the US that could destroy all US critical infrastructure in the continental United States.

I am old enough to remember that we have been told Iran has been two weeks to three months from having nukes for the past thirty-one years yet miraculously Netanyahu and other neocons who warned us it was on the verge of building nuclear weapons for decades are now telling us they don’t have one yet. According to both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the late Dr. Peter Pry, Iran has had the technology to build nuclear weapons since 2003 which means there are only two possibilities. So, either Iran’s leaders built a modest-sized nuclear arsenal years ago and have chosen to conceal its existence in which case Iran has proven to be a rational and responsible nuclear power or else they are so peace-loving that they have deliberately constrained themselves not to build nuclear weapons and have suspended their nuclear program for the past 23 years, as the 2025 US intelligence report, has assessed even in the face of persistent US and Israeli aggression. Either way, there is no imminent threat to either the US or Israel stemming from Iran’s nuclear program and thus no need to constrain Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

Iran has likely had nuclear weapons for many years but not once have they ever even threatened to use them against the US or Israel not even now when they are fighting a war not just for their independence but for their very existence as a nation against two nuclear aggressor states which are much stronger than they are because they are not even remotely suicidal. As I noted previously, Iran has never directly attacked US military bases or Israel except in response to our direct attacks on them and US intelligence has conclusively stated that they posed no imminent threat to the US or Israel whatsoever. Even if, as some Iranian leaders have suggested, Iran does possess a modest nuclear missile arsenal in its underground hardened concrete missile silos, there is nothing the US can do to destroy them short of a nuclear first strike.

The Biggest Fallacy About Iran’s Islamist leaders

Over the past year, the Trump administration and GOP members of Congress have demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding as to how Iranian leaders think and have instead projected their own ridiculous cartoonish assumptions onto Iran’s leaders which have little if any basis in fact. There is a huge fallacy that Israel and the Israel First neocons led by Trump himself have been pushing which I call “the Hitler madman theory” which presumes that Iranian leaders are as crazy as Hitler became in the last several months of World War Two. This theory presumes that Iran is led by suicidal and irrational maniacs and fanatics who cannot be reasoned with, cannot be trusted to keep their agreements because Iranian leaders don’t want peace but only want endless war.

They claim that Iran is basically led by suicide bombers who believe they will inherit seventy-two virgins if they blow themselves up and will use nuclear weapons on US and Israeli cities as soon as they develop one. There is literally zero evidence to support any of these facetious claims and a lot of empirical evidence that disproves it. Iran has never directly attacked the US or Israel except in response to being directly attacked by the US and Israel. The Islamic Republic of Iran is, much like the Russian Federation, a reactive power, not aggressor powers like the US and Israel in they do not initiate wars or direct conflicts but only engage in retaliatory counterattacks to the US and Israel. Iran has not invaded any of its neighbors in the past two hundred years including the forty-seven years it has been led by its Islamist regime.

I attended a state Republican convention last month and I asked low-information Republican activists and a Republican congressional candidate what their opinions were regarding Trump’s war on Iran and many of them said they supported fighting the war indefinitely because “we can’t allow Iran to get a nuclear bomb.” This line has been repeated by President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and countless members of Congress ad nauseum in an attempt to justify their support for a neocon America Last war in the Middle East even worse than Bush’s war in Iraq which many claim to have opposed. It is a line designed to completely obliterate any attempts to question why Trump broke his campaign promises to never start a forever war in the Middle East and reduce Republican voters to mind-numbered drones incapable of independent thought.

President Trump continues to absurdly claim without any evidence, as recently as this morning during a signing ceremony in the Oval Office that if it had not been for his decision to launch a great power war against Iran over two months ago, it would have already nuked Israel, all of their neighbors in the Middle East, Europe and the US itself with a handful of atomic bombs and no ICBMs to deliver them to the continental United States. He even quipped “perhaps none of us would be here today” implying that Iran would might have nuked Washington, DC if he hadn’t started his war against it ten weeks ago.

“We can’t allow Iran to possess a nuclear weapon. We’re going to face consequences because we have to go down to Iran to prevent them from getting that nuclear weapon,” Trump elaborated. “They would have had it in just two weeks.” “Don’t forget we sent that impressive B-2 bomber in and took out their nuclear capabilities,” claimed Trump. “So without our intervention, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon, and perhaps none of us would be here today. I can assure you the Middle East would be gone, Israel would be gone, and they’d set their sights on Europe first before coming for us because they’re dangerous people,” said Trump. “These are dangerous people. And we’re not going to allow lunatics access to nuclear weapons. The power of such weapons is something I don’t even want to discuss. It’s not going to happen.”

The truth is that Iran is not led by an irrational let alone genocidal regime as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War or Communist China and North Korea are today all of which possess or possessed far larger and more powerful nuclear arsenals than Iran has and yet for some reason President Trump is not running around talking about how the US cannot survive unless we eliminate the Chinese or even the North Korean nuclear threats. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Iran would ever use nuclear weapons against the US or Israel unless their regime was under immediate threat of being overthrown or else Iran was being invaded and overrun by US military forces. US intelligence stated at the beginning of the Iran War that Iran had no plans to attack either the US homeland, US military bases or Israel unless we first attacked them. Thus, they posed no imminent threat to the US whatsoever, and President Trump had no credible national security rational to start an unnecessary and unprovoked great power war with Iran over two months ago.

Communist Chinese President Xi Jinping. The PRC has killed 1,600 times more Americans during the past half dozen years with its COVID-19 biowarfare attack and Chinese supported US fentanyl deaths than Iran has killed in the past half century. It also likely has twice as many operational nuclear weapons as the US does. Yet, paradoxically President Trump seems strangely unconcerned about the far more massive threat of Chinese nuclear strikes on the US homeland and is only concerned with Iran having a few atomic bombs which he inexplicably views as a much more existential threat to the US and the world.

We live in a world where the former Soviet Union, Communist China and North Korea had nuclear weapons for the past 33-77 years with not even one instance of these regimes, which are more murderous and aggressive than Iran’s, using nuclear weapons against their neighbors. There was never any reason to believe Iranian leaders, who have proven surprisingly rational and restrained over the past few years, would behave any differently because they aren’t suicidal. The bottom line is that the US-Israeli containment strategy for Iran was working before Trump abandoned it in June 2025. Iran was firmly “in the box” and was not attacking the US in any way just like Saddam was from 1991-2003.

The fact is that nuclear deterrence has worked in every instance so long as the US continues to retain a credible nuclear deterrent with substantial second strike capabilities. It has worked against the USSR, the Russian Federation, the PRC and the DPRK and has worked just as well if not better against the Islamic Republic of Iran which has not attempted a massive nuclear buildup as all of those countries have even though Iran has had the technical ability to build nuclear weapons since 2003. According to one report was given nuclear warhead miniaturization technology by Russia in 2023 enabling them to mount nuclear weapons atop their MRBMs and IRBMs and more ominously their Noor 2 and Noor 3 satellites which are orbiting at the optimum altitude to conduct a super-Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) first strike on the US homeland. If it is true that Iran has super-EMP satellites orbiting over the US, then President Trump is gambling with America’s very existence by continuing to fight his no-win war against Iran.

Iran war apologists fail to comprehend that the primary if not sole rationale for Iran to build nuclear weapons would be inherently defensive to deter US and Israeli aggression against their country and thereby ensure their continued survival as a nation against Trump’s threat to commit nuclear genocide against it, not to conduct unprovoked nuclear strikes on other nations. President Trump’s unjust war of aggression has maximized the incentive to build nuclear weapons and indeed they very well could have built one or more nuclear warheads since the cease-fire was declared early last month. There is nothing the US can do short of engaging in a nuclear first strike against Iran to eliminate Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons. There is no military solution to this issue. There is only a diplomatic solution which President Trump has adamantly refused to pursue to date by rejecting innumerable Iranian offers from March 2025 onward to agree to a better nuclear deal for the US than the JCPOA which was signed over a decade ago.

Trump Administration Covering Up Extent of US Military Casualties

On March 2nd, Trump told the New York Times that US military casualties in his neocon war with Iran might be much higher than what the Pentagon has admitted to thus far.

President Trump told the New York Times that the number of US service members dead “could be quite a bit higher” than the three currently reported. “If you look at projections, they do projections… it could be quite a bit higher than that.”

According to an article in The Intercept early last month, Trump ordered the Pentagon to cover up the true number of US military casualties. The article reports that the US had suffered around 750 military casualties in Trump’s War on Iran during the first month of the war including fifteen dead US military servicemembers. The sad truth is that we didn’t need to incur any US military casualties because there is no evidence Iran posed an imminent threat to either the US or Israel necessitating an attack on them by us and therefore all those brave US military servicemembers died for no good reason.

Why I Oppose Trump’s War on Iran

Some of my former fellow MAGA acolytes have told me they believe it is unpatriotic for me and other Christian conservatives to oppose Trump’s unjust war of aggression against Iran because it somehow hurts our troops. Speaking as a former US Army combat arms and HQ staff officer and lifelong patriot, I believe that the idea that it is somehow unpatriotic to question your government when they do something you know is objectively evil and wrong in flagrant violation of the laws of God and man is deeply mistaken. I would argue that the highest expression of patriotism is when you question when your government kills 1,700 civilians and threatens to kill tens of millions more for no reason, lies to you about every rationale why they are doing it and lies about every other aspect of the war.

The greatest way that we can support our brave men and women in uniform is by standing courageously and united against Trump’s imperial Deep State war of aggression in the Middle East that is worse than Bush’s war in Iraq. And I am saying that as someone who believed our cause in the Vietnam War was noble and just and as someone who has supported Trump for nearly a decade. There is nothing remotely conservative or America First about supporting Trump’s corrupt, immoral and ungodly war against Iran. As Tucker Carlson stated last month Trump’s war on Iran is “absolutely disgusting and evil.” To me, you have to abandon every Christian, conservative and constitutional principle we have been taught to support it.

As I have noted, every foreign policy realist scholar has rightly concluded that Trump has lost his war with Iran just like I predicted he would before the war even began because I have studied war and national security strategy for 45 years. Every single US military wargame showed us losing a war to Iran. None of his Cabinet officials except Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said we could win it not even neocon Secretary of State Marco Rubio or CIA Director John Ratcliffe. While it is true that Iran has funded proxies that have employed terrorism to kill thousands of innocent people, Israel has employed terror bombing strikes to deliberately kill more innocent civilians that Iran so why aren’t we fighting a regime change war to overthrow war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu who has mass murdered over 58,000 Gazan civilians including 20,000 children?

The reason that not one of our thirty-one NATO allies aided us in this conflict is because they know it has been an entirely unprovoked and unjust war of aggression that we are fighting much more so than Russia’s war in Ukraine and they want nothing to do with it. Trump has acted as a completely deranged and unhinged rogue state leader who bombs other nations randomly for no reason and that is why two-thirds of Europeans now view the US as a security threat to their nations right now. That said, I would love to see him respond by their refusal to allow US bombers to overfly their airspace or use their bases as a pretext to end America’s liberal empire by withdrawing the US from the long obsolete NATO military alliance.

Trump is continuing a blockade against Iran that, if continued over the next few months or more will likely cause the US and the globe to go into a recession causing untold human suffering and even starvation across the world. He is behaving like a madman who wants to hurt not just ninety-two million Iranian citizens but billions of innocents across the world including tens of millions of black Africans who may die in a famine if he continues the blockade for the next several months. Do Trump supporters really believe hurting and killing the Iranian people by destroying their economy is the way to win hearts and minds? That has literally never worked in history. It didn’t work during World War Two when we terror bombed, nuked and starved millions of innocent German and Japanese civilians and it won’t work now.

In fact, it is having the exact opposite effect as the opponents of the regime are now rallying patriotically against the aggressors who murdered their leaders bombed their cities, massacred over 165 girls in what appears may be a deliberate ‘double-tap’ US Tomahawk missile strike to teach their Iranian Naval officer fathers a lesson. Like Tucker Carlson and so many other conservative heroes and Christian conservatives, I am ashamed I ever supported Trump in view of his godless war of lies against Iran and if I could go back in time I would have done my patriotic duty to vote against him and vote for the Constitution Party presidential candidate instead.

With this war, Trump is giving the middle finger to working class and middle-class Americans he promised to help and they are going to do everything they can to return the favor by voting Republicans who have replaced the Democrats as the Party of War out of office in the November election to ensure he gets impeached early next year. The reason Trump’s poll numbers have plummeted to somewhere between 33-40% is because the American people are learning the truth about what a terrible president he is in terms of foreign policy, national security and the economy totally betraying his America First conservative base in the worst way imaginable and I think he absolutely deserves to be impeached over it. Both Biden and Kamala were better than Trump has been on foreign policy and national security. As horrible as they were, at least they were never Israeli puppets like he is although Biden was hopelessly corrupt and in bed with Communist China.

Trump Rejects Iran’s proposed Fourteen Point Peace Plan to End the War in Thirty Days

President Donald Trump giving an Oval Office briefing. He announced a pause on his “Project Freedom” operation yesterday in which he had ordered the US Navy to escort oil tankers claiming unconvincingly it was due to “great progress” was being made in peace negotiations with Iran. Most likely, he suspended the operation after only two days because he concluded the risks of one or more US Navy destroyers being hit or even sunk by Iranian antiship missiles potentially leading to an uncontrolled escalation of the war was too high.

Late on April 30th, Tehran sent their latest 14-point peace proposal to Pakistan, which got the two sides to agree on the ceasefire. According to Iranian sources, the 14-point plan was crafted in response to a US-backed nine-point proposal that focused on extending the truce rather than ending the conflict outright. While Trump is claiming that “negotiations with Iran are going very well”, on May 2^nd he stated he was rejecting Iran’s latest peace offer.

The Jerusalem Post reported that the Iranian peace proposal is a three-phase plan.

The report stated that in the first phase, the US, Iran, and Israel would sign a nonaggression pact. After that, the Strait of Hormuz would gradually reopen, and the US would lift its blockade, with Iran taking charge of clearing the sea mines. The clause in which Iran demands compensation has reportedly been revised, but the demand for the withdrawal of US forces from the maritime area around the region remained.

In the second phase, Iran would agree to a 15-year freeze on uranium enrichment, after which it would resume enriching uranium to 3.6%. Iran rejected the US’s demand to dismantle nuclear infrastructure or facilities. During this phase, Iran requested that all sanctions be lifted and that funds be unfrozen in exchange for the nuclear agreement. The proposal suggests transferring the existing enriched uranium to other countries and diluting it to civilian enrichment levels.

The third phase would see Iran entering into a “strategic dialogue” with neighboring Arab states in order to build “a security system that includes the entire Middle East,” Al-Jazeera reported. Iran also called for China and Russia to play roles in enforcing any agreement, Saudi Arabian news outlet Al Hadath reported.

Following reports on the proposal’s details, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on state television that Iran’s proposal did not include any clause related to the nuclear issue. Baghaei also said that the proposal did not include Iran’s minesweeping of the Strait of Hormuz. He added that the US had sent a response via Pakistan, and that it was under review in Tehran.

During the past year of bilateral peace negotiations, Iran has repeatedly been more factual in their reports of their negotiation positions than the Trump administration has been. Accordingly, I think its likely true that Iran did not agree to a fifteen-year suspension of all nuclear uranium enrichment and that they will stick to their previous offer of a five year suspension of enrichment which they offered during in person negotiations with the US delegation led by Vice President JD Vance in Islamabad, Pakistan on April 11^th. However, I think that the other nuclear provisions reported by the Jerusalem Post are likely accurate.

President Donald Trump continues to claim without any evidence that Iranian leadership is fractured and unable to get their act together to divert attention from the fact that it is Trump, not Iranian leaders, that is desperate to sign a peace deal ending the war. That was the reason he announced his decision to extend his cease-fire with Iran indefinitely, despite the fact that both sides violated it on May 4th with attacks on each other’s warships.

Despite this, as I reported yesterday President Trump announced a pause on the U.S. operation Project Freedom claiming great progress had been made towards a final peace agreement with Iran, but added that the U.S. Navy blockade of ships in the Strait of Hormuz will remain in place on the same day that Secretary Rubio announced the war is over. It only took two days for this new Trump initiative to fail and be suspended, perhaps permanently.

This move suggests Trump is anxious to avert further naval clashes with Iran that could cause this war to escalate with hundreds of US military deaths and sunk US Navy warships and potentially continue indefinitely serving to ensure a US and global recession and an even more humiliating strategic defeat for the US. That said, Trump has a long history of claiming he is very close to a peace agreement with Iran when in fact little to no progress has been made and this instance is likely no exception. Accordingly, if the two sides are any closer to an agreement it is likely for only one reason which is that Trump is making concessions not Iran.

What is more likely is that, contrary to Trump’s claims, no progress in negotiations have been made and that Trump panicked when he realized Iranian hypersonic anti-ship missiles could send our Arleigh Burke-class destroyers—the USS Mason and the USS Truxton—that have reportedly sailed through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf to the bottom of sea with the loss of hundreds of their crew members. It is very possible that Iran allowed the destroyers into the Gulf to entrap them with its threats to fire its hypersonic anti-ship missiles or perhaps even anti-ship combat drone swarms on them deemed credible by US intelligence. While I commend the president for suspending this very risky operation, he still needs to agree to a joint lifting of the US naval blockade in exchange for Iran re-opening the Strait of Hormuz so peace negotiations can resume.

What is the Path to Peace?

A senior Iranian official told Drop Site News that Iran will not negotiate a peace deal with the US until Trump suspends his blockade of Iran. He says that Iran will not engage in pre-emptive attacks against the US or Israel but will retaliate against any US or Israeli attacks. The official stated he believes a Korean War-style armistice ending the fighting without resolving any of the issues in dispute between the US and Iran seems to be the most likely outcome of the war. I would be perfectly fine with that. Ultimately, Iran is, like Russia, a reactive power that reacts to US or Israeli aggression but acts in strategically defensive ways rather than opting for unprovoked wars of aggression as Trump and Netanyahu have opted to pursue.

There is a very easy face-saving way for Trump to get a peace deal with Iran which is for him to agree to suspend the US naval blockade on Iran in exchange for Iran opening up the Strait of Hormuz so peace talks can resume and then for him to accept their offer for a five-year moratorium on nuclear uranium enrichment and diluting their Highly Enriched Uranium under US supervision. Then, he can spin the peace deal as a victory and maybe even hold a US military victory parade on or before June 14^th, which is the 251^st Birthday of the US Army, Flag Day and his birthday. That would allow Trump can pull all US military forces out of the Persian Gulf region and refocus on reducing gas prices and the cost of living and averting a US economic recession to try to turn the page on the Iran War and limit Republican losses in Congress during the important November mid-term elections.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published by the end of 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

March 30th—Interview with Dr. Maria on the Dr. Maria show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s Operation Epic Fiasco and Iran War debacle and how the war risks escalating into a forever war with the chances of it escalating to World War Three increasing the longer it goes on.

March 31st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss Trump’s Neocon Deep State War on Iran, why the US is losing the war and what Trump needs to do to end it quickly to minimize US military, economic and political losses.

April 3rd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on “The National Security Hour” to discuss Trump’s great power war with Iran that is threatening to escalate to World War Three and how it has proven a strategic, military, economic and political debacle for him.

April 8th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran “back into the stone ages where they belong” and destroy Iran’s civilization in one night seeming to imply the use of nuclear weapons to kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 10th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on Lindell TV to discuss what happens if Iran doesn’t meet Trump’s ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday night and whether Trump’s threat is serious or a bluff which he has no intention of carrying out.

April 10th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran back into the stone age and the ramifications of him threatening to target and destroy Iran’s electrical power plants and potentially kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 21st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss the latest news relating to Trump’s Great power war with Iran and his ongoing attempts to start World War III in flagrant violation of his campaign pledges to prevent the outbreak of a Third World War.

April 21st—Interview with Pascal Lottaz on his “Neutrality Studies” podcast to discuss the ramifications of Trump’s unwinnable great power war against Iran for the US and the world, Trump’s plans for escalation and the prospects for peace before it escalates to World War Three.

April 23rd—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast. We will discuss Trump’s indefinite cease-fire with Iran and continued blockade and whether Iran will succeed in getting Trump to capitulate to Iran’s peace terms.

April 29th—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to break off in person peace negotiations with Iran and Iran’s response in refusing to limit its nuclear program so long as the US naval blockade continues.

April 30th—Interview with Afshin Rattansi on his Going Underground TV show which is broadcast on RT to discuss the state of Trump’s unjust war of aggression against Iran. We will talk about whether Trump is likely to escalate or de-escalate the conflict as well as the ramifications for the war in terms of transforming Iran into a new regional great power/hegemon of the Persian Gulf.

Upcoming Interview

May 6th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to cut off peace talks with Iran and conduct an indefinite blockade of Iran until they ‘cry uncle’ and his statement that the war on Iran should be ended on the same timetable as the war in Ukraine.

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President Donald Trump sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office where he has conducted a number of press conferences taking questions on the status of his war in Iran over the past few weeks. Trump continues to claim the war is being fought to prevent an Iran from building a nuclear weapon less than a week after his Secretary of War testified to Congress that Iran never restarted its nuclear weapons program after the US obliterated in in June.

Trump Claims Iran War “Terminated”

The War Powers Resolution of 1873 basically expresses the intent of the Founding Fathers in delegating the power to declare war to Congress in Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution. It expressly forbids the President of the United States to conduct any wars of aggression without specific congressional authorization. The War Powers Act only allows the president to fight a war for sixty days in response to a direct attack on the US, its territories or armed forces. Iran has never directly attacked us except in direct response to US attacks against it. On May 1^st, President Trump stated his belief that the War Powers Act was unconstitutional, as the Iran war hit 60 days from the March 2nd date Trump notified Congress it had taken US military forces into combat against Iran.

The Hill reported:

The U.S. and Israel launched attacks against Iran on Feb. 28, but Trump formally notified Congress on March 2 about U.S. military operations against the country — sixty days ago Friday. Ahead of his departure for a weekend in Florida, Trump was asked whether he would now seek approval from lawmakers. “It’s never been sought before, there’s been numerous, many, many times and nobody’s ever gotten it before, they consider it totally unconstitutional,” Trump told reporters ahead of his departure from the White House. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) seemed to side with the Trump administration’s interpretation in comments to NBC News on Thursday. “I don’t think we have an active, kinetic military bombing, firing or anything like that. Right now, we are trying to broker a peace,” Johnson said. “I would be very reluctant to get in front of the administration in the midst of these very sensitive negotiations, so we’ll have to see how that plays out.”

President Trump is now claiming the Iran War has “terminated” to avoid the need for him to seek congressional authorization as required under the War Powers Act following Secretary Hegseth’s claim late last week that the war was “on a pause” so the 60-day threshold had not yet been met. Politico reported:

President Donald Trump notified lawmakers Friday that the Iran war has “terminated” — an effort to quelch the fight over the need for Congress to approve the conflict. The White House laid out its rationale in a letter, obtained by POLITICO, as the Middle East conflict reached a 60-day legal deadline under which operations must halt unless lawmakers authorize military force. A ceasefire with Tehran, Trump argued, effectively stops the clock. The missive seeks to head off a growing battle on Capitol Hill, where Trump faces the prospect of losing Republican support as the war stretches into its second month with no clear exit strategy. But the White House’s reasoning won’t sit well with Democrats and some Republicans, who argue the administration must wind down the campaign now that it has reached that benchmark. “There has been no exchange of fire between the United States and Iran since April 7, 2026,” Trump wrote, noting a ceasefire he has indefinitely extended. “The hostilities that began on February 28, 2026, have terminated.”

All our major wars including both world wars, Vietnam, both Iraq wars and the Afghan War with the sole exception of the Korean War were congressionally authorized and were thus conducted lawfully and constitutionally. Trump is the first president in over three-quarters of a century to refuse to request congressional authorization for his great power regional war of aggression against Iran in flagrant violation of US law and our God-given constitution showing yet again that he is a lawless and godless president. Sadly, nearly ninety-nine percent of Congressional Republicans have voted six times to give him a blank check to fight this unjust war indefinitely. Any member of Congress who voted against these Iran War resolutions prohibiting Trump from undertaking further offensive military actions against Iran must be voted out of office.

Congressional Republicans to the American People—”We Are All Neocons Now.”

Following the March 5^th votes in which ninety nine percent of Congressional Republicans opted to give a blank check for Trump to fight Operation Epic Fiasco indefinitely until our young children are old enough to continue the fight themselves, it seems that virtually every elected and appointed Republican official has transformed into an America Last neocon warmonger over the past couple of months. It’s as if Bush’s Iraq War debacle never happened and now they all support a war in Iran that will end up being far more costly for the US. There has been a total of five votes held in Congress over the past two months to block Trump from further offensive military action against Trump and all of them have failed with the most recent vote in the US House of Representatives failing to pass by a just a single vote.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was an America First conservative who opposed Ukraine War funding and FISA re-authorization before becoming Speaker so I strongly supported his election as Speaker. However, after he flip flopped to supporting Biden’s $61 billion Ukraine War funding bill he became a Deep State America Last politician and began caving to the Deep State on every major national security issue trying to suppress the efforts of America First GOP House conservatives to oppose unconstitutional legislation.

My message to our congressional delegation is that if they voted to support Operation Epic Fiasco, you can’t claim you’re America First, you are Israel First/America Last like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and are now part of the Deep State that has been endangering our country. Trump’s neocon Deep State Iran War is the generational litmus test of our time. If you support it, you are on the wrong side of history. The Iraq war was vastly easier to fight than the war in Iran will be, and we are going to lose far more troops and very possibly millions of Americans here at home if Trump keeps fighting it for the next seven months as he is now planning. It could very well end with an Iranian cyber or super-Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack that destroys all US critical infrastructure.

Trump Pauses “Project Freedom” in the Hope Iran Will Return to the Peace Table

On May 2^nd, President Trump boasted that the US Navy is acting “like pirates” in stealing oil from seized Iranian tankers. “We … land on top of it and we took over the ship. We took over the cargo, took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” said Trump at a rally in Florida on Friday. “We’re like pirates,” he added to cheers from the crowd. “We’re sort of like pirates. But we’re not playing games.” Perhaps, Trump doesn’t realize that piracy is illegal. He appears to have absolutely no respect for international law let alone constitutional limitations on his power and may well be most lawless president America has ever had.

Since at least March 14^th, Trump has been begging Iran’s top ally, Communist China, to help him re-open the Strait of Hormuz knowing the US Navy is powerless to do so. This is reminiscent of when Biden asked Communist China to pressure Russia not to invade Ukraine in February 2022 even though Russia is China’s top ally. Trump is getting increasingly desperate to end the war. But the only exit ramp he has is to end his blockade of Iran and either negotiate a compromise peace agreement on largely Iranian terms or else declare victory and pull US military forces out of the region as part of a ‘strategic reset’ which would be the best option he could pursue.

On May 3^rd, President Donald Trump announced his so-called ‘Project Freedom’ in which the US Navy would send its warships into the Strait of Hormuz to escort oil tankers out of the Persian Gulf in his latest attempt to break Iran’s stranglehold over the Strait. He announced it would start at midnight on May 4th. That afternoon, I posted on X:

“It looks like President Trump may be trying to use his plan to send US Navy warships to escort oil tankers out of the Persian Gulf to provoke Iranian IRGC naval warships to fire on US warships. That would give him a pretext to get Congress to authorize him to fight an indefinite war against Iran that could last until early next year and perhaps until the end of his presidency. If Iran fires an antiship missile that kills US sailors, Trump could credibly cite that as a pretext under the War Powers Act to fight another shooting war against Iran for sixty days before he needs to request congressional authorization. However, he is risking the loss of US destroyers, frigates and maybe even the USS Abraham Lincoln to Iranian hypersonic anti-ship missiles by so doing. It’s even possible that a US warship could be badly damaged by an Iranian mine that Trump could try to claim as an Iranian attack.”

Iran responded to Trump’s announcement by denouncing it as a breach of the April 7^th cease-fire agreement and threatening to employ new more devastating never-seen weapons against the US if he followed through on his threat. Iran claimed it struck a US patrol boat or frigate with two missiles likely anti-tank missiles adapted for the anti-ship role on IRGC missile boats though US CENTCOM denied that any US ships had been struck. An Iranian drone also reportedly hit a UAE oil refinery, and another Iranian drone or missile reportedly hit a UAE tanker setting it on fire.

In its latest threat to employ a devastating new weapon system against the US in response to Trump’s continued insistence to continue the war until Iran capitulates to US peace demands, Iran’s navy commander appeared to threaten the use of Iranian hypersonic cruise missiles and Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles against US carrier strike groups.

Iran has threatened to use a new weapon in the war against the US and Israeli forces, one of which the enemy forces are “deeply afraid of” and could give them a “heart attack”. The warning came after US President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a lift of the US blockade -- a plan that would also postpone discussions on Tehran’s nuclear program -- and decided to continue the US naval blockade near the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Navy Commander Rear Admiral Shahram Irani said the Islamic Republic will “very soon” confront the enemy forces with a weapon “it is deeply afraid of”, according to state-run Press TV. “And it is right next to them [too]... I hope they won’t have a heart attack,” he noted in reference to the weapon in question.

Trump retaliated by ordering the US Navy to sink six IRGC Navy missile boats just three days after he certified to Congress that his Iran War had been “terminated” proving that the war never ended and is now at sixty-six days and counting and is by definition an illegal war under the War Powers Act of 1973 because Congress has not authorized it. Needless to say, Trump’s indefinite cease-fire is now in shambles due in large part to his continuing blockade and his continued demand that Iran capitulate to his maximalist peace terms rather than negotiate a compromise peace agreement.

Yesterday, President Trump then warned that the Islamic Republic will be “blown off the face of the Earth” if U.S. vessels guiding ships through the Strait of Hormuz are attacked as the tenuous US-Iran cease-fire evaporated again implying a US nuclear first strike against Iran that would kill tens of millions of Iranian civilians. Trump’s latest veiled genocidal nuclear threat echoed the one he issued a month ago in which he threatened to destroy Iran’s entire civilization in a single night, something he could only accomplish with the use of a significant number of US nuclear weapons utilized against Iran’s largest cities including Tehran. The fact that Trump continues to threaten to start a nuclear war against a nation he continues to claim he defeated on the first day of the war that he alleges has no remaining military capability to attack anyone let alone defend itself should give us a clue as to how badly this war is going for the US.

The New York Post reported:

There are hundreds of ships from about 87 countries stuck in the Persian Gulf, with CENTCOM reaching out to neutral ships to help offer them safe passage. It remains to be seen how many foreign ships take up CENTCOM’s offer to move through the strait, after a South Korean-used carrier reported an explosion and fire onboard when it attempted to cross the waterway. The HMM Namu suffered a blast early Monday, with fire breaking out in the engine room of the Panama-flagged cargo ship, South Korea’s foreign ministry said. Along with the South Korean ship, a United Arab Emirates oil tanker was targeted by an Iranian drone as it tried to cross the strait and caught fire, Abu Dhabi officials said.

On May 5^th, in yet another attempt to avoid subjecting Trump’s failed war in Iran to a congressional vote, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told reporters the effort to guide commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz was temporary and “separate and distinct” from the ongoing Operation Epic Fury, despite the fact US forces sunk six Iranian missile boats. Hegseth also said the operation was temporary and that the U.S. intended to hand over the responsibility for the waterway to other countries.

In breaking news this afternoon, President Trump announced a pause on the U.S. operation Project Freedom, after it had been going on for just one day, based on a request from Pakistan and other countries but added that the U.S. Navy blockade of ships in the Strait of Hormuz will remain in place on the same day that Secretary Rubio announced the war is over. It only took two days for this new Trump initiative to fail and be suspended, perhaps permanently.

The Hill reported further on this development:

The halt of the U.S.-led effort to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which began early Monday, comes as Iranian armed forces have fired drones and missiles at U.S. military assets in the region and the U.S military has retaliated, sinking six Iranian small boats. Earlier on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire is holding but emphasized that Project Freedom is a temporary defense effort to reignite the shipping through the strait, which has been effectively choked off for weeks by Iran. “This is separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury,” Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon, while later in the day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told journalists at the White House that Operation Epic Fury is over.

This move suggests Trump is anxious to avert further naval clashes with Iran that could cause this war to escalate with hundreds of US military deaths and sunk US Navy warships and potentially continue indefinitely serving to ensure a US and global recession and an even more humiliating strategic defeat for the US. That said, Trump has a long history of claiming he is very close to a peace agreement with Iran when in fact little to no progress has been made and this instance is likely no exception. Accordingly, if the two sides are any closer to an agreement it is likely for only one reason which is that Trump is making concessions not Iran.

What is more likely is that, contrary to Trump’s claims, no progress in negotiations have been made and that Trump panicked when he realized Iranian hypersonic anti-ship missiles could send our Arleigh Burke-class destroyers—the USS Mason and the USS Truxton—that have reportedly sailed through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf to the bottom of sea with the loss of hundreds of their crew members. It is very possible that Iran allowed the destroyers into the Gulf to entrap them with its threats to fire its hypersonic anti-ship missiles or perhaps even anti-ship combat drone swarms on them deemed credible by US intelligence. While I commend the president for suspending this very risky operation, he still needs to agree to a joint lifting of the US naval blockade in exchange for Iran re-opening the Strait of Hormuz so peace negotiations can resume.

As I reported in my previous article, On May 7th, President Trump is expected to be briefed by CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper on military options in case he decides to escalate his kinetic military campaign against Iran following his decision to sink six IRGC Navy missile boats on May 4th since his indefinite US naval blockade does not seem to be effective in getting Iran to capitulate to the US maximalist nine-point peace demands.

What are the Root Causes of the US-Iran Conflict?

The biggest reason for the outbreak of the War in Iran is that it is the logical outgrowth of decades of US and Israeli imperialism and the influence of the US-Israeli lobby which has a greater stranglehold over US Middle East foreign policy than ever before in our history. Rather than a war of liberation, Trump has stated that the purpose of the war is to subject a nation of people he claims have “bad genetics” that give them a propensity to commit acts of violence to be a US vassal state. Trump has stated Iran is not allowed to pick a new Supreme Leader without his approval and he has repeatedly underscored his desire to take control of Iran’s rich oil resources. He has also said our goal is to devastate Iran do massively that they will never be able to rebuild as a nation ever again.

Three decades ago, Israel published a plan called the “Clean Break Doctrine” to overthrow enemy regimes in Iraq, Syria and Iran in order to establish unchallenged Israeli hegemony over the entire Middle East. In 1996 a task force, led by Richard Perle, produced a policy document titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” for Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then in his first term as Prime Minister of Israel, as a how-to manual on approaching regime change in the Middle East and for the destruction of the Oslo Accords.

The “Clean Break” policy document outlined these goals: The “Clean Break” policy document outlined these goals: 1) Destroying the Oslo Accords agreed upon by Arafat and Rabin in 1992 which called for a two-state solution and mutual cooperation, 2) Inducing the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. 3) Launching war against Syria after Saddam’s regime is disposed of 4) Followed by military action against Lebanon, and Iran. Bush invaded Iraq, Obama and Biden invaded Syria and now Trump is fighting a war against Iran that he has proposed be ended on the same timetable as Russia’s war with Ukraine which has lasted well over four years thus far. All these wars are being fought by the US on behalf of Israel in opposition to US national security interests and have made the US demonstrably less safe and secure.

One of the biggest reasons for the outbreak of the Iran war is that US leaders almost always conflate Israel’s national security interests with our own so they view any Iranian proxy attack on Israel as an Iranian aggression against us when US national security interests would be far better served in remaining neutral in Middle Eastern conflicts. The reason for this fallacy is that AIPAC largely controls virtually all Republican members of Congress and Congressional Democrats often vote to support US wars fought on behalf of Israel as well. It is the biggest and most influential foreign lobby in the US by far. America’s entangling alliance with Israel causes us to start wars in the Middle East in opposition to US national security interests.

Iran started a nuclear weapons program in 1990 in response to the US invasion of Iraq and obtained the technical ability to build nuclear weapons back in 2003. US leaders have been misled by Israel to believe that Iran would use their nuclear weapons on the US and Israel as soon as they developed them but that has proven false. Ultimately, the war in Ukraine, Iran and all our other wars in the Middle East have been imperial wars fought by the US to expand our liberal empire meaning that if we were not an empire and were still a peace-loving constitutional republic, we would never have fought them.

No Imminent Threat from Iran to Justify Trump’s Imperial War of Aggression

After the Iran War broke out, both the US Department of War and US intelligence confirmed that Iran had no plans to engage in any attacks against the US, our military bases or Israel except in response to direct US and Israeli military strikes on Iran. Accordingly, Iran posed no imminent threat. As I have written before, both President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed shortly after the war broke out that it was Israel, not Iran, that posed an imminent threat of attack. Rubio admitted that Trump was dragged into the war by Israel: “The President made the very wise decision, we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

Both Trump and Rubio have repeatedly implied that the US would not now be at war with Iran if Israel had not forced the US into the war. Both have admitted the US was dog walked by Netanyahu into this existential great power war because Israel told us they were going to attack Iran with or without us and they believed that Iran would respond with attacks on US military bases. So, in the name of preventing Iran from threatening our military bases from being attacked, Trump went to war with Iran, thus ensuring our military bases in the region would not just come under attack but would be totally destroyed and rendered unusable by Iran. All Trump had to do to prevent that was to tell Iran we were staying out of the war, so our military bases were at risk of being attacked by Iran after Israel attacked it.

Secretary of State and Interim National Security Advisor Marco Rubio has been designated to takeover the duties of the White House Press Secretary during Karoline Leavitt’s maternity leave presumably because he refuses to do his job as Secretary of State to meet with US adversaries and negotiate diplomatic peace agreements ending US forever wars in Iran and Ukraine.

As a longtime national security professional, I can say with confidence that Trump’s War on Iran makes absolutely no sense from a national security standpoint. However, we are told since Trump has all the intelligence and we don’t we are supposed to put our blind trust in him that he knows better than we do even though both US intelligence and the Pentagon have stated there was no evidence Iran had any plans to attack us. As far as Iran’s overall nuclear uranium enrichment program which they have used to produce an estimated 22,0000 pounds of Low Enriched Uranium, it has never been a major issue for US national security any more than mythical Iraqi chemical weapons were for us in the runup to Bush’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq in 2003. It is just being used as a poison pill by Israel and Israel First neocons to prevent a peace deal ending the Iran War from ever being signed.

The Iran War is the first great power war the US has fought against a near peer adversary since we fought Communist China in the Korean War. It’s also a proxy war with Russia and China and they are enthusiastically helping Iran kill US soldiers and destroy US military assets. Communist China is reportedly sending hundreds if not thousands of surface-to-air missiles to Iran while Russia is sending Iran a huge number of large, one-way attack drones which are upgraded versions of Shaheed attack drones Iran sent to Russia early on in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Russia and China are doing to the US what the US has been doing to Russia in Ukraine which is to maximize US military casualties in the event Trump decides to reject Iranian peace demands and restart his unnecessary great power war with Iran.

For Iran, it is a war for independence against US and Iranian imperial aggression and conquest. It is potentially an existential war not just for Iran but also for the US and Israel because while we could destroy Iran with nuclear weapons, they could destroy Israel with their modest nuclear missile arsenal and destroy the US with a massive cyber or super Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack. As foreign policy realist scholar Dr. Robert Pape has stated, Trump’s War on Iran has proven to the greatest US military strategic debacle since at least the Vietnam War. The Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency testified to Congress this week that even after a 38-day bombing campaign Iran still has significant military capabilities including thousands of ballistic missiles and combat drones with which to threaten US military bases and our allies in the Middle East including Israel. Trump’s unnecessary great power war with Iran may yet prove the single greatest foreign policy mistake in US history. It could also destroy Trump’s presidential legacy and condemn the Republican Party to minority status for decades to come.

Trump Supporters Continue to Claim the Iran War is Not a War

White House propagandists and spin doctors are trying to reinvent history in an attempt to justify Trump’s unprovoked war of aggression against Iran by saying we have been “at war” with Iran for forty-seven years. During a Fox News interview on March 3^rd, Senator Tom Cotton, who serves as the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee claimed made the patently ridiculous claim that “Iran has posed an imminent risk to the United States for forty-seven years.” If Iran, indeed, posed an imminent threat to the US during the past near half century and has been weeks or months away from obtaining a nuclear weapon for the past thirty years, why has Iran not directly attacked the US or our military bases except in direct response to our direct attacks on them?

If you were to ask Americans a year ago whether we were at war with Iran, they would have looked at you like you were from another planet. One Trump official explained the disconnect by stating the US has not considered itself at war with Iran, but Iran has considered itself at war with us during this entire period. While it’s true that Iran’s proxies have killed 992 US citizens over the past half century, that equates to twenty-one a year and, prior to Trump launching an unprovoked war of aggression against Iran, it had only killed three Americans during the last fifteen years in part because they were afraid of Trump. The truth is that, contrary to the White House’s claim that Iran has been acting as an out-of-control rogue aggressor state, Iran was in fact effectively deterred before the war and there is no evidence that it has ever plotted direct attacks on the US and there was certainly no imminent threat.

Iran War apologists claim that Trump had to fight a protracted war against Iran to end what they claim has been its forty-seven year on the US during which Iran’s proxies have killed 992 Americans which equates to an average of twenty-one US citizens a year even though Iranian proxies killed only three Americans in the past fifteen years, an assertion that seems very disingenuous. The same Trump partisans that claim Iran has been fighting “a war” against the US for nearly half a decade continue to claim that Trump’s unwinnable, forever war of lies against Iran in which the US and Israel killed nearly twice as many Iranians civilians and wounded tens of thousands more in the first five to six weeks as Americans were killed in nearly half a century is not a war at all.

We also killed fifty top Iranian leaders and bombed their civilian infrastructure the people need to survive and struck over 13,000 Iranian targets during Trump’s special military operation. Wikipedia defines the term “war” as a state of “armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organized groups.” Clearly, the Iran war meets that textbook definition.

When Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor causing much less damage than the US has caused to Iran, clearly US leaders thought it was a war because every member of Congress but one declared war on Imperial Japan. So, the idea that this is not a war is ridiculous. If Iran had sunk most of the US Fifth Fleet in a surprise attack or had killed President Trump, much of the First Family and half of our Cabinet members, I am quite sure that Trump supporters would consider it to be a war which we had to massively retaliate against showing how hypocritical their position is.

Trump Subordinates US Military to Israel to Fight Its Wars

Trump’s former Director of the National Counter Intelligence Center Joe Kent has stated, Israeli intelligence tricked President Trump into starting a new forever war on Iran anyway even though Trump knew Iran posed no imminent threat in the belief that a US military victory over Iran would be quick and easy.

Salon reported on Kent’s scathing criticisms of Israel in deceiving President Trump to go to war against Iran.

“After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today,” Kent wrote. “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel.” Kent praised Trump for his previous stance against new wars in the Middle East. He said that Trump campaigned on the idea that “wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth… of our nation.” Kent noted a shift in Trump’s second term, saying that “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign” that pushed the idea that a war with Iran was necessary. “[An] echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States,” he wrote to Trump. “This was a lie.” “As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and a Gold Star husband…I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people,” he wrote. “I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for.”

As Thomas Friedman revealed in a New York Times article last year, entitled “Israel is not our ally,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been manipulating President Trump to start a new regional war with Iran and look the other way as he ethnically cleanses Gaza border regions to prepare for Israeli resettlement. It’s not anti-Israeli to say that. It’s pro-Israel to point that out because Netanyahu is acting against Israel’s national security interests of achieving peace, stability and security in so doing. I am a lifelong supporter of the State of Israel’s right to exist and its legitimate right of self-defense but like Friedman I strongly oppose Netanyahu’s mass murder of 58,000 Gazan civilians and his destruction of 92 percent of Gazan homes.

“Let’s stop beating around the bush: Israel’s far-right government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is spitting in America’s face and telling us it’s raining. It’s not raining. Bibi is playing President Donald Trump and American Jews for fools. And if the U.S. lets him get away with it, we are fools. While keeping Trump focused on the Iranian missile and nuclear threat — which, though reduced, is still very real and will have to be dealt with diplomatically or militarily — Bibi is fundamentally threatening broader U.S. interests in the Middle East, not to mention the security of Jews all over the world. In what way? I cannot put it any more succinctly than Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister, did.

“A violent and criminal effort is underway to ethnically cleanse territories in the West Bank,” he wrote in an essay in Haaretz this month. “Gangs of armed settlers persecute, harm, wound and even kill Palestinians living there. The rampages include burning olive groves, houses and cars; breaking into homes; and physically assaulting people.” He continued, “The rioters, the Jewish terrorists, storm Palestinians with hate and violence with one objective: to force them to flee from their homes. All this is done in the hopes that the land will then be prepared for Jewish settlement, en route to realizing the dream of annexing all the territories.” Israel’s accelerating attempts toward annexation of the West Bank and to permanently remain in the Gaza Strip — and deny Palestinians political rights in both areas — are as morally reckless and demographically insane as would be the U.S. annexing Mexico.”

On April 13^th, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that the Trump administration reports directly to him on a daily basis about Iran. Netanyahu says JD Vance reported every single detail of the peace talks to him. “He reported to me in detail, as members of this administration do every day.” If Netanyahu’s boast that President Trump, Vice President Vance and other senior cabinet members report to him daily is correct, than that would suggest that Trump and Vance are his subordinates.

Sen. Rand Paul noted during the 2016 Republican presidential primary debates, former President George W. Bush employed the US military as little more than an arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps while he spent eight years fighting a war to transform Iraq from a secular republic into an Iranian vassal state and Islamist republic that cost the lives of tens of thousands of US lives including war-related suicides. Now, President Donald Trump is subordinating the US military to Israel to further its expansionary designs against Iran rather than advance US national security interests, risking the lives of millions of Americans for no good reason in the process.

The question is why does the US allow a country 444 times smaller than us to control our President and government? As John Harrington famously stated, “Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.” Trump proved what a weak and cowardly president he is by refusing to stand up to Zelensky or Netanyahu and keep his promise to end America’s forever wars, not start new ones. No previous US president was weak or foolhardy enough to give in to Israel’s demand the US start an unwinnable, strategically and morally bankrupt war with Iran, just Trump.

Has the White House Become Israeli-Occupied Territory?

Decades ago, renowned foreign policy realist scholars Dr. John Mearscheimer and Dr. Steven Walt wrote a book called “The Israeli Lobby” that described Israel’s pervasive influence in controlling every aspect of US Middle East foreign policy. Three-time Republican presidential candidate, Patrick Buchanan, who served as President Ronald Reagan’s Press Secretary successfully defeated Donld Trump in his bid for the 2000 Reform Party presidential nomination. Fifteen years later, Trump adopted Buchanan’s entire America First conservative agenda from support for fair trade, opposition to illegal immigration and opposition to no-win forever wars in the Middle East to successfully get elected President of the United States.

Buchanan famously quipped during a June 15^th, 1990, appearance on The McLaughlin Group: “Capitol Hill is Israeli occupied territory.” He explained it referred to the pro-Israel lobby as one of the most powerful in Washington, influencing Congress on US aid decisions in ways not always aligned with American national interests. In the context of the Gulf War, on August 26, 1990, Buchanan appeared on The McLaughlin Group and said: “there are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the Middle East – the Israeli defense ministry and its ‘amen corner’ in the United States.” He also said: “The Israelis want this war desperately because they want the United States to destroy the Iraqi war machine. They want us to finish them off. They don’t care about our relations with the Arab world.”

Many America First conservative Trump voters like me believe that the White House has become “Israeli-occupied territory” based on what we have witnessed Trump do at Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s request in launching an unnecessary war in opposition to US national security interests over two months ago. President Trump has been acting as if he is an Israeli-puppet president and has transformed the US into an Israeli vassal state with his two US wars on Iran fought in opposition to US interests.

The New York Times revealed that on February 11^th, Israeli Prime Minister briefed President Trump in the situation room along with the head of Israeli intelligence who some have joked took up residence at the White House for month trying to sell Trump to join Israel in a massive bombing campaign of Iran. Following the briefing, Trump met with his top Cabinet officials and a chaotic discussion followed in which only Secretary of War Pete Hegseth seemed to agree with the Israeli leaders in claiming the war would be fast, low-risk and an unqualified US military success leading to the overthrow of Iran’s Islamist regime.

Yet the following day, Trump said, “let’s do it” and ordered the US military to prepare to wage a regional war with Iran beginning on February 28th. Ironically, that was the one-year anniversary of when he and Vice President JD Vance chewed out Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for accusing Trump of parroting Russian talking points. On that day, Trump put America First and unceremoniously kicking Zelensky out of the Oval Office but on this occasion, he clearly put Israel First and did the bidding of a foreign head of state in contravention to US national security interests. That just shows how far Trump has fallen from being a courageous America First peace president a year ago to being an easily manipulated Israel First/America Last neocon warmonger president today.

Remember the USS Liberty!

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which FDR denounced as an unprovoked sneak attack and ‘Day of Infamy,’ FDR published war propaganda posters calling on Americans to “Remember Pearl Harbor” to encourage them to volunteer to support the war effort. But few Americans realize that Israel conducted a similar sneak attack against the USS Liberty, a US Navy surveillance ship operating in the Mediterranean Sea, much more recently on June 8, 1967.

For those who claim Israel is a US ally, think again. Israel killed 34 US sailors and wounded 171 more in their attempt to sink the USS Liberty to prevent the international community from finding out they were executing Egyptian Army POWs during the Six Day War. LBJ responded by canceling the orders of Vice Admiral William Martin, commander of the US Navy’s 6th Fleet to shoot down attacking Israeli strike aircraft to save the US Navy ship and spare our sailors from being killed or wounded in successive Israeli airstrikes and torpedo boat attacks. The combined air and sea attack lasted twenty-three minutes and was carried out by air strafing and napalm bombing by four Mirage III and Super Mystères fighters, and gunfire and torpedo launches from the motor boats, one of which impacted the ship.

If any other country but Israel had tried to sink a US Navy ship, we would have retaliated in kind with maximum force. But President Lyndon B. Johnson engaged in a massive coverup and refused to do anything to respond to this Israeli sneak attack because the Israelis threatened to make public the evidence of all his extramarital affairs. Thomas Hinman Moorer, the 7th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused Johnson of having covered up the fact that the attack was a deliberate act. In 2004, Ward Boston, who served as chief counsel to the Naval Board of Inquiry that investigated the attack, signed an affidavit stating that President Johnson and secretary of defense Robert McNamara had ordered that the assault be ruled an accident and to reach the conclusion “that the attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity’ despite ‘overwhelming evidence to the contrary.’”

Israel is one of the top two or three espionage threats against the US and sells all our most advanced military technology to Communist China. Israel is blackmailing our President into doing its bidding over the Epstein Files. It has bought up most of his Cabinet and virtually the entire congressional GOP caucus to fight its wars at the cost of thousands of our brave US military servicemembers killed in action and trillions of dollars in opposition to US national security interests.

Iran War apologists say Trump had to start a forever war with Iran in February because they took 52 of our Embassy personnel hostages in 1979 claiming we have been “at war” with Iran for 47 years even though we have never directly fought them before and in response to their regime’s killing of thousands of Iranian protesters. Unlike Israel which engaged in an unprovoked sneak attack against one our US Navy ships in an attempt to sink it, killing or wounding over 200 of our brave US Navy sailors in the process, Iran has never directly attacked US military bases except in direct response to us attacking them. So why aren’t Iran War supporters calling on Trump to bomb Israel since by their reasoning we have been “at war” with Israel for the past 59 years?

Israel has acted as a rogue state often engaging in unprovoked attacks on its neighbors and employing mass terror bombing strikes to kill over 58,000 innocent Gazan civilians including 20,000 children. Yet Iran war enthusiasts want us to believe the lie that Iran is the real threat to the US and the real rogue terror regime, not Israel. On the 250th anniversary of our independence, Trump needs to declare America’s independence from Israel once and for all by ending his unjust and unprovoked war against Iran, forcing AIPAC members to register as foreign agents and permanently cutting all US security assistance to war criminal Bibi Netanyahu’s rogue regime. If there is one regime that is in the US national security interest to overthrow it would certainly be his.

It’s Time for the US to End Our Alliance with Israel and Stop Fighting Their Wars

Just as US leaders would never have considered wasting $350 billion to send to Ukraine to prolong its war with Russia if the US had not been a NATO member state, if the US were not an Israeli ally, we would never have fought the wars in Iraq, Syria and now Iran which cost trillions of dollars and cost the lives of thousands of US soldiers. Indeed, there is a very good chance that Al Queda would never have attacked the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 if the US had not spent the previous decades supporting Israel militarily meaning the US would not have had to fight the War on Global Terror at all. Americans are always lectured about the supposed benefits of our entangling alliances with NATO and Israel but are never informed of the costs. As I stated during my interview with Afshin Rattansi on Going Underground on April 30^th, the solution to preventing the US from fighting what Trump rightly denounced as “stupid wars” in the Middle East is very simple:

“The war on Iran has show the extreme necessity for the US to cut off all security assistance to Israel.’ ‘I think that it’s been said that we need to divorce ourselves from Israel. I think that’s true. I think we need to end our alliance with Israel. I think if the US were a bonafide neutral power in the region, with regards to the ongoing Israeli-Iran military disputes, I think we can accomplish a lot more. Iran, much like Russia, is essentially a manufactured enemy… President Trump is principally to blame, not Benjamin Netanyahu, because he is, after all, the President of the United States, one of the top three nuclear superpowers in the world. And he should show a degree of independence from Netanyahu and put America first. But instead, he chose to put Israel first and America’s national security last by starting this regional war of aggression against Iran.”

Netanyahu continues to lobby Trump to continue the war against Iran and resume bombing strikes on Iranian targets hoping to use US military servicemembers as cannon fodder in his continuing war against Iran much as NATO leaders have been using Ukrainians, over a million of whom have since died in battle, as cannon fodder in a failed attempt to weaken Russia economically and militarily. Many of Iran’s hardline Islamist leaders seem more than happy to see Trump trash the cease-fire deal and kill thousands or even tens of thousands of US soldiers if that is what Trump really wants. The question is whether Trump will prove foolish enough to fall into Netanyahu’s trap to restart the war. If he does, the political and economic cost to Trump’s presidency is going to be prohibitive and he may not get another chance to end the war before a Democrat Congress defunds the war early next year and impeaches and possibly even removes him from office. If he opts for a ground invasion of Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf, it could cost the lives of thousands of brave US military servicemembers at the cost of trillions of dollars causing him to be remembered by history as a failed president.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published by the end of 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

March 30th—Interview with Dr. Maria on the Dr. Maria show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s Operation Epic Fiasco and Iran War debacle and how the war risks escalating into a forever war with the chances of it escalating to World War Three increasing the longer it goes on.

March 31st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss Trump’s Neocon Deep State War on Iran, why the US is losing the war and what Trump needs to do to end it quickly to minimize US military, economic and political losses.

April 3rd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on “The National Security Hour” to discuss Trump’s great power war with Iran that is threatening to escalate to World War Three and how it has proven a strategic, military, economic and political debacle for him.

April 8th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran “back into the stone ages where they belong” and destroy Iran’s civilization in one night seeming to imply the use of nuclear weapons to kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 10th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on Lindell TV to discuss what happens if Iran doesn’t meet Trump’s ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday night and whether Trump’s threat is serious or a bluff which he has no intention of carrying out.

April 10th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran back into the stone age and the ramifications of him threatening to target and destroy Iran’s electrical power plants and potentially kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 21st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss the latest news relating to Trump’s Great power war with Iran and his ongoing attempts to start World War III in flagrant violation of his campaign pledges to prevent the outbreak of a Third World War.

April 21st—Interview with Pascal Lottaz on his “Neutrality Studies” podcast to discuss the ramifications of Trump’s unwinnable great power war against Iran for the US and the world, Trump’s plans for escalation and the prospects for peace before it escalates to World War Three.

April 23rd—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast. We will discuss Trump’s indefinite cease-fire with Iran and continued blockade and whether Iran will succeed in getting Trump to capitulate to Iran’s peace terms.

April 29th—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to break off in person peace negotiations with Iran and Iran’s response in refusing to limit its nuclear program so long as the US naval blockade continues.

April 30th—Interview with Afshin Rattansi on his Going Underground TV show which is broadcast on RT to discuss the state of Trump’s unjust war of aggression against Iran. We will talk about whether Trump is likely to escalate or de-escalate the conflict as well as the ramifications for the war in terms of transforming Iran into a new regional great power/hegemon of the Persian Gulf.

Upcoming Interview

May 6th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to cut off peace talks with Iran and conduct an indefinite blockade of Iran until they ‘cry uncle’ and his statement that the war on Iran should be ended on the same timetable as the war in Ukraine.

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The USS Abraham Lincoln operating in the Arabian Sea. This US aircraft carrier has been the flagship of US naval operations including the current US naval blockade since the Iran war began. I have jokingly speculated that when President Trump is ready to declare victory he should land on the carrier and give a ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech like Bush did in May 2003 prematurely announcing victory in his Iraq war that lasted over eight more years. The difference of course would be that Trump would actually be declaring an end to Operation Epic Fury, not merely beginning a new phase of the war.

Tuesday marked the two-month anniversary since President Donald Trump took the US into an unwinnable war on Iran. President Donald Trump has claimed Iran has told him it’s in a “state of collapse” and wants the U.S. to open the Strait of Hormuz “as soon as possible” while they try to “figure out their leadership situation” without any evidence to support his claim. Since he was re-elected president promising to be a transformational peace president, Trump has bombed Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Nigeria and Ecuador. Trump ignored the advice of US intelligence officials warning him that the Iran war would be a disaster and refused to consult congress or conduct a public relations campaign to obtain public support for his illegal and unconstitutional war of aggression for which he has no strategy for victory. Since the war began, he has continued to sabotage peace talks in the hopes that Iran will capitulate to his maximalist demands. As a result, an end to the war, let alone some sort of illusive victory, remains nowhere in sight. The Iran War is set to become ‘a forever war’ and military quagmire as the War Powers Act’s 60-day limitation on US military action expires on Friday.

US Abandons First Round of Peace Talks Despite Major Iranian Concessions

On April 11^th, following a very substantive and productive marathon US-Iran peace negotiations lasting 21 hours, Israel Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu vetoed Vance’s peace deal in which Iran agreed to a five-year moratorium on nuclear enrichment and agreed to eliminate its entire HEU stockpile under US supervision. The next day, Trump abandoned peace negotiations and announced a US naval blockade against Iran. It was reported that Trump was considering limited military strikes on Iran in addition to the naval blockade he announced he begun the following day in what will undoubtedly be a failed attempt to pressure Iran to capitulate to US peace demands particularly regarding a 20-year moratorium on all Iranian nuclear uranium enrichment as well as surrendering Iran’s 1,000 HEU stockpile to the US.

Trump continues to threaten to kill millions of Iranian civilians by destroying their entire energy infrastructure. I voted for Trump because he promised to be an America First peace president not an America Last war president who blatantly violates the laws of God and man concerning war.

During an interview on Fox News on April 12^th, Trump stated:

“I could take out Iran in one day. In one hour, I could have their entire energy, everything, every one of their electric generating plants, which is a big deal. I hate to do it because if I do it, it takes you 10 years to rebuild. They’ll never be able to. And the other thing you take out are their bridges. I took out one just to show them.”

By ending negotiations with Iran after just one day, Trump has demonstrated he only wants peace with Iran on his maximalist terms, and he remains unwilling to compromise. The Korean and Vietnam Wars took two years to negotiate a peace deal, but Trump only allowed Vance to negotiate a single day and refused to give him the authority he needed to make a deal with Iran. If Trump wanted a peace deal with Iran, he could have authorized Vance to accept Iran’s prewar offer of no nukes, low enrichment, giving up their HEU stockpile to Russia and IAEA inspectors basically a JCPOA II agreement. Also, he could have agreed to Iran’s proposal to re-open the Strait with Iranian $1 per barrel tolls, dispensing with the US naval blockade.

As I feared, Trump did not give Vice President JD Vance any authority to negotiate on behalf of the US or Israel forcing him to call Trump twenty-one times in as many hours and Netanyahu at least once ensuring peace talks failed. If the vice president had been given full authority to negotiate on behalf of the United States, we would have a signed peace deal right now and the war would be officially over. Trump has proven to be the worst dealmaker in US history. This should have been an easy negotiation for him as Iran was willing to compromise.

On April 16^th, there appeared to be a major diplomatic breakthrough. President Trump succeeded in getting Netanyahu to agree to a temporary cease-fire with Lebanon which Iran had demanded as a pre-condition for talks. The next day, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X that the Strait of Hormuz was “completely open.” Trump claimed that a deal was at hand, leading the stock market to jump and the price of oil to fall. However, only a few hours after Araghchi proclaimed the strait open, Trump sabotaged the peace deal by closing it again, announcing that the U.S. would continue its own blockade of the strait “until such time as our transaction with Iran is 100% complete,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. On April 18th, Iran announced it was closing the Strait again because the US had violated the agreement by refusing to lift is naval blockade, and several ships were turned back. On April 19th, the USS Spruance, a US Navy destroyer, fired on an Iranian cargo ship, the M/V Touska, after it tried to run the US naval blockade, in the Arabian Sea, disabling its engine room. U.S. Marines from the 31^st Marine Expeditionary Unit, then boarded the ship and took control.

One of the main arguments offered up by Iran War apologists is that the main purpose of Trump’s war is to deny the PRC of its oil imports. However, Communist China only gets 13.4% of its oil from Iran not the 30-40% being claimed by neocon supporters of the war so the US naval blockade on Iran is not the big deal for the PRC that Iran War supporters are portraying it to be just as the loss of oil from Venezuela was not a big deal because China only got 6.7% of its oil from them.

The Iran Nuclear Enrichment ‘Poison Pill’ that is Preventing a Peace Deal to End the War

During an interview on April 13^th with Bret Bair on Fox News, Vice President JD Vance revealed that the US and Iran came very close to reaching a peace deal during their negotiations in Islamabad last weekend seeming to confirm the statement of Mario Naval on X.

Vice President JD Vance, speaking with Bret Baier on his Fox News show on Monday evening, said progress had been made and that there were “some good conversations” with Iran during talks in Pakistan over the weekend.

Operation Midnight Hammer was a US air and missile strike on three Iranian nuclear sites which President Donald Trump declared totally obliterated their nuclear weapons program in June making future negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program unnecessary. Eight months later, he claimed Iran was just two weeks from building an atomic bomb necessitating the US going to war against Iran a second time. But Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth rebutted Trump’s claim during his testimony to the House Armed Services Commitee yesterday stating that Iran’s nuclear program was never reconstituted but that we had to go to war against them because they never gave up their nuclear aspirations.

Iran made a much bigger concession in agreeing to five years of zero nuclear uranium enrichment than Trump and Vance led us to believe with their false claim that Iran had refused the US demand to commit to never build any nuclear weapons. It appeared we were on the verge of a just and lasting peace deal before Trump and Netanyahu ordered Vance to reject Iran’s surprisingly reasonable offer and end negotiations after only one day of trying. President Trump threw a temper tantrum over Iran agreeing to almost everything during US-Iran peace talks on April 11th except giving up low-level nuclear enrichment for peaceful purposes. All Trump had to do was re-sign the JCPOA and call it something different and the war would, in all likelihood, now be over. Instead, he has decided to blockade Chinese tankers coming in and out of the Strait of Hormuz which will cause a global economic recession that could lead to direct shooting war between the world’s two most powerful navies. Al Jezeera reported that Iran was willing to continue the talks the next day but the US decided to end the talks prematurely in an attempt to pressure Iran to agree to its “excessive” and “maximalist” demands outlined below.

The New York Times reported that:

During the peace negotiations in Islamabad over the weekend, the United States asked Iran for a 20-year suspension of uranium enrichment. The Iranians, in a formal response sent on Monday, said they would agree to up to five years, according to two senior Iranian officials and one U.S. official. Trump has rejected that offer, the U.S. official said. The official said the U.S. has also asked Iran to remove highly enriched uranium from the country, and the Iranians have insisted the fuel stays inside Iran. But they have offered to dilute it significantly, so that it could not be used to produce a nuclear weapon.

A spokesman for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps issued vague new threats on Iranian state media shortly after the U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz began. Sardar Mohseni, a spokesman for the IRGC, said Iran would “introduce new methods of warfare that opponents would have limited ability to counter.” It was not immediately clear what weapons he was referring to.

President Trump, talking to reporters at the White House, reiterated his threats to take military action against Cuba, calling it a “failing nation.” “We may stop by Cuba after we’re finished with this,” he said outside the Oval Office, referring to the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.

President Trump re-upped his threat to attack any Iranian ships that try to cross the Strait of Hormuz, though it’s unclear if the blockade he announced Sunday has officially begun. “Warning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea,” he wrote on Truth Social.

On April 21^st, it was reported that the United States has conveyed a “conditional willingness” to reduce a proposed moratorium on Iran’s uranium enrichment from 20 years to 10 years if Tehran provides “strong guarantees” it will not pursue nuclear weapons, two Pakistani government sources stated. Sources said Iran has agreed in principle to a Pakistani proposal for third-party monitoring of its nuclear program by four countries in coordination with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Former Director of Counterintelligence Joe Kent has stated that banning all Iranian nuclear enrichment was a poison pill inserted by Israeli agents into US-Iran negotiations to ensure they failed and ended in the outbreak of war with Iran. I have been saying the same thing. Ending Iranian low nuclear enrichment has never been a major issue for US national security any more than mythical Iraqi chemical weapons were for us in the runup to Bush’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq in 2003. We live in a world where the former Soviet Union, Communist China and North Korea had nuclear weapons for the past 33-77 years with not even one instance of these regimes which are more murderous and aggressive using nuclear weapons against their neighbors. There was never any reason to believe Iranian leaders, who have proven surprisingly rational and restrained over the past few years, would behave any differently because they aren’t suicidal. The bottom line is that the US-Israeli containment strategy for Iran was working before Trump abandoned it in June 2025. Iran was firmly “in the box” and was not attacking the US in any way just like Saddam was from 1991-2003 because they did not want to give Trump any pretext to attack them.

President Trump has claimed Iran would have nukes by now if he hadn’t gotten rid of the Joint Cooperative Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May 2018, but Iran sent 25,000 pounds of Low Enriched Uranium to Russia under the JCPOA that it could have enriched to weapons grade in accordance with the agreement which limited it to 660 pounds. While it is true that Iran likely violated the JCPOA to a limited extent, it is also likely that the JCPOA partially constrained Iran’s nuclear weapons program whereas since Trump abrogated the JCPOA they have had no such constraints. Accordingly, Trump’s claim that Iran would have built nukes by now had he not left the JCPOA has no basis in fact or reality. On April 29^th, the New York Times reported that since eight years ago when President Trump pulled out of a nuclear deal with Tehran, Iran has accumulated 22,000 pounds, or 11 tons, of enriched uranium enough for 100 atomic bombs. But the US has little idea where Iran is storing its enriched uranium which it likely has stored at dozens of underground sites throughout the country. The only hope that President Trump has to get rid of it is if Trump signs another nuclear peace deal but he keeps sabotaging his own attempts to end the war with a negotiated peace agreement.

Trump Rejects Latest Iranian Peace Proposal

Iran stated over a week ago that it would not agree to any peace negotiations with the US until the US naval blockade had been lifted citing numerous alleged violations of the cease-fire agreement by the US and Israel including the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, the seizure of an Iran oil tanker by US Marines and another one since. It has also cited 150 alleged Israeli violations of its April 16th cease-fire with Lebanon which was renewed for three weeks on April 23rd even though Trump publicly declared that Israel was “prohibited from bombing Lebanon” over ten days ago.

On April 24^th, it was reported that Iran’s Foreign Minister was being dispatched to Islamabad for talks. The Trump administration took that to mean that Iran was seeking a second round of talks and prepared to dispatch US Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff and his billionaire son-in-law Jared Kuchner who Iran rightly views as a representative of Israel not the US government to Islamabad despite the fact Iranian leaders have said repeatedly that they will not negotiate a peace agreement with anyone other than Vice President JD Vance. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did a victory lap for the White House during an interview on Fox News that day claiming that the US naval blockade had forced Iran back to the peace table. Leavitt even stated that America’s absentee Secretary of State Marco Rubio whose main job is to negotiate peace deals with foreign adversaries, but who has refused to negotiate peace agreements with Russian and Iranian officials since he took office might make a cameo appearance at peace talks if it appeared a peace deal was close to being signed.

Politico National Security Daily reported further on Leavitt’s statement on Friday:

Vice President JD VANCE, who led the last round of negotiations in Islamabad, will not be joining this time, Leavitt told reporters this morning. But Vance, along with Trump and Secretary of State MARCO RUBIO will be “on standby to fly to Pakistan if necessary,” she said. How’d another round of negotiations come about? Leavitt said “the Iranians reached out” to request the talks.

Once the Iranians heard that Vice President Vance was not being sent to Islamabad, despite the fact that they have repeatedly stated they will only negotiate a peace deal with him, they stated that Iran’s Foreign Minister would leave Islamabad before Witkoff and Kushner arrived. Trump responded by canceling the trip on Saturday morning stating that he was cancelling all future in-person negotiations with Iran due to the fact “there’s nothing to talk about” with them after many weeks of demanding Iran capitulate to US peace terms or face potential overwhelming new US bombing strikes. Iran then responded by stating that it would not negotiate any limits on its nuclear program until after the US naval blockade had been lifted and the US had signed a peace agreement ending the war.

Trump spent a few days considering Iran’s latest proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz—a plan in which they offered to immediately end the war and re-open the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the US ending its blockade of Iran’s ports, and guaranteeing neither the US or Israel attacked Iran again. Only then would US-Iran negotiations to resolve US concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program would resume. The White House said that while the Iranian plan was discussed during meeting in the Situation Room on April 27^th, the president believed the blockade was key to give up what he believes to be his main leverage over Iran to pressure it to accepting US peace terms, which Iran’s Foreign Minister condemned the same day as “excessive.” During an interview on Fox News on Sunday, Trump stated that he expected Iran’s oil industry to “explode” in “about three days” because of continued disruptions to exports under the blockade. It has now been over three days and Iran’s oil industries has not exploded and it never will unless the US attacks it.

At a press conference in the Oval Office yesterday, Trump formally rejected Iran’s offer to open the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the US lifting its naval blockade on Iran. Accordingly, there is no end in sight for the war in Iran and it is looking like it will prove to be a forever war after all just like I predicted with the war now two months in duration and counting. Iran then responded to Trump’s decision to cancel all in person peace negotiations with Iran by saying it would not negotiate any limits on its nuclear program until Trump ends his war of aggression against it including the US naval blockade. This is a recipe for a never-ending war which is what Trump campaigned against in three successive presidential elections. How long is Trump going to keep playing this stupid game before he gets serious about peace?

Vice President JD Vance, the best Vice President in modern history, and the courageous leader of the pro-peace America First conservatives in the Trump administration. Vance reportedly strongly opposed of Trump’s regime change wars against Venezuela and Iran causing the president to sideline him in future policy discussions for a time. He remains the best hope for Republicans to retain control of the White House in 2028 and take back control of our party from the neocon America Last Deep State that has hijacked control of President Trump and 99 percent of Republicans in Congress.

If Trump gave him the authority to do so, Vice President Vance could negotiate a great peace deal with Iran in a single day and put this Iran War mess in Trump’s rear-view mirror so our economy could begin to recover. Apparently, Trump doesn’t care about how badly his failed war on Iran has hurt the pocketbooks of working-class and middle-class Americans who got him re-elected president and is more concerned about presenting the illusion of victory. For a president who claims to be a great dealmaker, Trump has proven to be the worst dealmaker in US history. He keeps insisting on nothing less than total capitulation to US demands and ultimatums so he is never able to negotiate any peace deals to end our forever wars with Russia in Ukraine and with Iran in the Middle East that could escalate to World War Three.

Trump’s Forever War in Iran Could Last Well Over a Year

Last month, Politico has confirmed earlier reports that US Central Command has been tasked by the Department of Defense to plan for a seven month war against Iran instead of the seven-day war Trump initially planned for.

Politico reported:

U.S. Central Command, meanwhile, is asking the Pentagon to send more military intelligence officers to its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days but likely through September, according to a notification obtained by POLITICO. It’s the first known call for additional intelligence personnel for the Iran war by the administration, and a sign the Pentagon is already allocating funding for operations that may stretch long beyond President Donald Trump’s initial four-week timeline for the conflict.

The rush to add people and resources to support efforts that are often organized well in advance of U.S. military action highlights how the Trump team had not fully anticipated the wide fallout of the war it launched alongside Israel on Saturday. “What we’ve seen is a completely ad hoc operation where it appeared that nobody actually understood or believed that military action was imminent,” said Gerald Feierstein, a former senior U.S. diplomat who dealt with the Middle East. “It seems like they woke up on Saturday morning and decided that they were going to start a war.”

The U.S. executed a massive and multi-pronged operation with Israel that targeted Iranian security infrastructure and killed off the country’s supreme leader and other top officials. But American and Israeli officials have not yet articulated a clear end goal for the operation. Trump and his aides also have struggled to offer solid reasons why the strikes had to happen now. Iran has retaliated by firing on U.S. and other targets across the Middle East. At least six U.S. troops died at port in Kuwait, raising questions about whether their facility had been fortified well enough against the apparent drone strike. Some U.S. diplomatic facilities have also been struck, and concerns are rising that the U.S. and its Middle East allies could run low on munitions.

“It’s been a complete dereliction of duty,” said Jeffrey Feltman, a former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon who oversaw the evacuation of thousands of American citizens from that country in 2006. “Iran is a menace without question, but there was no imminent threat to us, and yet [Trump has] left thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Americans in harm’s way without planning how to get them out.”

On March 19^th, the White House announced plans to submit a request for a $200 billion Iran War supplemental appropriations request in addition to their $1.5 trillion Department of War budget request without providing any detail as to how they planned to spend that money. Yesterday, the Department of War’s Comptroller testified to the House Armed Services Committee that the war has only cost $25 billion in its first couple months so at that rate the $200 billion Iran war budgetary request could be expected to fund the Iran war for a total of sixteen months lasting until summer 2027.

Trump Declares an Indefinite Blockade of Iran and Threatens to Escalate His War on Iran

On April 24^th, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced the US will pursue an unrestricted naval war threatening to sink any IRGC Navy warships that were acting to restrict the passage of international shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. He stated, “President Trump has authorized the United States Navy to destroy any Iranian fast boats that attempt to put mines in the water or disrupt passage through the Strait of Hormuz—to shoot and kill.”

Trump’s plan appears to be to continue his naval blockade and forever war against Iran until its economy collapses seemingly not realizing he will be breaking the US and global economies in the process. Average US gasoline prices have already risen nearly forty-two percent per gallon since the war began.

On April 27^th, President Trump convened a closed-door meeting in the White House Situation Room with leading members of his foreign and security team to discuss the ongoing stalemate surrounding the Middle East conflict, according to Axios and as his Iran war crisis continues to spiral out of control. The purpose of the meeting was for the administration to discuss how to respond to Iran’s latest reiteration of its proposal to open the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a full suspension of the US naval blockade. The Jerusalem Post reported that during the meeting Trump concluded that maintaining the US naval blockade was less risky than walking away or restarting the conflict. He reportedly believes that Iran’s economy is weeks away from collapsing after which they will be forced to accept his maximalist peace terms.

US President Donald Trump told his aides to start prepping for an extended blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. In a Monday meeting, Trump pushed to continue applying economic pressure on Iran instead of deciding to restart the war with Iran or ending the ceasefire negotiations. He reportedly believed that maintaining the blockade was less risky than walking away or restarting the conflict. Separately, during a state dinner with Britain’s King Charles, Trump said that the US military was “doing well” in the Middle East. “We’re doing a little Middle East work right now, … and we’re doing very well,” Trump said.

While Trump sycophant Glenn Beck is claiming without any evidence that Iran has lost forty percent of its GDP since the blockade began, the International Monetary Fund tells a different story. It has estimated Iran’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will contract by about 6.1 percent by the end of the year with over 9 percent unemployment and 69% inflation a year if the US naval blockade continues. Those numbers are more than manageable for Iran to endure long-term.

Ukraine lost thirty percent of its GDP in the first year of its war with Russia alone and is still fighting over four years later. What makes US leaders think that Iran cannot absorb a similar reduction of its GDP from a protracted US naval blockade and keep fighting for years to come? It took Imperial Germany nearly four and a half years to surrender in the face of the British starvation blockade following the loss of one-third of its GDP. US leaders continue to fail to understand the thinking of Iranian leaders who are fighting not just a war for Iran’s independence but a war for Iran’s very existence against US and Israeli imperial aggression and conquest. With Russia, China, Pakistan and other Iranian friends and allies helping it circumvent the US naval blockade through land and rail imports and oil export routes as well as Iran sailing many of its tankers along Pakistani coastal waters to avert blockade, its likely Iran could endure a blockade of comparable duration.

President Donald Trump sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office where he has conducted two back to back press conferences taking questions on the status of his war in Iran over the past couple of days. Trump responded to a question about the impact of soaring gasoline costs that have increased by nearly fifty percent since the war began by claiming the cost of an Iranian nuclear weapon detonating would be higher the day after his Secretary of War testified to Congress that Iran’s nuclear weapons program remains obliterated.

At a press conference on April 29th, Trump was asked how long he was prepared to maintain the US naval blockade. He responded by stating “Well, the blockade is genius. Now, they have to cry uncle. ‘We give up.’ That’s all they have to do.” So, all Iran has to do to end the blockade is to surrender and capitulate to his maximalist peace terms including the elimination of its nuclear program. Given the fact that Iran will never surrender, that effectively means the blockade and the war are set to continue indefinitely breaking Trump’s promise to end America’s forever wars.

Meanwhile, Axios reports that U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has prepared a plan for a “short and powerful” wave of strikes on Iran in hopes of breaking the negotiating deadlock, three sources with knowledge said. But Trump hasn’t given an order yet to implement it. Axios reports that President Trump is scheduled to receive a briefing on new plans for potential military action in Iran from CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper on May 7th, signaling that Trump is seriously considering resuming major combat operations either to try to break the logjam in negotiations or to deliver a final blow before ending the war. Reportedly, three military options are being considered—First, “short and powerful” strikes on Iranian infrastructure including bridges, power plants and refineries designed to inflict maximum economic pain on the Iranian people; Second, a US military invasion and occupation of one or more Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf; and third sending US special forces to seize or destroy Iran’s stockpile of 1,000 pounds of Highly Enriched Uranium.

President Trump held a phone call yesterday that lasted nearly two hours with Russian President Vladimir Putin. During the call, Putin warned Trump of the “extremely dire consequences” for the region and the international community should the US and Israel restart offensive operations against Iran. Putin also warned that a ground operation against Iran would be “extremely dangerous and unacceptable.” Iran could respond to a tightening of the US naval blockade by striking or potentially even sinking up to three US carrier strike groups with thousands of antiship missiles including hypersonic ASBMs and cruise missiles. Hopefully, the US will not make good on Hagseth’s threat. If it does, the war with Iran will continue to escalate. Trump continues to act in self-defeating ways that serve to help ensure his sincere attempts to achieve a face-saving exit from Operation Epic Fiasco will be unsuccessful.

The International Business Times reported:

The Iranian regime has threatened “unprecedented military action” if the U.S. continues to stage a blockade of its ports, part of a broader strategy to choke its finances. Citing an unnamed official, Iranian state-run press said its leaders’ “patience has limits” and a continued blockade would warrant a “punishing response.” “The official warned that the enemy should soon expect a different kind of response,” the report added, without offering any additional details.

While Trump continues to falsely claim Iran is on the verge of total collapse, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khomeini issued a statement this morning vowing to protect Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities saying the only place Americans belong in Persian Gulf is ‘at the bottom of its waters. He also stated that Iran will keep the Strait of Hormuz and will never surrender.

Trump Must End America’s Alliances with Israel and NATO to Avoid a Potential Outbreak of a Third World War

Trump has threatened to halt Russian, Chinese, Indian and Pakistani ships that attempt to run the US Naval counter blockade. China has reacted harshly to Trump’s attempt to halt a Chinese ship as part of the US naval blockade saying that it was completely unacceptable. It’s not difficult to see how a US naval clash with these nuclear powers could escalate into a global war or even World War Three with one or more of these five allied nuclear powers including Iran. Unless Trump ends the war with a peace deal or with the US ending hostilities with Iran by pulling US military forces out of the conflict, Trump’s no-win forever war with Iran may yet escalate into a world war and be remembered as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done what no Israeli leader has ever accomplished in history which is to mislead a President of the United States into fighting an unwinnable war against Iran of potentially indefinite duration in flagrant violation of US national security interests.

The biggest lesson from this war for US policymakers is that the only way to prevent the US from getting bogged down in unwinnable forever wars in the Middle East is to break off our alliance with and cut off all US security assistance to Israel at least until it elects a more reasonable Prime Minister that does not act like a rogue state leader bombing and invading Israel’s neighbors at will and conducting mass terror bombing strikes to kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians. America’s entangling alliances with NATO, Israel and Saudi Arabia have caused us to fight direct and indirect wars against nuclear powers. These wars have made the US less safe and secure than ever before in US history by threatening to provoke the destruction of the US homeland.

President Trump took a very positive step today when he threatened to pull thousands of US troops from Germany, Italy and Spain amid his ongoing spat with them over their opposition to his unprovoked war of aggression against Iran. In 2020, Trump announced plans to withdraw 12,000 US troops from Germany but did not act to withdraw them after he lost his re-election bid that year. CNN reports that there are nearly 53,000 US troops deployed in these three countries out of a total of 84,000 in Europe today. Thus, up to sixty-three percent of US troops could be affected by Trump’s decision to pull them out.

A spat between the US and Germany has reached new heights, with US President Donald Trump threatening to pull some American troops from the country amid disagreements about the US-led campaign in Iran. “The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Wednesday night. On Thursday, he expanded his threat to Italy and Spain. “I mean, they haven’t been exactly on board,” Trump answered, when asked about the possibility of cuts to troop levels in the two countries. “Yeah, probably will,” Trump added, “Why shouldn’t I? Italy has not been of any help. Spain has been horrible. Absolutely.” It comes as Europe and Washington have been at odds over the US’ approach to the war with Iran. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz drew Trump’s wrath this week for comments he made on Monday, in which he said the US was being “humiliated” by Iran and criticized the administration for not having an effective strategy to end the war. Trump in return has threatened to reconsider the US’ NATO membership and has referred to the military alliance as a “paper tiger.”

Were President Trump to follow through on his threat to pull the US out of the NATO alliance, it would go a long way to re-establishing his America First conservative credentials after his failed, unnecessary America Last great power war with Iran. US membership in the obsolete NATO alliance is the very embodiment of America’s liberal empire so if Trump were to throw it into the dustbin of history where it belongs, he could move forward with his longtime plan to forge a strategic partnership with Russia to counter Communist China. Trump’s plan to occupy Greenland was the one US military operation I totally supported. Its a war we could have won in a few days with no casualties. Trump could have been the president that made the US the second largest country in the world. Instead, he unconditionally surrendered to tiny Denmark and started an unwinnable war with a nuclear-armed great power in the Middle East.

If Vice President JD Vance succeeds in negotiating a peace deal with Iran in the coming days or weeks, Trump should send him to Moscow to negotiate a bilateral agreement ending NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine which he could do in a few days if he was given plenipotentiary powers by Trump to negotiate on behalf of the US. Then, he could return to being an America First peace president especially if he were to withdraw all US troops from Europe or even withdraw the US from its membership in the NATO alliance altogether.

Trump’s War on Iran Violates The War Powers Act

The Iran War has been illegal and unconstitutional from the start under US law because it does not fall under the self-defense exemption of the War Powers Act which allows the president to engage in offensive military action for up to sixty days without specific congressional authorization providing that it is undertaken in response to “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces,” neither of which was the case here. The War Powers Act specifically forbids US military forces from remaining deployed in a theater of war after sixty days unless the president certifies he requires up to thirty additional days to withdraw US forces from the military conflict. That is obviously not the case as President Trump continues to surge half our deployed USAF and US Navy forces to the Middle East and tens of thousands of additional US troops in preparation for a potential escalation of his unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth who has proven to be the worst Pentagon chief in modern history having encouraged President Trump lead us into an Iran War quagmire from which he has been unable to extricate the US over the past couple months with no end to the war in sight. While claiming to be a Christian, Hagseth has reportedly ordered US Central Command to bomb numerous Iranian civilian targets but thankfully his illegal orders to commit war crimes were rejected by US military commanders trained to adhere to the the Uniform Code of Military Justice and international law.

Politico’s National Security Daily reported today that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth took the position during his Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today that the April 7^th cease-fire has paused the clock on the requirement to obtain congressional authorization for the war or else withdraw US troops from the conflict.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested today the war with Iran could carry on indefinitely without congressional authorization because of the ceasefire between Iran and the U.S., our own Leo Shane III and Connor O’Brien report. “We are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses, or stops, in a ceasefire,” said Hegseth, referring to the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which requires withdrawal of U.S. troops within 60 days from foreign military activity unless lawmakers give their green light. The administration notified Congress of the war March 2. Hegseth was speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Democrats immediately objected, saying current law requires the White House to start withdrawing troops Friday or get congressional approval. “This is going to pose a really important legal question for the administration,” Sen. TIM KAINE (D-Va.) said to the Pentagon chief. “We have serious constitutional concerns here.” The Senate blocked a sixth war powers resolution to cut off military operations in Iran today, though Sen. SUSAN COLLINS (R-Maine) crossed party lines to vote to halt the conflict, Connor reports.

The Hill reports that five Republican Senators are considering voting against a congressional war authorization for President Trump to fight his war in Iran indefinitely. Such a measure would likely go down to defeat in the US House of Representatives as well. House Speaker Mike Johnson is claiming the war in Iran is “not a war” despite Trump calling it a war dozens of time and the claiming we have hit 13,000 Iranian targets and expended nearly half of our missile arsenal to try to avoid such an embarrassing defeat for President Trump.

Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) has so far been the only Senate Republican to vote with Democrats on war powers votes. A few others have signaled they may soon join him. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is working on a resolution to authorize the use of military force against Iran and might try to bring it to the Senate floor for a vote, even though many of her GOP colleagues would prefer it to remain shelved, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton has reported. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) warned last week that he might vote for a war powers resolution to block Trump’s unilateral authority. “At the 60-day mark, we need to know, ‘Are we in it for a longer term so you’re seeking an extension or do you have a strategy for exit?’” he said. Meanwhile, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has said she won’t support authorizing the war beyond two months. And Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said he’s speaking with his Republican colleagues about bringing a measure to the floor to authorize military force, as keeping with “the letter and the intent” of the War Powers Act is important to him.

So the good news is that there are a few Republicans in the US Senate like Sen. John Curtis (R-UT), Sen. Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Murkowski (R-AK) who have stated after the 60-day deadline which expires tomorrow, they will support an Iraq War Powers Resolution which mandates congressional authorization for any further offensive US military action. During the sixth vote to pass an Iran War resolution to prohibit Trump from continuing offensive military action against Iran, Sen. Collins flipped her vote to join Sen. Rand Paul and every Democrat but Sen. John Fetterman to support it. She cited the expiration of the 60-day deadline today as the reason she changed her vote.

Politico reported further on the rationale for her vote switch:

“I have said from the very beginning that the law is definitive that at 60 days, Congress has to either authorize or block the military hostilities,” Collins said ahead of the vote. “I’ve been pretty clear what I was going to do at that point.” Other GOP senators who indicated the 60-day mark would be problematic for them held off joining with Democrats on Thursday. One such Republican, Sen. John Curtis of Utah, said in a statement that he was “engaged in thoughtful discussion” on the path forward. But he also warned: “I will not support continued funding for the use of force without Congress weighing in.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, though, suggested to senators on Thursday that the ceasefire would effectively negate the 60-day clock. War powers advocates contend that’s not how the statute works and note the U.S. military is still blockading Iranian ports.

I have been predicting that GOP support for the war would dissipate over time. A similar war powers vote failed by just one vote in the House so if even one more House Republican supports it on the sixth vote it may pass forcing Trump to veto it.

How Trump Can End his War on Iran

Politico reported that Lt. General Ben Hodges, former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe stated at a Council on Foreign Relations event yesterday, “The administration thought that they could accomplish in Iran what they did in Venezuela and bring about the objective that they wanted just by taking out a leadership. This contributed to a terrible misunderstanding of how Iran might actually react.”

Since Trump started his unjust war on Iran, gas prices have risen by nearly 50 percent while the US national debt now exceeds 121% of GDP. Food prices are going up. Inflation is at a four year high. Mortgage rates are increasing and the US is teetering on the edge of an economic recession thanks to Trump’s foolish war and naval blockade against Iran. Earlier this year, Trump met with GOP congressional leaders and decided to campaign on everything Trump has done to ease the affordability crisis. Now, just three months later that message has been shattered by higher prices than anything US citizens experienced under the Biden administration. Republicans are going to get wiped out in the November midterm elections.

Reuters also reported that Trump’s war on Iran has become extremely unpopular with only a quarter of Americans supporting the war and making the US safer. Trump is reportedly well aware of the increasing political and economic costs he is paying for continuing the blockade and is facing enormous domestic pressure from congressional GOP leaders and others to end it to bring gas prices down and try to enable the US economy to recover to prevent the GOP from suffering massive losses in the November mid-term elections.

Opinion polls show the war is overwhelmingly unpopular with Americans. Only 26% of respondents in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week said the military campaign has been worth the costs, and only 25% said it has made the U.S. safer. Three people familiar with White House discussions in recent days have described Trump as keenly aware of the political price being paid by him and his party. Choking off the shipping that carries about 20% of the world’s crude oil has driven up energy costs worldwide and the price at U.S. gasoline pumps. Iran’s ability to disrupt commerce gives it powerful leverage against the United States and its allies. A decision to scale back the U.S. military presence in the region, paired with a mutual lifting of the blockade, would eventually bring down gasoline prices. A White House official described the domestic pressure on the president to wrap up the war as “enormous.”

President Trump has been considering his options for how to end his war in Iran over the past few days. Reuters reported yesterday that U.S. intelligence agencies are studying how Iran would respond if Trump were to follow the advise of his former National Counter Intelligence Center Director and declare a unilateral victory against Iran and potentially pull back from the war. This option would enable Trump to end his war on Iran immediately without the need for Iranian concurrence so hopefully this is an option that Trump is seriously considering. Iran has already offered to accept a mutual end to the competing US and Iranian blockades and open the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a US guarantee that the US and Israel would never attack Iran again.

U.S. intelligence agencies are studying how Iran would respond if President Donald Trump were to declare a unilateral victory in the two-month-old war that has killed thousands and become a political liability for the White House, two U.S. officials and a person familiar with the matter said. The intelligence community is analyzing the question along with others at the request of senior administration officials. The goal is to understand the implications of Trump potentially pulling back from a conflict that some officials and advisers worry could contribute to deep Republican losses at the midterm elections later this year, according to the sources. While no decision has been made - and Trump could easily ramp back up military operations - a quick de-escalation could ease political pressure on the president, even as it could leave behind an emboldened Iran that could eventually rebuild its nuclear and missile programs and threaten U.S. allies in the region.

On April 29^th, Politico’s National Security Daily reported on three options available to the White House including declaring victory and pulling US military forces out of the region, a joint lifting of both the US and Israeli blockades to resume peace talks and resuming the bombing campaign with no clear exit ramp to the fighting. The other option they did not mention would be for the US to continue its naval blockade until Iran gives up the fight which is the option Trump decided on yesterday.

NatSec Daily has been surveying the Washington national security hivemind for thoughts on what potential endgames there are now beyond just continuing in sort-of-ceasefire limbo, as talks continue to sputter. One option: Unilaterally declare victory. Intelligence agencies are studying how Iran would react if President DONALD TRUMP took this path, Reuters’ Erin Banco and Gram Slattery report. They report that U.S. intelligence predicted Iran would interpret it as a win if the U.S. withdrew forces from the region. If the U.S. maintained a troop presence, then Iran would likely see it as a negotiating tactic. Another approach: A mutual agreement to lift the twin U.S. and Iranian blockades of the Strait of Hormuz. ALI VAEZ, Iran director at the International Crisis Group, called this a deal to “blink at the same time” in the hopes that it could lead to broader negotiations. Still, Vaez acknowledged that the odds of returning to diplomacy as “pretty low at this point” given the intricacies required over Iran’s nuclear program and what to do with its stockpile of enriched uranium. And Iranians are showing “no sign” they’re contemplating that idea, he added.

The best option for Trump to pursue would be a combination of the first two options listed above which would be to declare victory and an end to the war while pulling US military forces out of the Persian Gulf region as part of a strategic redeployment in furtherance of his National Defense Strategy at the same time the US and Iran lift their respective naval blockades. That option would make a peace deal unnecessary though the US could still pursue a formal negotiated compromise peace agreement with no particular urgency over the next several months. Trump would also be wise to accept Iran’s April 11th nuclear offer, which is still on the table to suspend all nuclear enrichment for five years, dilute their Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) stockpile under US supervision and allow international inspectors to verify they don’t produce anymore HEU.

General Flynn’s and Joe Kent’s Peace Proposals

Both Trump’s former National Security Advisor Lt. General Mike Flynn (USA Ret.) and former his former Director of the National Counterintelligence Center, Joe Kent have shared some excellent ideas for how the president can extricate US military forces from the Iran War quagmire. On April 24^th in an X post, President Trump’s former National Security Advisor General Mike Flynn, who has proven to be a courageous America First patriot shared an excellent proposal on how the US could phase out its naval blockade, drastically reduce its military presence in the region and sign a Korean War style armistice leaving any conditions both sides cannot agree on for future negotiations while permanently ending the conflict. President Trump could spin such an agreement as a US military victory and a strategic reset pursuant to his National Defense Strategy published in January which calls for the US to deprioritize Europe and the Middle East, reposition US military forces to the Western Hemisphere and Western Pacific and transfer primary responsibility for the region to Israel.

LTG Michael Flynn, an America First patriot, war hero and foreign policy realist who served as President Trump’s National Security Advisor for just twenty-four days before Trump asked him to resign over the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. Obama officials like corrupt former FBI Director James Comey made him their number one target because he is incorruptible and they viewed him as a threat.

General Flynn’s Proposal to Extricate the US from Iran War

It has become very clear that the majority of Americans are not happy with the war with Iran and it is also clear the President is searching for an exit strategy to extricate ourselves from this war. How should we exit? The United States can easily exit its direct military involvement in this conflict by treating any drawdown as a deliberate, conditions-based success rather than a retreat. This is not wishful thinking. This idea aligns with how great powers have historically managed limited wars when core objectives are met or costs outweigh benefits. The key is timing, sequencing, and maintaining deterrence during any drawdown so adversaries (ie., Iran & its proxies) see it as strength, and not a weakness.

has made it clear that we are not in an open-ended war. The U.S. & Israeli strikes on Iran targeted nuclear sites, missile infrastructure, and leadership targets, including killing Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei. We accomplished our stated objectives. The rapid (tactical) degradation of Iranian capabilities caused severe damage but also caused an immediate (and somewhat unexpected) retaliation from Iran. Despite Iran paying a heavy price in infrastructure destruction, international isolation, and economic disruption, the regime has sustained control over their country. And unlike Afghanistan & Iraq, regime [change] was never a stated objective. This is not a Vietnam (helicopters out of Saigon) or Afghanistan (truck bomb at Abbey Gate) type scenario. There are no large U.S. combat formations trapped in endless occupation. Our exit is logistically straightforward.

1. Wind down the blockade.

2. Reduce carrier presence.

3. Shift advisory/support roles to partners who have a greater need for regional security and access.

4. Assess the factions remaining inside Iran and whether they require assistance and how that assistance can be delivered. So what? Adversaries test resolve while allies watch for abandonment. These dynamics must be understood. What next and are their viable paths?

1. Declare mission accomplished on core objectives and negotiate a favorable armistice. Keep the current talks going and bring in other participants as needed.

2. Maintain a light footprint in the region and hand off the “peace dividend” and reconstruction to multilateral forums (ie., the Gaza Board of Peace).

3. State that America is conducting a strategic reset and reprioritizing global demands (this is necessary anyway, does not mean defeat and could simply be stated by announcing a pivot). America doesn’t need the quagmire that the Middle East has been any longer. The real political losers were those that got us into AFG & Iraq in the first place. The U.S. is making a strategic calculation here to continue peace efforts but resetting for future opportunities and challenges. Are there Risks?

1. Iran will attempt to exploit as their win and our loss. To deter this, America must demonstrate that deterrence in the future is about capability and will (which Americans have in abundance if our vital interests are at risk) and not permanent presence.

2. Allied perception will cause uncertainty. The Israeli government and Gulf states will worry about abandonment. Simply reassure them w/ continuation of both security guarantees and arms flows tied to their own restraint.

3. On the domestic front, the NEOCON hawks will cry in their soup, while America First voices will cheer Trump’s deal making success. These are just some initial thoughts. Great powers throughout history involved in previous campaigns have exited limited wars when gains begin to diminish. A path clearly exists. Execution now depends on clear communications from the Trump administration that strength enabled America’s exit.

Yesterday, Joe Kent posted his winning formula in an X post for Trump to put America First again by declaring victory and pulling US military forces out of the Persian Gulf region.

Continuing the blockade puts far more pressure on us than on Iran. Iran has proven it can endure economic pain—it has been doing so since 1979. The blockade will not force Iran to abandon uranium enrichment, ballistic missiles, or its proxy networks. Instead, the blockade is hurting the American people and creating serious domestic pressure on POTUS: Gas prices will continue to rise as we head into the midterms, harming the working-class voters who overwhelmingly backed Trump and Republicans—putting GOP majorities in serious jeopardy.

Staging three carrier battle groups plus a massive buildup of airpower in CENTCOM to enforce the blockade is unsustainable—it hands an emboldened IRGC ample opportunities to strike U.S. forces and drag America back into war on Iran’s terms. The global fallout only increases the pressure on us, not Iran: Beyond the oil and gas crisis, the blockade is now triggering a global fertilizer shortage that will cause major food security crises and potential famines in vulnerable regions. The smarter path is clear: withdraw, declare victory, and use sanctions relief as our negotiating leverage with Iran. This resets the talks on our terms, avoids war, and prevents further escalation of the energy crisis at home and abroad.

Both peace proposals are outstanding and complimentary. I believe President Trump should take the best options from both and combine them together. Incidentally, we found out yesterday that the US is withdrawing the USS Gerald Ford from the Middle East back to the US for repairs after it suffered a devastating fire which raged for 30 hours that some reports suggested may have been started in an act of sabotage by disgruntled crew members following an unprecedented 309 day deployment to date which has led to insufficient food rations and record low morale. This will reduce the number of US aircraft carriers down to two amid reports that Trump may be preparing to order another aircraft carrier to the region to replace it in the next several weeks.

Conclusion

Deep State neocons led by White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have succeeded in a bloodless coup in taking over the Trump administration. When he came to office, President Donald Trump denounced the neocons vowing to end the wars and not start any new ones while putting America First. Now he’s become one of them, bombing and invading almost as many countries as George W. Bush while firing or sidelining top administration officials who question his increasing obsession with starting and fighting unnecessary, new regime change wars in flagrant violation of his campaign pledges. With his decision to start the biggest regional war America has fought since George W. Bush invaded Iraq twenty-three years ago, President Donald Trump appears to be doing everything he can to ensure a once in a generation epic wipeout of congressional Republicans in the November midterm elections.

President Trump’s decision to abandon the first round of talks and to cancel all in person direct or indirect peace talks with Iran leaves his commitment to a peaceful end to the war with Iran an open question. He seems quite comfortable with continuing the US naval blockade on Iran for the next few to several weeks in the hopes of strangling Iran’s economy and supposedly causing Iran’s oil pipelines to explode a claim that could not be accomplished without US kinetic military action. However, the rising cost of fuel, food and other essential goods in the US will likely cause Trump to suspend the blockade before Iran suspends theirs.

Just as I predicted it would, the Iran war has proven an unmitigated strategic, military and economic debacle which has served the regional and global strategic balance of power against the US. As Dr. Robert Pape has stated, Trump’s unwinnable, imperial great power war of aggression has turned Iran into a major world power with effective control of 20 percent of the world’s oil reserves.

In recent years, the conventional geopolitical wisdom has been that the world order was moving toward three centers of power: the United States, China and Russia. That view assumed that power derived primarily from economic scale and military capability. That assumption no longer holds. A fourth center of global power is quickly emerging — Iran — that does not rival those three nations economically or militarily. Instead, its newfound power derives from its control over the most important energy choke point in the global economy, the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iran war has emboldened China and exploded the myth of US military invincibility, proving conclusively that the US lacks the ability to win a war against China in the Western Pacific because it would be primarily an air, missile and naval war just like Trump’s war has been with Iran. The US lacks the ability to defeat a secondary great power like Iran and end its stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz due to Iran having thousands of antiship missiles holding the mightiest conventional navy in the world at bay with our carriers 1,000 kilometers away. So if we can’t defeat Iran, how can we be expected to defeat China which has nuclear superiority, theater naval superiority and theater nuclear supremacy over us with far more advanced hypersonic antiship missiles than the US has in their own backyard?

After Iran shot down a US F-15E Strike Eagle four weeks ago and a US Air Force Colonel was stranded behind enemy lines at risk of being taken hostage, Trump expressed fear of becoming another failed president like Jimmy Carter. But the more apt comparison between Trump and Carter is the massive spike in gas prices which is likely to hit $5 or even $6 in the coming months which is already causing major increases in food prices and the cost of living. Trump’s War Tax which has already caused gas prices to increase by nearly fifty percent since the war began and has resulted in a spike in food prices, inflation and the cost of living as well is causing Trump’s support to plummet even among Americans who voted to re-elect him in November 2024.

As I noted previously, contrary to Trump’s misleading claims, Iran’s regime and economy are nowhere near collapse but Trump’s polling numbers are with several polls showing him with approval ratings as low as thirty-three to thirty-four, which is less than any other modern-day president at this stage in their presidency. If Trump continues his self-defeating naval blockade of Iran for the next few months, it will likely cause a US and global recession. Then, he will be universally considered America’s worst modern-day president while the Republican Party is likely reduced to near-permanent minority status for the next generation.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published by the end of 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

March 30th—Interview with Dr. Maria on the Dr. Maria show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s Operation Epic Fiasco and Iran War debacle and how the war risks escalating into a forever war with the chances of it escalating to World War Three increasing the longer it goes on.

March 31st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss Trump’s Neocon Deep State War on Iran, why the US is losing the war and what Trump needs to do to end it quickly to minimize US military, economic and political losses.

April 3rd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on “The National Security Hour” to discuss Trump’s great power war with Iran that is threatening to escalate to World War Three and how it has proven a strategic, military, economic and political debacle for him.

April 8th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran “back into the stone ages where they belong” and destroy Iran’s civilization in one night seeming to imply the use of nuclear weapons to kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 10th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on Lindell TV to discuss what happens if Iran doesn’t meet Trump’s ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday night and whether Trump’s threat is serious or a bluff which he has no intention of carrying out.

April 10th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran back into the stone age and the ramifications of him threatening to target and destroy Iran’s electrical power plants and potentially kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 21st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss the latest news relating to Trump’s Great power war with Iran and his ongoing attempts to start World War III in flagrant violation of his campaign pledges to prevent the outbreak of a Third World War.

April 21st—Interview with Pascal Lottaz on his “Neutrality Studies” podcast to discuss the ramifications of Trump’s unwinnable great power war against Iran for the US and the world, Trump’s plans for escalation and the prospects for peace before it escalates to World War Three.

April 23rd—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast. We will discuss Trump’s indefinite cease-fire with Iran and continued blockade and whether Iran will succeed in getting Trump to capitulate to Iran’s peace terms.

April 29th—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to break off in person peace negotiations with Iran and Iran’s response in refusing to limit its nuclear program so long as the US naval blockade continues.

April 30th—Interview with Afshin Rattansi on his Going Underground TV show which is broadcast on RT to discuss the state of Trump’s unjust war of aggression against Iran. We will talk about whether Trump is likely to escalate or de-escalate the conflict as well as the ramifications for the war in terms of transforming Iran into a new regional great power/hegemon of the Persian Gulf.

Upcoming Interview

May 6th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to cut off peace talks with Iran and conduct an indefinite blockade of Iran until they ‘cry uncle’ and his statement that the war on Iran should be ended on the same timetable as the war in Ukraine.

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One of thousands of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp’s fast missile and drone attack boats which the US has termed Iran’s mosquito fleet. While most or all of Iran’s eleven major surface combatants have been sunk by the US Navy, these fast boats have proved more than sufficient to enforce Iran’s naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and can likely do so indefinitely until the US agrees to accept most of Iran’s peace terms.

Over the past few days, there had been conflicting reports as to whether Iran is planning to send a delegation to negotiate a peace deal with the US in Islamabad, Pakistan. Yesterday morning, Trump declared, “I expect to be bombing because I think that’s a better attitude to go in with.” However, the second round of US-Iran talks in Islamabad was thrown into serious doubt after Iran’s chief negotiator set stark conditions for participation. Parliament speaker Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf, a former IRGC Brigadier General whom Trump briefly touted as a potential future US-picked leader of Iran, posted on X early yesterday morning: “We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats,” adding that the Islamic Republic had been preparing “to reveal new cards on the battlefield.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, has stated that the US Naval blockade constitutes a major breach of the cease-fire and that negotiations may not take place until it is lifted. Iran has refused to send peace negotiators to meet with the US peace negotiation citing numerous US violations of the cease-fire agreement including the US naval blockade of Iran which it has denounced as an act of war as well as the US seizure of an Iranian tanker on Sunday evening after a US Navy destroyer fired 5-inch gun shells into its engine compartment. Tasnim News reported that Iran has formally notified the United States through Pakistani mediators that it will not attend Wednesday’s scheduled negotiations in Islamabad, with no timeline set for future rounds, according to Tasnim News Agency. The decision follows what Tehran describes as a pattern of American bad faith since the ceasefire framework was agreed upon. Iran has now concluded that returning to talks under these conditions would be a waste of time, as the U.S. is blocking any viable agreement.

CBS News reports on Iran’s continued rejection of Trump’s threats:

Iran’s mission to the U.N. said Tuesday it had sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council and the U.N. secretary-general demanding “a firm and unequivocal condemnation” of the U.S.’ seizure of an Iranian-flagged ship, “full accountability for those responsible, and the immediate and unconditional release of the vessel, its crew, and all those affected.” President Trump announced Sunday that U.S. forces fired on and seized the Iranian-flagged cargo vessel Touska because it tried to bypass the U.S.’ blockade of Iranian ports. Iran’s mission to the U.N. said the seizure “constitutes a grave breach of international law, a clear violation of the ceasefire, and an act of aggression marked by the hallmarks of piracy. Such reckless conduct directly endangers international navigation and undermines maritime safety and security.”

With apparently just hours to go before a two-week ceasefire ends between the U.S. and Iran, the country’s foreign minister is not backing down from accusations the U.S. has broken the ceasefire. “Blockading Iranian ports is an act of war and thus a violation of the ceasefire,” Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said on X. “Striking a commercial vessel and taking its crew hostage is an even greater violation.” Araghchi accused the U.S. of “bullying” Iran and said it “knows how to neutralize restrictions and “how to defend its interests.”

Yesterday morning, President Trump expressed skepticism about extending the ceasefire, warning that if an agreement is not reached before the deadline, ‘lots of bombs’ will start to detonate. Iran’s chief negotiator asserted that Tehran possesses ‘new cards on the battlefield’ that remain undisclosed. While the ceasefire, initiated on April 7, could potentially be extended if negotiations resume, Trump stated in a CNBC interview, ‘I don’t want to do that.’ He emphasized the urgency for Iran to engage in negotiations.

That afternoon, the White House stated that the Vice President had policy meetings scheduled at the White House that caused his delay while the Department of Homeland Security plane carrying US Special Enjoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and private businessman Jared Kushner had was in transit to Washington, DC instead of Islamabad. CNN is reporting that the White House had sent Iran a list of preconditions it wanted Iran to agree to before peace talks resumed and it had asked Pakistan to try to get Iran to respond but Iran never did. That combined with Iran’s decision not to agree to commit to meet with the US delegation caused Trump to cancel Vance’s trip.

Trump Issues an Indefinite Extension of the Cease-Fire in his Latest About-Face

Trump convened an emergency meeting with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and likely Secretary of State/National Security Advisor Marco Rubio at the White House after Iran peace talks were called off to discuss whether to extend the cease-fire or restart the Iran War as Iranian leaders continued to insist the US must suspend its naval blockade before peace talks resume. As it became clear no peace deal would be achieved before his 15-day cease-fire expired, President Trump announced he is extending the ceasefire in the war with Iran indefinitely “until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.” This despite previously saying he wouldn’t move the deadline, which was set to expire tonight, and would resume his bombing campaign against Iran after it expired.

Vice President Vance likely underscored the fact that the costs of restarting the war in terms of the damage to the US economy with surging gas prices and a major hit to the US stock market leading to a further collapse of Republican political support heading into the November mid-term elections would be too great. Mr. Trump earlier said he expects to “end up with a great deal” with Iran to end the war, arguing that Tehran has “no choice” but to join a new round of peace talks despite the regime insisting it has no plans to attend negotiations in Pakistan this week.

So, just as he did two-weeks ago, when he announced a 15-day cease-fire, yesterday proved to be TACO Tuesday! To be fair to Trump, it was reported that Trump was open to a 30-day or even six-week cease-fire before his 15-day cease-fire was announced a couple weeks ago to provide time for the two great power to negotiate a peace agreement formally ending the war. To be clear, there is no evidence of any fracture whatsoever within Iran’s senior political and military leadership. They are speaking with one voice. Israel killed off all of Iran’s moderates and is doing everything it can to ensure Iran will never make a deal with the US so we will have to continue fighting Trump’s war against Iran indefinitely so Iran’s new leaders are IRGC or IRGC aligned to the last man. The idea being advanced by some neocons that Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is some kind of moderate willing to cave to Trumps demands after we murdered his entire family is ludicrous.

It is Trump’s mind that has proven fractured as he continuously flip-flops from one extreme to another as he continually changes it from day to day and sometimes even from hour to hour. Furthermore, Trump knows exactly what Iran’s response to his proposal is because they left a working peace proposal on the peace table before Trump ordered Vice President Vance to abandon bilateral peace talks on April 11^th and return to the Capital. Accordingly, his Truth Social post here is just a facing saving attempt to make people think Iran doesn’t have any cards.

What this shows is that it is Iran, not the US which holds most of the cards and has most of the leverage in this negotiation because Iran has been ignoring Trump’s threats to restart the war and has been refusing to resume negotiations until Trump suspends the US naval blockade of Iran. It also suggests that Trump’s massive US military buildup in the Middle East is likely not in preparation for any major military operation or resumption of the war but part of his bluff and bluster campaign to try but fail to get Iranian leaders to cave to US maximalist demands. This may be the ultimate outcome of the war, a permanent cease-fire with no resolution of the underlying causes of the conflict along with a longer-term naval blockade and closure of the Strait of Hormuz that could create a US and global recession which will force Trump to lift the blockade to avert.

Yesterday, X blogger Mario Nawfal posted that one Iran rejected Trump’s ceasefire extension, calling it a unilateral declaration they don’t recognize. ‘Iran does not recognize the extension of the ceasefire and may or may not abide by it based on national interests.’ Iran appears to be daring Trump to restart the war, showing the world that it, not the US, is in the driver’s seat when it comes to dictating the outcome of this war, and is presenting itself as a new regional hegemon on par with the US. Earlier today, Iran seized two cargo ships in retaliation against the US seizure of an Iranian tanker. However, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, in an interview on Fox News, stated that Trump does not consider Iran’s seizure of cargo ships by Iranian naval ships today does not constitute a violation of the cease-fire.

Trump lamented yesterday morning that “they have no choice” but to dispatch their negotiators to Pakistan, boasting about how America has significantly weakened Iran’s navy, air force, and senior leadership. But Iran just proved they have a choice by refusing to engage in another round of peace talks with the US. As one Iranian official has stated, “the losing side cannot set the [peace] terms.” As I noted in my last article, the winning side is the side that retains control of the territory or waters in dispute which is in this case the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz and that side is the Islamic Republic of Iran, not the US.

Trump Accepted Iran’s Ten-Point Peace Plan, Then Quickly Backtracked

On April 7^th, Trump announced a fifteen-day cease-fire had been agreed to which had been scheduled to expire at 7pm this evening. Just like I’ve been saying it was Trump not Iran that has been begging for a cease-fire for weeks. Trump accepted Iran’s first cease-fire offer within 36 hours of it being issued. He agreed to Iran’s ten-point peace plan which includes a provision that Iran would be able to charge up to $1 a barrel for every tanker transiting the Strait of Hormuz. It has been estimated that Iran could earn up to $100 billion a year or over $8.3 billion a year from those transit fees to pay for Iran’s reconstruction costs. Biden only gave Iran $6-10 billion. After the cease-fire was announced, Fox News reported that Pro-Islamist regime demonstrators took to the streets in Tehran to celebrate Iran’s victory over the US. Since the cease-fire was announced, Israel has bombed Iran’s oil facilities and Iran has conducted retaliatory missiles strikes on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline which is the only way Saudi Arabia is able to export oil to circumvent Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran also launched drone and missile strikes on Kuwait and the UAE.

Trump’s Israel First neocon Iran War backers expressed anger and frustration at President Trump immediately after he declared that Iran’s more reasonable ten-point peace plan was a workable basis for negotiations especially Mark Levin, Lindsey Graham and Laura Loomer. If Trump were to move forward with a just and lasting peace with Iran and put war criminal Netanyahu in his place, they would go back to being Never Trumpers. Unfortunately, their criticism of his decision to accept most of Iran’s peace demands caused Trump to immediately begin to backslide and renounce the terms of the cease-fire agreement he agreed to and demanded Iran agree to his peace demands something Iran will never do because it is the victor in this war.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has one of the most difficult jobs in our nation’s Capital which is trying to keep up with all of President Donald Trump’s constant zip-zags and flip flops with regards to his statements and policies relating to his unwinnable war with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

On April 8^th, during a White House press conference after Trump announced a cease-fire based on Iran’s 10-point peace plan, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did a 180-degree turn from Trump’s Truth Social post the previous day declaring that Iran’s 10-point plan “was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable and completely discarded. It was literally thrown in the garbage by President Trump and his negotiating team. Many outlets have falsely reported that plan as being acceptable to the United States and that is false.” President Trump posted on Truth Social the same day that Iran would not be allowed to enrich any uranium even though Iran’s ten-point peace plan provides they can continue nuclear enrichment up to 3.67% for peaceful purposes. Reasonable US concessions are the key to achieving a negotiated end to Trump’s unnecessary and unprovoked great power war of conquest against Iran. If all Trump offers are more sticks, Israeli poison pills and ultimatum Iran is guaranteed to reject them.

On April 9^th, President Trump threatened Iran with a resumption of the war if they didn’t accept his 15 point peace plan and open the Strait of Hormuz. That same day, Iran sent a high-level delegation to Islamabad, Pakistan to negotiate a peace agreement with Vice President JD Vance in Islamabad, Pakistan in talks beginning April 10^th with the cease-fire set to expire on April 21st. At this point, both Iran and especially President Trump have strong incentives to try to salvage the cease-fire to try to reverse the political and economic damage it has caused to the Republican Party’s chances in the mid-term election from the higher cost of living stemming from his war of choice and disgust with his broken promises to end the war.

Based on the White House statement that it has thrown Iran’s ten-point peace proposal in the trash, it appears Trump is uninterested in peace unless Iran agrees to the US 15-point peace plan which Iran has already denounced as “maximalist”, “unacceptable” and “unrealistic” meaning even if they were to resume US-Iran peace negotiations are likely to go nowhere and the war is likely to restart very soon. If Trump restarts the war, it could turn into a forever war costing the lives of tens of thousands of US soldiers and trillions of dollars and further tarnish his presidential legacy and Americans will likely wonder why the war keeps raging in perpetuity and then we could look back on Trump’s declaration of “total and complete victory” over Iran on April 7^th as Trump’s modern-day rendition of George W. Bush premature “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq declaration in May 2003. If Trump no longer wants to accept Iran’s 10-point peace plan as he says he was willing to on April 7th, he should just let Israel and Iran fight the war on their own while the US suspends all security assistance to Israel and stays out of the war.

Politico’s National Security Daily reported:

While the main focus of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire deal was on the Strait of Hormuz, Lebanon is looking like it could be the reason it falls apart. Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz back down today in response to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, The AP’s Bassem Mroue and colleagues reported, and Tehran vowed to “exit the ceasefire agreement if Israel persists,” according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency. If the U.S. maintains its current stance that Israel doesn’t have to stop attacking Lebanon, that will put it at odds with the European Union, the U.K. and Canada, who all welcomed the ceasefire and called for implementing it “including in Lebanon. ”Today President DONALD TRUMP told PBS’s Liz Landers that Israeli strikes on Lebanon were a “separate skirmish.”

In a joint statement, leaders including French President EMMANUEL MACRON, Italian Prime Minister GIORGIA MELONI, German Chancellor FRIEDRICH MERZ, U.K. Prime Minister KEIR STARMER and Prime Minister SANAE TAKAICHI said they welcomed the two-week ceasefire agreement and urged a swift diplomatic resolution to the war. At least one signatory, Spanish Prime Minister PEDRO SÁNCHEZ, provided a strong caveat to his congratulations. While “ceasefires are always good news,” Sánchez, who has repeatedly criticized the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, wrote on social media, “The Government of Spain will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket.”

On April 8^th, Israel commenced brutal strikes against Lebanon’s capitol city of Beirut and other Lebanese cities killing over a thousand Lebanese citizens, mostly civilians over an eight or nine day bombing campaign, with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu claiming that Trump’s cease-fire agreement does not include Lebanon even though it clearly does. The White House claimed that a cease-fire in Lebanon was not part of the agreement either. Pakistan confirmed that a cease-fire in Lebanon was included as part of the agreement between the US and Iran while Iran stated that if the Trump administration modified its position to hold that Lebanon is not part of the agreement, then there would be no cease-fire agreement. This forced Trump to pressure Israel into a cease-fire to satisfy Iranian demands.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who successfully manipulated the President of the United States to fall into his trap and fight a war in furtherance of Israeli regional hegemony to the detriment of US national and economic security.

Israel has mass murdered over 58,000 Gazan civilians including 20,000 kids and the US gave them the bombs to slaughter them with for free. Trump initially gave Israel the green light to mass murder over one thousand Lebanese as well before reversing himself by releasing $6 billion in Iranian frozen assets and pressuring Israel to accept a cease-fire in Lebanon on April 17^th declaring that Israel was prohibited from bombing Lebanon but after warning Israel not to violate it, Netanyahu did so anyway in a blatant manner showing Trump who is boss. This suggests that Trump has no control over Israel and that Israel will likely continue opposing his policy objectives at will because they can blackmail him over the release of the unredacted Epstein Files.

Both President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made clear that the US has no intention of complying with the provision in Iran’s ten-point peace plan that calls for a full-withdrawal of US forces from the Persian Gulf region.

While top Pentagon officials declared today that U.S. forces had secured a “historic and overwhelming victory” in the over five-week-long war with Iran, military assets will stay in the region to make sure Tehran complies with the terms of the deal, our own Leo Shane III reports. “We’ll be hanging around. We’re not going anywhere,” Defense Secretary PETE HEGSETH said during a press conference with Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. DAN CAINE this morning. “Our troops are prepared to defend, prepared to go on offense, prepared to restart at a moment’s notice with whatever target package would be needed,” Hegseth added.

After accepting Iran’s ten-point peace demands and appearing to end his unwinnable great power war, Trump has spent the past couple of weeks renouncing key parts of Iran’s ten point peace plan particularly with regards to its continued enrichment of uranium and now suggests Iran must accept his fifteen-point peace demands instead, even though Iran has repeatedly rejected in its entirety over the past several weeks. It is highly unlikely that the US and Iran could negotiate a peace deal given that Trump is renouncing the terms of the cease-fire agreement and repeating his own maximalist demands against Iran.

While a tenuous cease-fire remains in place between the US and Iran, cease-fire violations are continuing to occur on both sides. A few days ago, Iranian IRGC naval vessels fired on two ships attempting to pass through its blockade which the US claimed was a violation of the cease-fire. On April 19^th, it was reported that the US had seized control of an Iranian tanker attempting to run the US blockade causing Iran to threaten to retaliate by using its missiles and drones to attack US ships. The following day, Fox News reported that Trump said it is highly unlikely that he will extend the cease-fire that expires on Wednesday if Iran refuses to capitulate to his maximalist terms including no nuclear uranium enrichment and surrendering all Highly Enriched Uranium to the US.

Devastating Wall Street Journal Shows How Erratic Trump Has Been During the Iran War

America First conservative former Fox News host Megyn Kelly referenced a recently published Wall Street Journal entitled, “Behind Trump’s Public Bravado on the War, He Grapples with His Own Fears” and delivered a blistering critique of our neocon president during her monologue yesterday:

“He is trying to seem unstable and wanted to seem as unstable and insulting as possible believing it could bring the Iranians to the table. That post about a whole civilization will die. He say it as a way to spur negotiations in a war the president is desperately ready to end. Axios reporting today that Trump is bored of this war and wants it over — whatever. Maybe it wasn’t the best thing to start if you didn’t have the patience to actually see it through…I’s really sad that the loss of American lives wasn’t the motivator. It’s because Trump has moved on to other things because he has the attention span of a gnat.”

President Donald Trump has acted increasingly unfocused, erratically and fearfully in recent weeks as he has realized his war with Iran has proven to be a huge mistake which has come at a great military, economic and especially political cost for his administration.

This devastating Wall Street Journal article exposed how chaotic Trump has been with regards to the unnecessary war of aggression that he started but has thus far been unable to find a way to end with a peace deal. It also reports that Trump has been “erratic”, “impatient”, “losing his focus” and that he expressed fears of a ground invasion. He told his aids he doesn’t want to be another Jimmy Carter with a repeat of the botched Desert One Iranian US Embassy hostage rescue operation.

It was Good Friday afternoon in a nearly empty West Wing soon after the president learned that an American jet had been shot down in Iran, with two airmen missing. Trump screamed at aides for hours. The Europeans aren’t helping, he said repeatedly. Gas prices averaged $4.09. Images of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis—one of the biggest international policy failures of a presidency in recent times—had been looming large in his mind, people who have spoken to him said…

Trump is dealing with his own fear about ordering troops into harm’s way where some will be injured and some not return home, similar to other presidents who have been at war, people familiar with the matter said. Trump has resisted sending American soldiers to take Kharg Island, for example, the launch point for 90% of Iran’s oil exports. While he was told the mission would succeed, and the territory’s capture would give the U.S. access to the strait, he worried there would be unacceptably high American casualties, the people said. They’ll be sitting ducks, the president said.

“If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter …with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,” Trump had said in March. “What a mess.” He is veering between belligerent and conciliatory approaches and grappling behind the scenes with just how badly things could go wrong. At the same time, the president sometimes loses focus, spending time on the details of his plans for the White House ballroom or on midterm fundraisers—and telling advisers he wants to shift to other topics… Still, he has made risky pronouncements without input from his national security team—including his post about plans to destroy the Iranian civilization—saying seeming unstable could help spur the Iranians to negotiate. At one point he even mused he should award himself the nation’s highest military honor, the Medal of Honor.

His team showed him poll results for the November midterm elections that showed him the war was dragging down Republican candidates. Trump vacillated, people close to him said, between considering economic worries in calls with advisers including Wright and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and insisting that he was going to keep the war going. He told advisers that they needed to watch the markets, and his words often moved them. But Trump quickly began ruminating on how the military action could turn into a catastrophe. Speaking to Republican lawmakers in Doral, Fla., a little over a week into the war, Trump ticked through Democratic presidents who oversaw foreign policy debacles, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan under President Joe Biden. He then dwelled on Carter’s failed attempt to rescue U.S. hostages held by the same Iranian regime he was bombing. The repeated crises prompted by the war have led to scrambles inside the administration.

So, it seems Trump has gotten tired of his Iran War plaything and wants to move on to his next war against Cuba to waste more of our brave US military servicemembers’ lives and further seriously erode US military strength. He’s clearly desperate to end US involvement in the war and Iranian leaders know it so they won’t give up an inch in negotiations and sooner or later Trump will be forced to lift the blockade and capitulate to their peace terms. His increasing fears of the potential loss of US ground troops an invasion of Iranian held islands would bring as well as the increasing political and economic costs of his Iran War debacle are good news for the US as it would see to suggest, along with his indefinite cease-fire extension, that he is committed not to restart it.

Trump’s Naval Counterblockade of Iran Which is Sure to Fail

On April 3^rd, I wrote that if Trump were serious about ending his unnecessary and unwinnable great power war against Iran, we would see him de-escalating the war right now as he attempted to with Russia in Ukraine with a temporary cease-fire to negotiate a peace deal with Iran. Instead, immediately after abandoning peace talks with Iran on April 12^th, Trump decided to escalate the conflict with a US naval blockade of Iranian ports which began a week ago that has done nothing to pressure Iran to accept US peace terms. Rather, it has served as an obstacle to peace preventing the Strait of Hormuz from opening up and negotiations from taking place with Iran declaring the cease-fire closed one day after they announced it was opened citing Trump’s refusal to lift the blockade as the reason they closed it again and subsequently demanding it be lifted or else no peace negotiations would resume.

Trump keeps shooting himself in the foot with actions like these setting back the cause of peace when had he not abandoned peace negotiations in Islamabad and instituted the US naval blockade of Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, it is very possible that a peace deal might have been signed by now. Trump initially announced that the US would be blockading the Strait of Hormuz. However, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander ADM. James Stavridis revealed that the Pentagon has clarified that the US naval blockade is not of the Strait of Hormuz itself but rather of Iranian ports meaning ships carrying oil to and from Gulf state ports will not be blockaded by the US Navy.

There is no instance in history in which the US or any other nation has been able to win a war through strategic bombing alone without a ground invasion or largescale, armed resistance movement as Trump believed it was possible to do with his ongoing war against Iran which, included the blockade, has lasted nearly two months now. Even during World War One, which I would argue was the only war in history won by a starvation blockade, it could not have been won without US entry into the conflict and the US financing Britain’s and France’s war efforts. It took four years and three and a half months for the starvation blockade to get Imperial Germany to sue for peace.

Earlier today, President Trump has fired Navy Secretary John Phelan. One source reported the firing was due to his refusal to risk US Navy warships in the Strait of Hormuz where they could be easily hit or potentially even sunk by Iranian antiship missiles so it appears that he may be contemplating further escalation short of resumed bombing strikes on Iranian territory. All of the recent firings at the Pentagon are threatening to upend Trump’s misleading narrative that the US is winning its war against Iran. Phelan was a billionaire who curried favor with Trump by helping to develop the proposed 35,000-ton Trump-class battlecruisers which has been one of the president’s pet projects.

While answering a question from the press on April 12^th, Trump stated he is willing to make his US naval counterblockade of the Strait of Hormuz permanent if Iran doesn’t reopen the Strait saying he doesn’t care if they make a peace deal with the US or not. So, he is not only willing to cause a global recession that seriously hurts Americans and US allies financially, he wants to make the increase in our cost of living permanent. Of course, Trump is a billionaire so why would he care about how badly his stupid actions are hurting working class Americans that voted for him in the past three presidential elections.

Unlike the illegal British starvation blockade, the US naval counter blockade of Iran which began on April 13th is allowing food and medicine shipment so Iran, so there is no chance it will succeed in getting Iran to cave to his maximalist demands even if it was implemented over a multi-year period. Iran enjoys escalation dominance so it’s likely to prevail in the ongoing contest between the two blockades. It is much more likely that it will ensure a US and global economic recession. I think that it is beyond foolish and will likely hurt the US far more than it hurts Iran by greatly increasing food and energy prices not just in the US but worldwide. Iran knows the more the US naval blockade causes our tensions with Communist China to intensify the sooner Trump will be forced to drop his foolish naval blockade of Iran in yet another humiliating defeat for US power and prestige. It’s as if Trump is deliberately doing everything he can to collapse America’s liberal empire which would probably be a good thing, but not if he ushers in Communist Chinese global economic and military dominance in the process.

Trump is only doing it because he didn’t want to restart the war and make it the kind of forever war in the Middle East that he railed against for the past couple decades with thousands of US military servicemembers killed in action and no reasonable prospects for victory. The irony is that both before the war and during the past few days, Iran has offered surprisingly good deals which would permanently suspend its nuclear program, and Trump keeps rejecting it because it falls short of his maximalist objectives. Ultimately, if he wants to end the war he is going to have to accept Iran’s peace offer or else announce he is ending his blockade and pulling US military forces out of the conflict without a peace deal.

Yesterday, President Trump made the decision to extend the cease-fire indefinitely while continuing the US naval blockade under the assumption belief that Iran will be forced to return to the peace table and accept US peace terms but that is very unlikely to be the case. Most US leaders do not understand the mindset of Iranian leaders. This is a war they are fighting for their own existence and independence against US and Israeli imperialist domination and control. They are not about to give in to Trump’s maximalist demands due to his naval blockade. While it’s true that the blockade will deplete Iran of cash over time, Trump just unfroze $6 billion in Iranian frozen funds which will help them get by.

Of course, Iran has an easy way to get around Trump’s counter blockade of the Strait of Hormuz which is to reflag all Russian, Indian, Pakistani and Iraqi ships as Chinese flagged tankers perhaps in convoys with Chinese naval escorts. It would be a repeat of Reagan’s Operation Earnest Will in reverse in which tankers were reflagged with US flags and escorted by US warships to prevent Iran from attacking them. It was the Persian Gulf Iran tanker crisis in the 1980’s the caused him to first say he thought the US should invade and occupy Kharg Island and take the oil.

The US war has certainly resulted in delivering a heavy blow to Iran’s economy and perhaps even shooting down their super EMP satellites if the rumors are true. However, their regime is firmly intact and more hardline than ever, their nuclear missiles are untouched in their silos and we have destroyed no more than 50% of their vast missile arsenal and missile production facilities. Iran has 1,000 pounds of HEU which is enough to build up to fifteen more nuclear weapons. The IRGC navy has thousands of surviving fast missile and combat drone-armed boats in its so-called ‘mosquito fleet it is using to enforce its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, the US Navy’s offensive and defensive missile arsenal has been so badly depleted it will take up to four years to replenish it during which time China can invade Taiwan without worry about an effective US military response. Basically, China is succeeding in disarming the US military of most of its conventional missile without firing a shot. Trump will likely be forced to lift his blockade on Iran in the coming weeks to avoid massive disruptions to the US and global economy including shortages of jet fuel, fertilizer, aluminum and other strategic minerals not to mention a huge increase in gas prices.

Could Trump’s Blockade of Iran Lead to a Naval War with China?

Trump’s imperial war of aggression has transformed Iran into the regional hegemon of the Persian Gulf in control of 20% of the world’s oil reserves which is a huge victory for the PRC since Iran is a Chinese proxy. Trump’s war on Iran has backfired badly and strengthened Russia, China and Iran while greatly weakening the US just like I predicted it would because his war is morally and strategically bankrupt and self-defeating. Dr. Robert Pape did an interview earlier this week in which he revealed that he went to China and asked Chinese leaders if they were worried about the US blockade and they said no because even though they could lose up to 1% of their GDP seeing the US military bogged down fighting a war with Iran in the Middle East was a win-win for them they believe will accelerate their plan to overtake us as the dominant global superpower. We know that China’s military already has the ability to totally defeat us in war as revealed by the top-secret Overmatch Brief but now we are just increasing their military superiority over us.

The PLA Navy’s aircraft carrier Fujan, which most naval analysts are reporting are on par with the US Navy’s aircraft carriers which were previously considered the most powerful in the world.

The White House is insisting that it is a full blockade of all ships attempting to enter or leave Iranian ports. The Trump administration has threatened to inspect, board or potentially fire on Chinese, Russia, Indian and Pakistani ships attempting to run the US Naval counter blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. It’s not difficult to see that if he ordered US Navy ships to do so, he could blow up his Iran War quagmire into a Third World War with up to five opposing nuclear powers.. Communist China only gets 13.4% of its oil from Iran not the 30-40% being widely reported so the US naval blockade on Iran is not the big deal for the PRC that Iran War supporters are portraying it to be just as the loss of oil from Venezuela was not a big deal because China only got 6.7% of its oil from them. And even if it was a big deal, it’s now being reported that the US Navy is allowing Chinese tankers to pass through its blockade unmolested with a total of thirty-four ships coming to and from Iran have been allowed to pass the US naval blockade to date.

Would Trump risk the outbreak of war with the PRC over the issue of continued Iranian 3.67% uranium enrichment that has caused him to abandon the first round of peace talks with Iran or is there? I doubt Trump wants to risk a full-scale war with a country like the PRC that could destroy all US critical infrastructure without warning with a massive cyber, super Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) or nuclear attack on the US homeland over his latest temper tantrum over Iran refusing to give up low enrichment of uranium for peaceful purposes. However, we have learned he is unpredictable and one of the most illogical and irrational presidents in US history so nothing can be ruled out completely. He has already made the US less safe and secure from cyber, super EMP and nuclear attack than any president in US history. If Trump does end up escalating his Iran War to World War Three, it will all because he is a slave to Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu who vetoed the Iranian offer of continued Iranian production of 3.67% enriched uranium for peaceful nuclear energy purposes.

Is Trump Using the Cease-Fire as a Strategic Pause to Mass More US Military Forces to Destroy Iran?

What I have been terming ‘Operation Epic Fiasco’ has been an unmitigated strategic military debacle objectively speaking, yet President Trump and Secretary of War Hegseth continue to claim it is the greatest US military victory in US history. The cease-fire appeared to be a de-escalation of the war suggesting Trump would keep his promise to pull out US troops from the region within six weeks of the war beginning.

However, his decision to surge nearly half of our deployed US Air Force and Navy to the Middle East including the USS George HW Bush carrier strike group which is scheduled to arrive in the Arabian Sea within the next few days suggests the exact opposite. Trump has spent the past two weeks massing even more airpower, naval power and tens of thousands more troops for a massive strategic bombing campaign and potential invasion of Kharg Island designed to destroy Iran’s entire energy infrastructure including all their power plants and much of their oil refineries.

Iran has vowed to retaliate against such attacks by doing the same thing to America’s Gulf state allies in the region which would drive gas prices to $6 a gallon and ensure a US and global economic recession. Trump must know that if that happens it will effectively destroy his presidency even if he is not impeached and removed from office by a Democrat-led Congress early next year. However, because he is a lame-duck president who cannot run for re-election he may not care if he leaves the White House with very low approval ratings and destroys the Republican Party’s chances for winning the next two to four national elections.

Some analysts have been speculating that Trump may be using the strategic pause in the fighting to rearm and reinforce US military forces in the region to resume the war with even greater ferocity in accordance with his threats to destroy Iran’s electrical power grid and bring massive suffering, starvation and death to 92 million Iranian civilians if Iran does not capitulate to his maximalist demands.

If Trump continues his cease-fire and winds down the US naval blockade of Iran to allow peace talks to resume, he can avoid fighting another protracted great power war with potentially more costly than the one we fought in Korea against Communist China seventy-five years ago. However, if Trump restarts his unnecessary, unwinnable war of choice with Iran in the coming days or weeks, it could prove to be the worst foreign policy debacle in US history. If he were to do so, he would prove that he is unable to escape what Dr. Robert Pape has termed ‘the escalation trap’ and the war could last months longer. Then, the next escalation could potentially be a US airborne invasion of Kharg Island which could cost thousands of US military casualties though based on the Wall Street Journal report, Trump is reportedly fearful of doing that.

The military, economic and political consequences of the war could become far more dire and he will break our conventional military for a decade to come while ensuring a global and US recession. Russia, China and Iran will be the biggest winners of the war and the US will be the biggest loser and Iran could prove the graveyard of America’s empire just like Afghanistan is believed to be the graveyard of the Soviet Empire permanently tarnishing Trump’s presidential legacy. Reports indicate Iran me be preparing to attack the US water distribution and purification system with cyberattacks if Trump violates the cease-fire agreement and decides to make good on his threat to destroy all of Iran’s power plants and many of its oil refineries.

Earlier today, Fox News reported that President Trump stated that claims that his cease-fire extension would only be for three to five days after which he would resume his bombing campaign against Iran are false confirming that it would be extended as long as necessary to negotiate a peace agreement with Iran. This statement along with the Wall Street Journal article I cited above revealing Trump’s fears of escalating the war make it seem President Trump is sincere in his desire to end the war realizing that restarting it would be a losing proposition for him and for the US. Accordingly, the continuing US military buildup is likely just part of his ongoing pressure campaign to get Iran to cave to his maximalist demands.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. . He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published by the end of 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

March 19th—Iran War Debate at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. I will be leading a debate team of three panelists on the Ant-Iran War side arguing why the war is an unprovoked war of aggression that must be ended as swiftly as possible to avert the outbreak of World War Three.

March 24th—Interview with IranTalks to discuss Trump’s unjust, unnecessary and unwinnable war with aggression, escalation on both sides, which side is likely to win a protracted war of attrition and potential compromise solutions to avert the outbreak of World War Three.

March 30th—Interview with Dr. Maria on the Dr. Maria show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s Operation Epic Fiasco and Iran War debacle and how the war risks escalating into a forever war with the chances of it escalating to World War Three increasing the longer it goes on.

March 31st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss Trump’s Neocon Deep State War on Iran, why the US is losing the war and what Trump needs to do to end it quickly to minimize US military, economic and political losses.

April 3rd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on “The National Security Hour” to discuss Trump’s great power war with Iran that is threatening to escalate to World War Three and how it has proven a strategic, military, economic and political debacle for him.

April 8th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran “back into the stone ages where they belong” and destroy Iran’s civilization in one night seeming to imply the use of nuclear weapons to kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 10th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on Lindell TV to discuss what happens if Iran doesn’t meet Trump’s ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday night and whether Trump’s threat is serious or a bluff which he has no intention of carrying out.

April 10th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran back into the stone age and the ramifications of him threatening to target and destroy Iran’s electrical power plants and potentially kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 21st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss the latest news relating to Trump’s Great power war with Iran and his ongoing attempts to start World War III in flagrant violation of his campaign pledges to prevent the outbreak of a Third World War.

April 21st—Interview with Pascal Lottaz on his “Neutrality Studies” podcast to discuss the ramifications of Trump’s unwinnable great power war against Iran for the US and the world, Trump’s plans for escalation and the prospects for peace before it escalates to World War Three.

Upcoming Interviews

April 23rd—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast. We will discuss Trump’s indefinite cease-fire with Iran and continued blockade and whether Iran will succeed in getting Trump to capitulate to Iran’s peace terms.

April 29th—Interview with Sulaiman Ahmed on his podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to break off in person peace negotiations with Iran and Iran’s response in refusing to limit its nuclear program so long as the US naval blockade continues.

April 30th—Interview with Afshin Rattansi on his Going Underground TV show which is broadcast on RT to discuss the state of Trump’s unjust war of aggression against Iran. We will talk about whether Trump is likely to escalate or de-escalate the conflict as well as the ramifications for the war in terms of transforming Iran into a new regional great power/hegemon of the Persian Gulf.

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President Donald Trump speaking at one of his many Iran War press conferences threatening to destroy Iran if they do not sign a peace deal. The truth is that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a manufactured enemy that posed no imminent threat to the US and Israel and there was no legitimate reason for the US to attack it whatsoever.

During an interview on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo yesterday morning, President Donald Trump has declared that Iran has accepted all his maximalist peace terms including no nuclear uranium enrichment and surrendering all its Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) and stated that Iran would sign a final peace agreement ending the war this evening.

Bartiromo reported:

I just spoke with the president this morning for the third time in a week, and he told me he is expecting Iran to sign an agreement tomorrow night in Pakistan, and that all items have now been negotiated. However, the president said if they do not sign the deal, the U.S. will blow up every power plant and more in Iran. The president told me just moments ago this should be, quote, “quick,” because negotiation is done; that they tried to go back on the deal, but now they are not, and he is expecting Iran to sign the agreement tomorrow night. The U.S. potentially on the doorstep of escalation ahead of the temporary two-week ceasefire expiring this upcoming week. As the president just told me, quote, “The U.S. is dominating.” The president earlier said this week that Iran will give up its uranium enrichment and told me in an exclusive interview the impact of the U.S. blockade is working, which he reiterated to me once again this morning.

The US is sending peace negotiators to Islamabad led by Vice President JD Vance to meet with the Iranians tonight. After responding by saying it will not agree to a second round of peace talks until the US drops its naval blockade or else Trump drops his maximalist demands, Iran is now saying they will meet are willing to hold another round of peace talks but only if Vance leads them. Even so, there continues to be an increasing credibility gap between the things Trump is boasting about and the reality on the ground. Since the war began eight weeks ago, Trump has issued a number of statements claiming Iran has been totally defeated, the war has been won, that its military is obliterated, that the US controls the Strait of Hormuz and that Iran has accepted all, or virtually all, US peace demands all of which have been proven false. Yet his most hard-core supporters and his well-paid sycophants on the Fox News network continue to accept everything he says as gospel truth.

Contrary to Trump’s misleading claims, Iran continues to refuse Trump’s unrealistic demands because it knows it holds most of the cards and is on track to achieve a stunning strategic victory over the US. Usually, the side that is desperate for peace is the losing side. That is certainly the case here as Trump has been desperately asking Iran for a cease-fire since at least March 21^st as confirmed by a recent New York Times article and perhaps weeks earlier, but Iran rejected all his offers until he agreed to use Iran’s “ten-point plan as the basis of a workable agreement.”

The Decision to Go to War with Iran

According to an expose in the New York Times published a couple weeks ago, before Trump began his disastrous, illegal, unconstitutional, imperial war of conquest and aggression against Iran on February 28^th, America First peace Vice President JD Vance led the opposition to Trump’s regime change war warning Trump it “would be a disaster”, “a huge distraction of resources” and “massively expensive.” “Vice President Vance thought a regime change war with Iran would be a disaster. His preference was for no strikes at all...No one was more worried about the prospect of war with Iran or did more to try to stop it, than the Vice President.” He described a war with Iran as “a huge distraction of resources” and “massively expensive.” The Vice President warned Trump the war could break the US military and fracture his MAGA coalition. While he reluctantly told Trump he would support his decision to go to war, he appears to have been the loudest voice in opposition to going to war with Iran. General Dan Caine and the National Intelligence Council also warned Trump of the risks of starting an unnecessary regional war with Iran.

The New York Times reported that Rubio and Ratcliffe told Trump the idea of regime change was unachievable while General Caine concurred. Vance told Trump that starting an unnecessary, unprovoked and existential regional war with Iran was “a bad idea” but Trump started it anyway. The next day, U.S. intelligence pushed back sharply. CIA Director John Ratcliffe called the regime-change scenario “farcical,” with Secretary of State Marco Rubio adding: “In other words, it’s bullshit.” Gen. Dan Caine told the president: “This is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed.” Trump dismissed regime change as “their problem” — but remained focused on targeting Iran’s leadership and military. By Feb. 26, in a final Situation Room meeting, opposition inside the room was clear but fractured. Vice President JD Vance warned the war could spiral and drain U.S. resources but ultimately said: “You know I think this is a bad idea… but I’ll support you.”

All of Vice President JD Vance’s warnings in the New York Times article highlighting the potential costs and risks of Trump starting an unnecessary great power war with Iran have been proven accurate. Trump’s War on Iran is on track to cost up to a trillion dollars including all the sunk costs to repair or replace our lost military equipment, the economic costs to the US from increased oil prices, prolonged inflation and a potential economic recession. Meanwhile, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryan has warned that the US cannot remain a great power without rebuilding its arsenal of offensive missiles and missile interceptors which could take many years.

Charlie Kirk repeatedly warned against war with Iran, calling regime change “pathologically insane” and a “catastrophic mistake.” He stressed Iran is larger than Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan combined, with terrain ideal for prolonged insurgency, and said it posed “no imminent threat” to the U.S. One of his final pleas: “Stop us from getting into a war with Iran.” He favored targeted pressure over invasion. Some have speculated that is the reason he was assassinated.

‘The Night of the Long Knives’

Hitler famously killed leaders of the Nazi paramilitary force known as the SA during a purge of his security services conducted the year after he became Germany’s Nazi dictator in what was known as “The Night of the Long Knives.” Now, Israel First Secretary of War Pete Hegseth appears to purging a number of key generals who objected to Trump’s suicidal plan to sacrifice the lives of thousands of brave US Army and Marine Corps heroes to take Kharg Island which is sixteen miles from the Iranian mainland under heavy surface to air and anti-ship missile fire where Iran can hold them hostages.

Secretary of War Pete Hagseth speaking to hundreds of generals and admirals required to appear at a September 30, 2025 at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia. Hagseth initially seemed to be an America First conservative based on his statements and actions during the 2024 campaign and when he sided with Vice President JD Vance against going to war with Iran in April 2025 but has since proven to be a bombastic war criminal who has attempted to get US CENTCOM to bomb numerous civilian targets.

Hegseth reportedly fired Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, who was a close ally of Secretary Driscoll along with two other like-minded generals on the same day. Both strongly opposed Trump’s unwinnable war on Iran. He may have been fired as US Army Chief of Staff because he warned Trump’s planned invasion of Iran will break the US military. An hour after announcing his resignation, the US Army Chief of Staff reportedly warned: “A madman will lead the great US military to ruin” in likely reference to President Trump’s plan to continue fighting the Iran War if Iran refuses to sign a peace deal on US maximalist terms.

Rumors indicate Hegseth is going after America First Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll himself who is a good friend and close ally of Vice President JD Vance and an opponent of stupid wars like Iran and Ukraine--two wars Trump has embraced as his own. Previous rumors noted that President Trump was polling his cabinet officers as to whether he should fire America First Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. It seems so ironic that President Trump ran on putting America First with regards to US foreign policy but is shutting out all his America First political and military advisors when it comes to is Iran War policy. It’s as if Trump and Hegseth have begun executing Order 66 to kill off the Jedi Order. I would like to commend our great US military commanders who rejected Hegseth’s illegal orders to commit war crimes against the Iranian people we are supposed to be fighting to liberate. Hegseth is a total disgrace. President Trump should fire this war criminal and replace him with SECARMY Dan Driscoll without delay!

Secretary Hegseth first got on Trump’s radar during the 2016 campaign in which he successfully lobbied Trump to pardon three US military war criminals who had been sent to prison for killing Iraqi civilians. When he first became Secretary of War, his first action was to fire the top military Judge Advocate General officers who oversaw the enforcement of the Uniform Military Code of Justice against US military servicemembers who kill or torture civilian non-combatants in violation of international law demonstrating his disregard for both international law and the UCMJ. Major General Randy Manner (USA Ret.) recently revealed that US CENTCOM rejected many of the Iranian targets SECWAR Pete Hegseth requested we bomb because they were civilian targets while Hegseth sacrilegiously claims God is supporting him showing no mercy to the people of Iran. Pete Hegseth has been a supporter of war crimes for the past decade and now he is helping to perpetuate them as Secretary of War in an illegal, unconstitutional and unprovoked war of aggression started by the president.

Trump’s Threat to Nuke Iran

Earlier this year in what we now know was a foreshadowing of his illegal and unjust war of aggression against Iran, Trump declared: “There is only one thing that can stop me. My own morality. My own mind. I don’t need international law.”

On April 5th, which was Easter Sunday, Trump condemned 93 million Iranians as genetically inferior/ “animals” and sub-humans in advance of carrying out his threat to destroy the ability for them and their children to subsist and survive.

TRUMP: “The Iranians are animals. That’s why blowing up their bridges and power stations isn’t a war crime.”

This follows his comments back in March in which he claimed that Iranians were genetically predisposed to commit acts of violence and terrorism. This kind of racial and ethnic demonization is exactly what Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler did to the Jews before he mass murdered them. Is Trump trying to condition the American people to accept his ‘Final Solution’ to the Iranian problem?

After Trump issued his threat to destroy their electrical power grid and oil refineries, I strongly suspect it was a bluff because he likely knows that if he does that they will retaliate in kind to our Gulf allies causing gas prices to soar to $6 a gallon. They could even take down the US electrical grid as well with a massive cyber-attack.

On the morning of April 7^th, President Donald Trump threatened 93 million Iranians with nuclear annihilation as part of his Final Solution for Iran as he pledges to make their “entire civilization die tonight.” Even if the US bombed Iran for a decade, we could not come close to destroying their entire civilization. There is only one way that Trump can bomb Iran back into the stone ages and destroy an entire civilization in one night and that is with the use of nuclear weapons. Trump is clearly threatening the use of nuclear weapons to obliterate Iran so it can never be rebuilt as a country ever again. Not even Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler made such genocidal threats to exterminate an entire country of tens of millions of people.

Are nuclear annihilation and genocide the fate Trump planned all along for the 92 million Iranians he pledged to liberate? The fact that he did this the day after Iran issued a ten-point permanent cease-fire proposal acceptable to VP Vance, Kushner and Witkoff which Trump himself praised as “a good offer” makes Trumps threats even more remarkable. The truth is Americans need to wake up to the nightmarish reality we are led by a bloodthirsty leader who has no regard for American, let alone Iranian lives who threatens genocide on a routine basis if other countries do not surrender unconditionally to his every whim in unprovoked wars of aggression he starts.

Hours after he threatened to nuke Iran, Trump ended the day with a two-week cease-fire deal in hand, albeit one largely dictated by Iran. Trump’s near total capitulation to Iran mere hours after he threatened to destroy their entire civilization in one night and ensure they were never able to rebuild as a nation ever again has proven to be a stunning, but not entirely surprising, turn of events given Trump’s long history of bluffing and issuing empty threats and the fact that he’s been trying to get the US out of his war with Iran for many weeks now. It appears his nuclear threats on Iran were just a negotiation tactic to pressure Iran to make us a more reasonable peace offer as I initially assessed. If Trump had utilized nuclear weapons to strike Iran, it would have opened Pandora’s Box as Russia could use the US nuclear first use against Iran as a justification to use them against Ukraine, China could use them against Taiwan and North Korea could use them against South Korea. How would that make the US more safe and secure? Former Fox News host and America First conservative icon Tucker Carlson warned that if Trump used nuclear weapons against Iran it could lead to a nuclear exchange with Iran and other countries like Russia and China as well that could destroy the US homeland. North Korea even threatened to nuke the US if we used nuclear weapons against Iran.

Earlier this year, the US and Israel armed tens of thousands of Iranian opposition members and got thousands of them killed. Then they waited until they were killed off by the Islamist regime before bombing Iran using their deaths as a pretext for their unprovoked war of aggression since they didn’t have any others. On April 6^th, Trump expressed anger that the Kurds kept the guns the CIA shipped to them to give to Iran’s one million protesters leading over 7,000 of them to be killed by Iran’s Islamist regime in February. At the same press conference, First Lady Melania Trump--we have to bomb Iranian children (and their families) to save them. This is reminiscent of the Vietnam War when we were told “we had to destroy Vietnam to ‘save’ it.” At the conference, Trump declared that if it was up to him, he would stage a full-scale invasion of Iran (at the cost of tens of thousands of dead US soldiers) to take their oil and transform Iran into a US colony but the American people want him to pull us out of the war so he can’t. President Trump stated “If I had my choice, what would I like to do, take the oil. Because it’s there for the taking. There’s not a thing they can do about it. Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us to come home. If it were up to me, I’d take the oil. I’d keep the oil. I would make plenty of money.”

Since the war began a couple months ago, Trump has appeared to be either bipolar or extremely demented. One moment he says the war is won and he is ready for peace. Then, he says the US is going to bomb Iran into the stone age so they can never rebuild as a nation ever again. Either way, he has become a major domestic national security threat that should be immediately removed from office under the 25th amendment before he gets tens of thousands of brave US military servicemembers killed in an unnecessary war with a nuclear power for no good reason.

Trump Accepts Iran’s Ten Point Peace Plan

On April 6^th, Iran finally delivered its official ten point peace proposal after rejecting Trump’s cease-fire offers for five weeks. Iran’s new peace plan is much more reasonable because it drops Irons demand for a US military withdrawal from the Persian Gulf and its demand for reparations. Trump should immediately accept Iran’s peace offer, declare victory, end the war and keep the US military out of the Persian Gulf in exchange for Iran opening the Strait of Hormuz and ending its attacks on our Gulf allies.

The following night, President Trump has announced Iran’s 10-point proposal is “a workable basis on which to negotiate” declaring a full two-week cease fire set to expire Wednesday morning temporarily suspending the US and Israel’s unnecessary 38-day great power war in exchange for Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz which Iran has refused to do until the US lifts its naval blockade of Iranian ports. As I predicted, the only possible exit ramp for Trump to end the war was to accept Iran’s peace terms and declare “Mission Accomplished” to avert a far greater US strategic military defeat. It was the only path for him to limit the very substantial political and economic damage his war has incurred and thankfully he took it. But Trump leaving Iran in control of the Strait and the Persian Gulf represents a stunning US strategic defeat because Iran never controlled it before the war. Iran is stating the US has committed to pull all our military forces out of the Persian Gulf region following the destruction of 13 US military bases. Also, Gulf oil infrastructure has been devastated, and it will take years to repair the damage from the war, meaning oil prices will not recover to lower pre-war prices anytime soon.

Trump’s apparent decision to capitulate to Iran’s ten-point peace plan in what essentially amounted to a US conditional surrender to Iran mere hours after he appeared to threaten Iran with nuclear annihilation if it did not capitulate to the US fifteen-point peace plan. Trump had dismissed the Iranian peace plan on April 6^th as “significant but not good enough” but then when he realized it was close to being Iran’s best and final offer, he swiftly reversed himself to save face due to the fact that his threats to bomb Iran “back into the stone age where they belong” and destroy Iran’s entire civilization in one night so they could never rebuild back as a nation were bluffs all along that he never intended to follow through on.

That said, it is likely that Iran was motivated to water down a couple of its previous demands the day before Trump’s deadline expired after Trump had spent the previous five weeks rejecting all of Trump’s cease-fire offers. Among Iran’s concessions were revising its demands for reparations for all damages inflicted on Iran during the war to reparations obtained via $2 million per tanker Strait of Hormuz toll fees. They also appeared to omit a US military withdrawal from the Persian Gulf from their official ten-point peace plan. However, it did not remove its demand that the US recognize permanent Iranian control of the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz something Trump appears to have accepted given the inability of the US Navy to contest it.

Several weeks ago, Trump declared his unprovoked great power war with Iran would only end with its unconditional surrender and with him picking all of Iran’s new leaders. Instead, the war will likely end with Trump surrendering to Iran on its terms and letting Iran retain its Islamist regime indefinitely. I predicted that Trump’s unnecessary great power war on Iran would end not with Iran surrendering on our peace terms, but with the US surrendering on theirs. That’s pretty much what happened on April 7th--a US conditional surrender to Iran. Trump had been begging Iran for a cease-fire for weeks, but it wasn’t until then that Iran offered an official peace proposal. Usually, the side that sues for peace is the losing side and this was no exception. US acceptance of these Iranian peace terms would constitute a major victory for Iran and a stunning defeat for US war objectives. That said, Trump would be putting America First if he were to accept them because this was never our war to begin with. This was Israel’s war.

Iran’s 10-Points

Here is a list of the ten points in Iran’s peace plan which President Trump stated on April 7th constitutes “a workable basis on which to negotiate” as he announced a two‑week pause on U.S. airstrikes while talks continue.

1. U.S. commitment to permanent non‑aggression towards Iran

I believe the White House is willing to agree to this provision in exchange for it being made a three-way agreement that the US, Israel, Iran as well as its proxies commit to stop attacking each other.

2. Recognition of Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz

President Trump seems willing to accept this provision providing Iran opens up the Strait of Hormuz to all tankers including Western tankers.

3. Explicit U.S. acceptance of Iran’s uranium enrichment program

The US should be willing to accept Iran’s enrichment of uranium to the 3.67% level necessary for peaceful nuclear energy purposes as it was under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action but not above that. Giving up all enrichment even for peaceful purposes is not necessary to constrain Iran into abandoning its nuclear weapons program and was ‘a poison pill’ advocated by Israel to kill any hopes for a US-Iran nuclear deal in March-June 2025 and since.

4. Removal of all primary U.S. sanctions

President Trump has agreed to do this in exchange for Iran re-opening the Strait of Hormuz and ending all retaliatory attacks on the US and Israel.

5. Removal of all secondary sanctions

Secondary sanctions penalize foreign companies and governments for engaging with Iran, making them an even more powerful tool than primary sanctions. I believe this provision would be acceptable to the Trump administration providing that Iran re-opens the Strait and gives up its 1,000 pounds of Highly Enriched Uranium either to the Russian Federation or the IAEA while submitting to IAEA inspections.

6. Termination of UN Security Council resolutions targeting Iran

The US does not have the ability to rescind UN Security Council resolutions concerning Iran and I believe that this provision is not critical to Iran.

7. Ending all IAEA resolutions and nuclear oversight measures

This is likely unacceptable to the Trump administration as the US has been insisting on IAEA inspections to verify Iran is not enriching uranium to weapons grade. Also, the US does not control the IAEA and cannot unilaterally end its resolutions regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

8. U.S. compensation payments for war damage

Iran has reportedly dropped this provision and agreed to obtain compensation through transit fees through the Strait of Hormuz capped at $2 million per ship. Since then, Iran has reduced its proposed transit fees to $1 per barrel which seems much more reasonable. Iran has agreed to split the fees with Oman and use these fees to fund its reconstruction costs rather than to rebuild its military. However, Oman has stated it does not want any transit fees so Iran will presumably pocket them all.

9. Withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the Region

President Trump has previously suggested the US will pull all of its military forces out of the Persian Gulf region after the war is over. Presumably, he would also be willing to commit not to rebuild its thirteen destroyed military bases, but not the entire Middle East, which would be acceptable to Iran.

10. Comprehensive regional ceasefire, including Israel‑Hezbollah hostilities

President Trump initially agreed to this provision on April 7th but following a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he took the position that a cease-fire in Lebanon was not part of the cease-fire agreement which contradicts what Iran, Pakistan and many of our main NATO allies are saying. It would be tragic if Trump were to allow Israel to blow up the cease-fire deal which he has been seeking for the past five weeks.

While the White House says discussions are “very far along,” the demands issued by the Iran’s Supreme National Security Council would require the U.S. to abandon or reverse several long‑standing military, legal, and diplomatic positions — making their full acceptance highly uncertain. Since then, he has stated that the US and Iran are in complete agreement on the peace terms of an agreement and are set to sign a final peace deal sometime tonight but as noted above that claim is likely very much premature if not entirely facetious.

Updated US-Iran Compromise Peace Proposal

Two weeks before the outbreak of the US-Israeli war with Iran, I published a ten-point peace proposal I believe might have averted the outbreak of war. I modified it on April 1st. In this version, I have since made a few additional modifications in the latest version below to incorporate a few of Iran’s 10-point peace plan which President Trump has declared “form a workable basis for negotiations” including stating that the US will lift both primary and secondary sanctions on Iran, reducing Iranian toll fees from $2 million per ship to a more reasonable $1 per barrel of oil, a comprehensive regional cease-fire including Lebanon. In addition, I have removed the provision providing for the payment of limited reparations by the US to Iran. I have kept in several provisions which I think would be highly advantageous from the US perspective including eliminating Iran’s super-EMP satellite capabilities and eliminating its affiliated terrorist networks in the US. I also took out the requirement for Israel to withdraw from Lebanon as Iran has not demanded that.

1. Both sides shall endeavor to normalize bilateral diplomatic and trade relations and declare their commitment to the realization of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. The US recognizes Iran’s Islamist regime as the government of Iran and commits to never seek to overthrow it or assassinate any of its political or military leaders. Both sides commit to a policy of non-interference in each other’s affairs and shall pursue a productive relationship based on mutual respect.

2. The US shall lift all primary and secondary economic sanctions on Iran in return for its full compliance with this agreement. The US shall release all frozen Iranian assets and properties abroad.

3. Iran agrees to ensure and guarantee the freedom of navigation of international commerce through the Strait of Hormuz and may charge a toll of up $1 per barrel of oil. providing at least half of all such transactions are denominated in US dollars.

4. Iran will destroy its two Noor 2 and Noor 3 super Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) satellites and dismantle all its space launch vehicles (SLVs).

5. Iran will dismantle all its terrorist cells (including proxy terror cells) in the US and commit to never support any terrorist strikes by its proxies against the US or its military forces or citizens abroad.

6. The US agrees never to rebuild all thirteen of its military bases in the Persian Gulf region which have been rendered unusable by Iranian missile strikes. The US further agrees not to deploy any US military forces in the Persian Gulf aside from unarmed reconnaissance aircraft.

7. Iran commits to totally abandon all efforts to produce nuclear weapons. The US and Iran agree to negotiate a separate nuclear deal in which Iran agrees to unfettered access for International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) inspectors to verify all its nuclear weapons program activities have been suspended. Iran agrees to dilute all its Highly Enriched Uranium from 60% enrichment to 3.67% enrichment under international observation. Iran agrees to a five-year moratorium on the production of enriched uranium. Following the moratorium it may continue to produce Low Enriched Uranium (enriched up to 3.67%) for its peaceful nuclear energy program.

8. The US, Israel, Iran and its regional allies agree to a comprehensive regional ceasefire including Lebanon.

9. Both sides guarantee that they will never attack each other’s military forces, citizens or territory ever again as part of a new US-Iran non-aggression pact. The U.S. and Iran solemnly pledge that neither side will go to war against the other in the event they are attacked by a third party.

10. The US and Iran shall encourage Israel and Hamas to strictly observe the terms of the October 2025 Gaza Cease Fire Agreement including ending military strikes, facilitating the shipment of all humanitarian aid to Gaza, helping to restore and rebuild Gazan critical infrastructure and implementing phased Israeli military withdrawals in exchange for Hamas disarming except for light weapons and small arms. Then, Hamas can be replaced by both an International Security Force consisting of troops from Muslim nations and a non-Hamas led Palestinian security force.

Vance Helped Seal the Cease-Fire Deal with Iran

Vice President JD Vance reportedly did more than anyone else in the Trump administration to try to stop Trump from starting this war. Vance was also the lead US negotiator that closed the cease-fire deal on the US side. Iran refused to negotiate a cease-fire deal with anyone else because they knew he is a man of honor. He was the key US negotiator that persuaded Trump to accept Iran’s ten-point peace plan and he was successful in getting Iran to accept the US proposal for a two week cease-fire to provide sufficient time to negotiate a permanent peace deal. This has made him the only US politician whose reputation has been improved from Trump’s Iran War debacle. The American people owe him a debt of gratitude for his valiant efforts to restore peace to the Middle East and saving the US from a massive Iranian cyberattack.

Vice President JD Vance, who serves as the leader of what little remains of the America First conservative wing of the White House. Sources say he has been increasingly marginalized by President Donald Trump following his internal campaign to persuade Trump not to start an unwinnable war of aggression with the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, his opposition to the war would likely prove an asset in helping to dispatch his neocon GOP presidential primary opponents were he to run for president next year.

Vance has reportedly advised President Trump to accept much but not all of Iran’s more reasonable 10-point peace plan and implement a cease-fire on April 7^th. Trump responded by sending Vance to Hungary on the eve of the expiration of his deadline to re-open the Strait of Hormuz before sending him to try to negotiate a peace deal with Iran on April 11^th in marathon negotiations that lasted 21 hours. Vice President Vance stated that much progress was made but reports indicated he had to call Trump 21 times and Netanyahu once to get authority and guidance to negotiate certain terms. However, while Iranian negotiators were willing to continue negotiating the following day, Trump ordered Vance to return before negotiations were finalized insisting, they accept our maximalist terms.

Trump needs to give Vance full authority to negotiate a peace agreement with Iran which he could do in 48 hours without interference by Trump and Netanyahu. Then, Trump should send him to Moscow to negotiate a bilateral US-Russia peace agreement ending the war in Ukraine. Only then, can his presidential legacy as a peace president be restored. The stunning US defeat in Trump’s unnecessary great power war with Iran proves that Vice President JD Vance was right in urging Trump not to go to war with Iran. Yes, he could have and should have done war to oppose the war but he did more than anyone else in the Trump Cabinet to try to stop it.

While Vance has been chosen as the lead negotiator to finalize a peace deal with Iran and has been forced to play the role of Iran War cheerleader despite his ongoing opposition to contiuing the war, Vance’s team is reportedly exhausted trying to ‘publicly portray support’ for Trump’s unwinnable regime change war against Iran despite the fact that their boss did everything he could to try to prevent it and now to try to end it.

According to MS NOW’s Jake Traylor, that has been problematic for Vance’s team. Speaking with host Anna Cabrera, he reported, “Now he is headed to Pakistan to be the chief lead negotiator for a war he never wanted in the first place, and that has come at a cost.” “I spoke with multiple White House officials inside the White House and also former White House officials that have worked with Vance closely before,” he added. “One person told me that Vance’s national security team is extremely weary right now, trying to publicly portray support for the president and the war that he has started, but also privately having deep concern for the war itself.” “Another White House official told me that, quote, realistically, Vance has lost clout within the White House because of his dissent,” he elaborated. “So there’s been a lack of influence that White House officials are telling me Vance has right now, even though he is ultimately the lead negotiator in this moment.”

Trump Touts Humiliating US Strategic Defeat in Iran War as a ‘Victory’

While Trump claimed the Iran peace deal was “a total and complete victory for US,” nothing could be further from the truth as the US failed to accomplish any of its stated war objectives. Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined four objectives including the destruction of Iran’s Navy, the destruction of its air force, the decimation of its ballistic missile force and the destruction of its war industries. Other US objectives included regime change and the re-obliteration of its nuclear weapons program including the elimination of its 1,000 pound Highly Enriched Uranium stockpile which is reportedly sufficient for Iran to build up to fifteen atomic bombs.

While it’s true that the US and Israel successfully accomplished fifty of its top political and military leaders including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iran’s new leaders including his son Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei are more hardline and determined to build up Iran’s existing nuclear missile arsenal which appears to have been untouched by US bombing strikes both in June 2025 and the current war. Furthermore, the country that retains control of the territory in dispute after the war ends in this case the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz has always been recognized as the victor of the war. That said, the fact that the White House has been spinning the stunning US strategic defeat in its unnecessary war with Iran as a victory is a good sign that Trump is serious about making his two-week cease-fire permanent.

Renowned US strategist Dr. Robert Pape declared on April 8^th that “the US has suffered its worst strategic defeat since the Vietnam War” while saying Iran’s great power war with Iran has transformed it into the fourth world power alongside the US, Russia and China. I completely agree with Pape’s assessment that it is the worst US strategic defeat since Vietnam. Thanks to Trump’s badly botched, imperial war of conquest and aggression, Iran has transformed it into a regional hegemon of the Persian Gulf in control of 20% of the world’s oil reserves, just as I predicted it would when the war began, and the US military has been exposed as impotent, powerless and unable to alter the balance of power in the Middle East back in our favor by ending Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz. Just as I warned at the start of the conflict, Trump’s morally and strategically bankrupt great power war of conquest against Iran has been a strategic debacle of the first order. Trump has effectively set the Middle East on fire with an unnecessary major regional war of choice involving more countries than any other conflict in the past 35 years. The war, which Netanyahu deceived Trump into believing would be a quick and easy victory, has been all costs and risks with zero benefits to date.

Just as I predicted in the article I published at the beginning of the war five weeks ago, Trump’s unnecessary great power war with Iran has weakened the US militarily, economically and diplomatically while serving to greatly strengthen our enemies. As I predicted it would in my article published on March 5^th in The Real War, the war has weakened America’s alliances with Europe and the Gulf States and has transformed the regional and global balance of power against us. US relations with our allies and adversaries alike are more imperiled than ever, to the point where nearly two-thirds of Europeans view the US as a threat, and the US homeland is more at risk of imminent destruction by our nuclear-armed adversaries than it has ever been before. Trump’s naval blockade of Iran serves as an act of hostility not just against the PRC against every nation in the world that conducts sea trade with Iran including four nuclear great powers. The US and the entire globe are on the precipice of a major economic recession if Trump continues the war and his blockade for several weeks or months longer. In short, the Iran War has been a major defeat for the US, not a major victory as Trump claims.

From the beginning, I have been saying Russia, China, and Iran would prove to be the biggest winners of this war. Russia stands to make up to $55 billion in increased oil revenues a year with an end to US sanctions to finance and win its war in Ukraine. Trump’s war has given Iran full control the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz in perpetuity while the US military retreats from the region and all US sanctions are dropped. Iran stands to make $100 billion more a year in increased oil revenues and transit fees--an amount four times larger than its 2025 defense budget. China has obtained indirect control of another vital strategic chokepoint through its alliance with Iran and can finance Iran’s reconstruction and military rearmament. Meanwhile, the PRC has never been in a better position to invade Taiwan later this year with the US badly weakened militarily from expending vast amounts of its offensive missiles and missile interceptors in an unnecessary war with Iran.

The reality is that Trump’s unpopular, imperial war of aggression against Iran has also served to effectively destroy the Republican Party’s chances to retain both Houses of Congress which will prove an embarrassing defeat for the president and lead to his impeachment and potential removal from office early next year. All because of the foolish dreams of imperial conquest of one power-mad leader-Donald Trump.

For those who might not realize how effective Iran has been in neutralizing US naval power in the Persian Gulf region, the US Navy refused to risk the aircraft carrier USS George Bush by sailing it through the Red Sea essentially conceding that while Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, Iran’s ally Yemen controls the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Instead, the carrier opted to sail around the horn of Africa and the Cape of Good Hope resulting in a delay of more than one week.

Trump’s regime change wars in Iran and Venezuela have resulted in strategic failures in both instances. In Venezuela, Trump succeeded in replacing one Communist dictator with another. During his White House speech to the nation earlier this month, Trump claimed he was the most popular leader in a county he bombed, invaded, blockaded and impoverished while abducting their president and First Lady. He says he plans to learn Spanish and run for President in Communist Venezuela after his presidential term ends in 2029. My response is why wait? The sooner Trump self-deports the better it will be for the US. Meanwhile, in Iran he replaced Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with his son who is more of a hardliner while surrendering control of the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz to Iran making it a regional hegemon. This is what Trump and Hegseth call winning. How stupid do they think we are anyway?

President Trump claimed the US military lost half a billion dollars’ worth of aircraft to save a downed F-15E weapons officer who was a USAF full-bird Colonel who appears to have been a military intelligence officer on a secret mission in an operation as a victory despite the heavy losses in aircraft within a forty-eight-hour period. The operation has since been exposed by multiple sources as a raid using 200 US Special Forces to try to capture or destroy Iran’s Highly Enriched Uranium located at its deep underground Isfahan site.

Thus far, President Trump has proven the worst deal maker in history. He promised to end the Ukraine war on Day One. Fifteen months later the war continues to rage. Iran offered him a nuclear deal so good he couldn’t refuse it and the next day he assassinated its Supreme Leader. He never wanted peace with Iran. He wants perpetual war with Iran until they agree to become a US colony where he picks their leader and steals all their oil.

Trump’s Iran War Threatens US Conventional Military Superpower Status and Incentivizing China to Invade Taiwan

In my article published on March 5^th I warned that the US could not continue to be a conventional military superpower if it depleted those missiles as it would be unable to fight and sustain a great power war with Russia and/or China. Now, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryan has echoed my warning that the US cannot remain a great power without rebuilding its arsenal of offensive missiles and missile interceptors which could take many years. Bryen noted:

“The US does not have a significant inventory of missiles like China, Russia or Iran nor does the US have enough missile interceptors to protect our allies and friends or even American military bases at home or abroad. The United States cannot remain a Great Power if the problem is not fixed. Writing in War on the Rocks, authors Christopher J. Watterson and Peter J. Dean say in a Pacific conflict the US would run out of interceptors in twenty four hours.”

Map showing Chinese Joint Air-Naval Blockade exercise zones in August 2022. China has conducted numerous invasion rehearsal exercises since most recently in December. Trump’s unwinnable great power war with Iran has provided China with a powerful incentive to take advantage of increasing US military weakness and vulnerabilities in the Western Pacific Ocean to invade Taiwan later this year or next year at the latest.

Trump’s foolish war in Iran has served as one gigantic green light for the PRC to invade Taiwan. As noted above, at least two experts have estimated that US missile stocks have been so depleted by his wars with Iran that the US Navy would run out of missile defense interceptors within twenty-four hours of high-intensity combat with China over Taiwan.

As Bryen points out, the US only have 8 batteries of THAAD missile interceptors plus the SM-3 interceptors on our remaining Arleigh Burke destroyers and five remaining Ticonderoga-class cruisers in their Vertical Launch System tubes as well as 44 Ground Based Interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska which are woefully inadequate for national missile defense when Russia, China and North Korea could hit us with thousands of nuclear warheads in a nuclear first strike and many more decoys to confuse our missile defenses. He notes that we have largely depleted our Patriot missile batteries fighting the war against Russia in Ukraine and our great power war with Iran which may or may not resume in the coming weeks. Unfortunately, our enemies can build offensive missiles much more cheaply and at a much faster rate than the US can produce our missile interceptors.

The fact that the US was unable to defeat a near peer great power like Iran bodes ill for potential future wars with peer nuclear adversaries like Russia and China which have missile stockpiles far greater than Iran. This US strategic failure should give pause to US leaders who have been boasting we could prevail in full-scale military conflicts with the two nuclear superpowers who have been allied against us for decades and overmatch us in every arena of military, industrial and technological competition.

In March 2025, President Trump reportedly told his advisors he wanted to slash the US Department of War budget by fifty percent after he signed peace deals with Russia and China and even said he was open to reducing the size of the US nuclear arsenal in order to prevent the outbreak of World War Three. Last week, President Trump requested the size of the 2024 US War budget be doubled from just under $850 billion to $1.7 trillion including $1.5 trillion for the defense budget and a $200 billion Department of War supplemental request in order to fund his unnecessary, unprovoked, existential great power war of aggression against Iran which could conceivably to escalate into World War Three by year’s end, potentially including a nuclear exchange. He has even stated we can no longer afford to pay for entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid because we have to fund his great power war against Iran being fought on behalf of Greater Israel instead. What happened to the man that ran promising to be a transformational peace president who would end America’s forever wars and not start any new ones? This is not the man we elected to lead America. “It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all of these individual things,” he said. “They can do it on a state basis.” He added that the focus had to be “military protection.” Now, we find out there’s no money to pay for basic necessities for returning Iran War vets who lost everything when Iran destroyed our seventeen military bases.

While I commend President Donald Trump for putting America First by concluding a cease-fire suspending his Deep State War against Iran fought on behalf of Israeli regional hegemony, his threats of nuclear genocide against 93 million Iranians were beyond the pale and along with his unprovoked war of aggression against Iran will forever tarnish his presidency even if it only lasted 38 days. Trump will absolutely be impeached by April 2027 and unlike his previous two impeachments, this time it will be for good cause--for crimes against our God-given constitution of the United States of America in waging an illegal, unconstitutional war in the Middle East that is doing severe damage to our economy, standing in the world and most importantly to US national security. Already, sixty US House and Senate Democrats have already signed on to a petition to impeach and remove Trump from office for his threats to nuke Iran, kill millions of innocent Iranian civilians and start World War Three.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published in January 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

March 19th—Iran War Debate at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. I will be leading a debate team of three panelists on the Ant-Iran War side arguing why the war is an unprovoked war of aggression that must be ended as swiftly as possible to avert the outbreak of World War Three.

March 24th—Interview with IranTalks to discuss Trump’s unjust, unnecessary and unwinnable war with aggression, escalation on both sides, which side is likely to win a protracted war of attrition and potential compromise solutions to avert the outbreak of World War Three.

March 30th—Interview with Dr. Maria on the Dr. Maria show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s Operation Epic Fiasco and Iran War debacle and how the war risks escalating into a forever war with the chances of it escalating to World War Three increasing the longer it goes on.

March 31st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss Trump’s Neocon Deep State War on Iran, why the US is losing the war and what Trump needs to do to end it quickly to minimize US military, economic and political losses.

April 3rd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on “The National Security Hour” to discuss Trump’s great power war with Iran that is threatening to escalate to World War Three and how it has proven a strategic, military, economic and political debacle for him.

April 8th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran “back into the stone ages where they belong” and destroy Iran’s civilization in one night seeming to imply the use of nuclear weapons to kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 10th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on Lindell TV to discuss what happens if Iran doesn’t meet Trump’s ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday night and whether Trump’s threat is serious or a bluff which he has no intention of carrying out.

April 10th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran back into the stone age and the ramifications of him threatening to target and destroy Iran’s electrical power plants and potentially kill millions of Iranian civilians.

Upcoming Interviews

April 21st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss the latest news relating to Trump’s Great power war with Iran and his ongoing attempts to start World War III in flagrant violation of his campaign pledges to prevent the outbreak of a Third World War.

April 21st—Interview with Pascal Lottaz on his “Neutrality Studies” podcast to discuss the ramifications of Trump’s unwinnable great power war against Iran for the US and the world, Trump’s plans for escalation and the prospects for peace before it escalates to World War Three.

April 23rd—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast. We will discuss Trump’s indefinite cease-fire with Iran and continued blockade and whether Iran will succeed in getting Trump to capitulate to Iran’s peace terms.

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Trump arrives ahead of his speech at the White House last night looking very solemn and glum knowing that he has made a collossal mistake in starting an unwinnable war with Iran that he cannot extricate himself from without the appearance of capitulation and defeat while his poll numbers and economic indicators continue to plummet.

On March 25^th, the National Interest hosted a webinar entitled “Has World War Three Already Started?” One of the panelists, Paul Post, a senior nonresident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, essentially stated that the Iran War is a global conflict that will end up proving to be the beginning of a war that will end up being World War Three. This is a point that I have been making for weeks including in a debate which was held at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah on March 20th where I predicted that the Iran War would not end but would most likely instead escalate to World War Three by the end of the year or early next year. This of course flies in the face of the conventional misconception underscored by Trump that the US has already won his unprovoked war of aggression against Iran and that Iran has already accepted virtually all of the points of the US fifteen-point peace proposal and that the US will begin to wind down the war in the coming days.

Due to Trump’s foolish decision to initiate an unwinnable, unprovoked war of aggression against a likely nuclear-armed Iran, the US is now engaged in fighting its first great power war we have fought since we fought the PRC during the Korean War of 1950-1953. Iran’s surprisingly effective performance in the war has revealed itself as a near peer adversary to the US that we are unable to defeat militarily without escalating to the use of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, there is a high likelihood that Iran possesses not only powerful cyber offensive capabilities but that it likely has a modest nuclear arsenal of anywhere from 12-60 nuclear weapons. Iran has been effectively deterred from using its nuclear weapons on the US and Israel by our combined nuclear supremacy over it as they know using them would likely prove suicidal.

Iran also possess Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles with a range of up to 3,000 miles and even a Space Launch Vehicle with a range of 4,500 miles it could use to deliver their nuclear warheads to Israel and US-allied countries. Iran has also demonstrated the ability to launch MRBM’s with a range of up to 1,000 miles from cargo ships potentially enabling Iran to nuke Washington, DC and New York City from the mid-Atlantic. According to CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Iran is just six months away from developing ICBMs that could reach the continental United States from Iran. While there was never any imminent threat from Iran to the US or Israel, Iran now has plenty of motivation to kill millions of Americans and Israelis that it did not have before thanks to Trump’s decision to assassinate fifty of Iran’s top leaders including its top political and religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meaning the Iranian threat to the US is far greater today than it was before Trump started his unnecessary war against them.

Iran’s Noor 2 and Noor 3 military satellites circle the earth every ninety minutes and are orbiting at an altitude of 280-310 miles which I calculated many years ago to be the optimum altitude for conducting a comprehensive nationwide super-Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack that could destroy all US critical infrastructure in the continental United States. The longer this war drags on, the greater chance could escalate with massive cyberattacks on each side or escalate horizontally as China and North Korea are increasingly tempted to take advantage of US military weakness in the Western Pacific to invade Taiwan and South Korea knowing the US will be unable to effectively respond militarily with the US bogged down fighting a major regional war in the Middle East.

Reports indicate that Russia is providing Iran with hundreds, and most likely thousands, of long-range combat drones while Chechen military commanders are offering to send thousands of troops to fight to defend Iran from a US ground invasion meaning that the US could find itself engaged in direct combat with Russian ground forces. It’s even possible that this war could end with a nuclear exchange either between the US/Israel and Iran or between the US/Israel and Iran and one or more of its three nuclear-armed allies—Russia, China and North Korea.

The two biggest winners of the Iran War—Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump’s great power war with Iran and his decision to lift all sanctions on Russian oil exports is making Russia rich while China is getting more oil from Iran than it did before the war as it watches the US waste its military strength fighting an unwinnable war in the Middle East emboldening it to take advantage of the window of vulnerability to invade Taiwan.

With every passing week, the Trump administration continues to dumb down its stated objectives in the hopes of making them more achievable. First it was regime change and Iran’s unconditional surrender and the total destruction of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and ballistic missile arsenal. Now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is stating its merely the destruction of Iran’s air force, the destruction of their navy, the severe diminishing of their missile launching capability and the destruction of their conventional weapons factories.

However, none of these objectives have been achieved or are even close to being achieved. Iran’s air force is still largely intact but is not being used. Most of Iran’s navy is intact including their submarines and hundreds of their anti-ship missile boats and smaller surface combatants. The latest estimates are that only thirty percent of Iran’s ballistic missiles have been destroyed while Iran’s military industries are concentrated deep underground impervious to US conventional bombing strikes. Notably, the White House appears to have left regime change and degrading or eliminating Iran’s nuclear weapons program off the list of its objectives knowing there is nothing the US can do to successfully overthrow Iran’s Islamist regime or to eliminate Iran’s ability to continue producing nuclear warheads with which to threaten the US and Israel.

On March 30^th, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth articulated the Trump administration’s plan for US hegemony of the area of the Western Hemisphere north of the equator. The plan makes good strategic sense from a US national security perspective unlike most of Trump’s other strategic adventures. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the US were to confine all of its offensive military operations to this core region for US national security instead of fighting forever wars all around the globe? For the past several years, America’s imperial wars have been fought where no discernible US national security interests are at issue with great powers like Iran and Russia that threaten to escalate into a nuclear World War Three with the potential to destroy the US homeland itself.

On January 9^th, Fox News Senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked President Donald Trump if he would “ever order a mission to go and capture” Russian President Vladimir Putin, like the operation conducted Saturday that saw Delta Forces arrest former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. Doocy’s question came in relation to remarks by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose country has been at war with Russia since it invaded in 2022, when asked about the Maduro raid last week.

“If dictators can be dealt with in this way, then the United States of America knows what it should do next,” Zelensky quipped at the time, without mentioning who he was referring to. While Trump took questions from reporters at his meeting with U.S. oil executives on Friday, Doocy raised the comment, adding: “Sounds like he wants you to go and capture Vladimir Putin.” “Would you ever order a mission to go and capture Vladimir Putin?” he asked. The president replied, “Well, I don’t think it’s going to be necessary. I’ve always had a great relationship with him. I’m very disappointed.”

Following the US-backed assassination of Iran’s head of State Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, one wonders how Trump might respond to a question by the intrepid Fox News reporter whether he would back Zelensky if he attempted to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin. If the US and Israel can act as rogue states and employ acts of state-sponsored terror than how could we complain if Russia, China, North Korea and Iran did the same thing to our leaders citing Trump’s actions in abducting and assassinating foreign heads of state as a pretext?

Iran War Has Proven an Epic, Unmitigated Strategic, Military, Economic Disaster for US

Before the war broke out last June, Russia warned that a US war on Iran would result in “uncontrolled regional escalation” and that is exactly what we have been seeing with Iran striking the territory or bases of the US, Israel and fourteen of our European and Gulf State allies. Trump revealed this was a total war when he assassinated 50 top Iranian leaders on day one of the war. Just imagine if Iran had killed Trump and half the Cabinet and top congressional leaders on the first day of a war. You can’t get much more escalatory than that. This is an unrestricted, total war on both sides. Each side is doing things that we have not seen done in modern warfare employing more advanced ballistic and cruise missiles and drones against each other. The US and Israel are hitting Iranian energy infrastructure, missile sites, air defenses and sinking Iranian ships. Iran is hitting US bases and missile defense radars with precision, taking down allied Gulf State energy infrastructure and holding the mighty US Navy at bay with the USS Abraham Lincoln afraid to come within 1,000 kilometers of Iran for fear of being sunk by Iran’s huge arsenal of anti-ship missiles.

When President Joe Biden deliberately provoked Russia to invade Ukraine, I condemned his Ukraine war policy as morally and strategically bankrupt because he was sacrificing the lives of a million Ukrainian soldiers to date with no hope of victory. Today, I condemn President Donald Trump for starting a war that is even more morally and strategically bankrupt because he is risking the sacrifice of the lives of tens of thousands of US soldiers and millions of US citizens to fight a war in which we have no hope of winning that is serving to make the US and its over 290 million citizens far less safe. Furthermore, Trump is bombing Iranian cities and threatening to destroy Iran’s electrical power grid which could cause immense suffering and lead to the deaths of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Iranian civilians which he is purportedly fighting the war to liberate.

Many Trump partisans believed the White House’s absurd claims that Iran would be defeated, their regime overthrown and the war won inside a week, and some even said Iran was liberated right after the Ayatollah had been assassinated. Others claimed that the protesters would succeed in overthrowing the regime on their own. None of those rosy predictions have been proven accurate. It has been reported that President Trump’s inner circle of senior advisors are refusing to allow him to be briefed on Iranian military successes in destroying US military bases and assets causing him to falsely believe that the US is winning the war and Iran’s military has been destroyed even while it steps up the pace of its missile strikes against the US and Israel. Earlier today, it was reported that White House Chief of Staff was encouraging Trump’s top advisors not to sugar coat negative reports about the Iran War and speak their minds which is encouraging. She is no doubt increasingly aware that the political and economic ramifications of continuing the war are proving increasingly disastrous for Trump, the Republican Party and his presidential legacy.

The New York Times is reporting that Iran has largely succeeded in destroying or rendering unusable thirteen to seventeen US military bases in the Middle East. No US adversary has ever been this successful in striking so many US military bases simultaneously since Imperial Japan during the Second World War. Yet on March 14^th, Trump boasted that “we have destroyed 100% of Iran’s military capacity.” Meanwhile, the White House is calling on the FEC to censor factual, but negative, stories about his unjust, unwinnable and unprovoked war of aggression against Iran that expose the fact that the US is losing the war to maintain public support for the war in advance of the November midterm elections while the FBI and CIA are investigating vocal conservative opponents of the war like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center and Iraq War hero Joe Kent.

America First conservative champion and Iraq war hero Joe Kent—a man of honor who resigned his position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center over Trump’s decision to keep fighting the war in Iran for months and prepare for a ground invasion of Iran which could cost the lives of thousands of his fellow soldiers. Trump responded by having the FBI investigate him on false allegations he leaked classified information.

Trump’s forever war on Iran has not just proven disastrous strategically and militarily for the US it has also proven politically and economically disastrous as well with a US economic recession now guaranteed as the cost-of-living soars and gas prices surge to six dollars a gallon. His foolish and unnecessary war is killing the US economy, financial system and the Republican Party of chances future national elections for a generation to come. Hopefully that’s the worst of it but I fear his great power forever war with Iran will have far worse ramifications for the US. The US stock market has lost 10% in value since Trump started Operation Epic Fiasco against Iran. That’s $6-6.7 trillion worth of losses (correction territory) hitting the pocketbooks of everyday Americans. Average gas prices nationwide have shot up by forty-one percent since the war began.

Just as I warned in my Real War article on March 5th, Trump’s great power war with Iran is beginning to transform the regional and global balance of power in our enemies favor and now we see that’s exactly what has happened. Iran now has massive influence over Europe and our Gulf allies they never had before. As a result of the war, Russia and Iran are getting richer while China is getting more Iranian oil than it was getting before the war. As I have been saying, Iran will likely end up being known as the graveyard of America’s liberal empire.

I have also been warning that Trump’s unwinnable war on Iran could break the US military and deplete our offensive and defensive missile status to an extent that it could end up eliminating the US from the ranks of the world’s conventional military superpowers at least temporarily since it will likely take several years to rebuild the thousands of missiles and missile interceptors we exhaust infighting this unnecessary war. Trump’s Iran War debacle is a dream come true for Chinese President Xi Jinping. China is undoubtedly feeling emboldened by increasing US military weakness and offensive and defensive missile depletion in the Western Pacific. The perfect time for China to invade Taiwan will likely be this October by which time the US military will likely be exhausted and broken from Trumps great power war with Iran though the war is likely to continue for another year at least which would allow them to postpone an invasion until April 2027

President Trump has called his massive bombing campaign against Iran “a war” from the day it began claiming “we won the war” five times on March 11^th, laughably claiming a couple of weeks ago that the US had succeeded in destroying 100% of their military capacity. When asked last week if Americans should worry about the US striking the US homeland and killing scores of our citizens, he replied “I guess so…in war some people die.” President Trump has consistently lied to the American people about Iran and every aspect of the war. He has bombed schools and hospitals and killed 150 young girls at an all-girls elementary school with a ‘double-tap’ Tomahawk cruise missile strikes and has bombed over a dozen Iranian cities, killing over two thousand and wounding over 26,500 Iranians, many of whom are civilians, and causing them to flee the cities with their families for safety causing them to rally in their support for the regime. Israel has blown up Iran’s biggest natural gas plant and has destroyed 30 oil centers while the US has destroyed one of Iran’s biggest desalinization plants depriving Iranian civilians of water.

On March 25^th, after calling his forever regime change war in Iran “a war” for the past three and a half weeks, Trump declared it’s not really “a war” at all. He now says it’s just a special “military operation” like Russia has been calling its war in Ukraine because he says if you call it “a war” it requires congressional approval which the White House is not requesting. The administration is requesting another $200 billion to fight Trump’s special “military operation” for another three to seven months to May or even the end of September. If the war was truly ending in two to three weeks as Trump claims, his administration would be withdrawing or at least drastically reducing their $200 billion war appropriations supplemental request.

On March 25^th, at the Christian Prayer & Worship Service at the Pentagon, disgraced neocon Secretary of War Pete Hegseth calls on God to “pour out your wrath” on “the ungodly” and sanction “overwhelming violence” against “those who deserve no mercy” seeming to call for God’s support for mass murder and perhaps even genocide against the people of Iran. But what he fails to understand that what he is asking for is for God to destroy himself and other murderous members of the Trump administration who started this unjust war of aggression in the Middle East which Pope Leo XIV has rightly stated is being waged in “blatant violation of Christian morality.”

Trump’s Iran War US Military Casualty Cover-Up

Since the war began, I have been stating that an integral part of the White House’s Iran War propaganda campaign is to cover up the true extent of US military casualties and the effectiveness of Iranian strikes on the US and our allies to fuel the fake news narrative that the US is winning the war when in fact the opposite is the case. Earlier in the war, President Trump was asked about the number of US casualties and responded by stating that “the actual number of US military casualties might be much higher” so it seems likely Trump is being told the actual number of US casualties.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has come out as a bloodthirsty warmonger who recently prayed for God’s help in killing thousands of Iranians and stated “we are negotiating with bombs.” President Donald Trump even joked that if he ended the war, Hegseth would probably be disappointed. Hegseth has ordered the Department of War to cover up the true extent of US military casualties likely under Trump’s direction.

Just yesterday, the Intercept confirmed my stated assumption that the Pentagon has indeed been ordered to coverup the true level of US military casualties in Trump’s war on Iran which number nearly 750 not 313 as the Department of War has falsely been claiming. It is reporting that the Pentagon has sent outdated statements on the number of U.S. troops killed or wounded during the Iran war, resulting in undercounts.

Almost 750 U.S. troops have been wounded or killed in the Middle East since October 2023, an analysis by The Intercept has found. But the Pentagon won’t acknowledge it. U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, appears to be engaged in what a defense official called a “casualty cover-up,” offering The Intercept low-ball and outdated figures and failing to provide clarifications on military deaths and injuries. CENTCOM also would not provide a count of troops who have died in the region since the start of the war. An Intercept analysis puts the number at no less than 15. “This is, quite obviously, a subject that [War Secretary Pete] Hegseth and the White House want to keep under major wraps,” said the defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak frankly.

Prior to the current war with Iran, U.S. bases in the Middle East were increasingly targeted by a mix of one-way attack drones, rockets, mortars, and close-range ballistic missiles after Israel’s war in Gaza began in October 2023, most of the attacks occurring in the year following the outset of the conflict. At least 175 troops were killed or wounded in those attacks, including three service members who died in a January 2024 strike on Tower 22, a facility in Jordan. Other attacks targeted al-Asad Air Base, the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center, Camp Victory, Union III, Erbil Air Base, and Bashur Air Base in Iraq and Al-Tanf garrison, Deir ez-Zor Air Base, Mission Support Site Euphrates, Mission Support Site Green Village, Patrol Base Shaddadi, Rumalyn Landing Zone, Tell Baydar, and Tal Tamir in Syria.

The casualty statistics do not include contractors, most of them foreigners who suffered non-combat injuries. Official U.S. statistics show that there were almost 12,900 cases of injuries to contractors in the CENTCOM area of operations during 2024 alone. More than 3,700 were the most serious non-fatal injuries, including traumatic brain injuries, requiring more than seven days away from work. Eighteen contractors were also killed, all of them in Iraq. The numbers are likely significant undercounts, but if even the fractional number of known contractor injuries is added to the tally, the casualty count for Americans and those on U.S. bases may top 13,600.

So, the Intercept is reporting that over 14,500 US soldiers and defense contractors have been killed or wounded in the Middle East since October 2023 most of them from Iranian proxy attacks. It is surprising that if Iran killed or wounded that many US troops and defense contractors over the past two and a half years that it was not used as a justification for Trump’s war on Iran as it would seem to be a more plausible pretext than any of the unconvincing ones the White House has put up to date. Most likely they feared doing so as it would severely undermine public support for continuing the US military presence in the Middle East. One of Iran’s five peace demands is a full US military withdrawal from the Persian Gulf region. Given that US military and defense contractor casualties may well be in the five figures over the past couple of years from Iranian and Iranian proxy attacks, President Trump should avail himself of this golden opportunity to put America First and keep his promise to pull US troops out of the Middle East so Israel can never use them as a tripwire to entrap us in an unnecessary war with Iran ever again.

Trump Doubles Down on Iran War Debacle Vowing to “Bomb Iran Back into the Stone Age”

During his White House address to the nation last night, Trump claimed the US has largely accomplished all four of his newly stated objectives including destroying the Iranian Air Force, destroying the Iranian Navy, destroying their war industries and destroying their ballistic missiles when in fact we have accomplished none of them. None of those goals have been accomplished. Iran’s Air Force and Navy are still mostly intact.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Israel) pictured here to the left of President Donald Trump. Graham recently stated he doesn’t stand with Americans but that “I stand with Israel until my dying day.” He has largely been working as an Israeli agent of influence urging Trump to start a disastrous great power war with Iran with no exit plan in furtherance of Israeli objectives and Trump has been all too happy to oblige.

Iran had ten light naval frigates and corvettes before the war. I am guessing most of them have been sunk along with a 42,000-ton Iranian drone carrier known as the IRIS Shahid Bagheri but the Iranian Navy has up to 300 missile boats each armed with supersonic anti-ship missiles with at least 350 kph range. They also have up to 26 patrol boats and around 25 diesel submarines left including several ultra-quiet Russian Kilo-class diesel submarines. It is Iran’s missile boats and subs that pose the main threat to the US Navy and Persian Gulf shipping. Iran’s air force has been grounded but remains largely intact though we have reportedly succeeded in destroying their modest fleet of F-14 Tomcat fighters. The US and Israel remain largely unwilling to engage in air missions in Iranian airspace because Iranian C3 and air defense capabilities remain robust opting to use stand-off attack missiles instead just outside of Iran’s air defense umbrella.

Iran’s ballistic missile force is still quite powerful and at most 30% degraded with some reports suggesting that they may have enough missiles to continue fighting the war for up to two years. Their nuclear missile arsenal in their hardened concrete silos has been untouched as is their 1,000 pound Highly Enriched Uranium stockpile which we estimate is enough to build as many as 15 more. President Trump continues to muse about sending thousands of US Special Forces to capture it but there is no way we can confirm with any degree of certainty where it is being stored so if he were to send US troops to try to hunt it down, it would likely prove a suicide mission with zero prospects of success. Iran’s war industries, long-range ballistic missile and drone factories and nuclear warhead production facilities are also located deep underground and impervious to conventional air and missile strikes.

As Seymour Hersch noted in his article published earlier today, “In this morning’s New York Times, Edward Wong assesses whether the US has achieved the goals the president set out in a February 28 video announcing the war and finds that it has fallen short. The harsh religious government in Tehran is still in power, and Iran is continuing to limit the flow of oil, gas, fertilizer, and food through the Strait of Hormuz, creating economic havoc throughout the Western world. Iranian missiles and drones are continuing to strike Israeli and America’s oil-producing allies in the Persian Gulf.”

President Donald Trump claimed that his regime change war against Iran was never about regime change at all. He claims regime change was achieved, and that Iran’s new leaders are more reasonable and moderate than all the ones we killed. The truth is the exact opposite. Their regime is even more hardline and more IRGC controlled than it was before Trump started his war against them nearly five weeks ago.

It is important to note that there was no imminent threat of an Iranian attack on the US as the Pentagon and even White House officials have openly admitted and that everything that Iran has done in terms of its attacks against US military bases and our allies in the Middle Eastern region and closing the Strait of Hormuz has been in direct response to Trump’s decision to assassinate their First Family. Yet in his speech, Trump claimed that Iran’s attacks in response to his bombings of Iran underscored why the US had to go to war Iran at this time to stop them.

President Donald Trump said casualties in war are inevitable claiming that the parents of fallen US soldiers told him to keep the war in Iran going until the war was won in what sounds suspiciously like one of his self-serving made up stories of the kind both he and his predecessor, Joe Biden, have become infamous for making up. “When you have conflicts like this, you always have death,” he said afterward. “I met the parents and they were unbelievable people. They were unbelievable people, but they all had one thing in common. They said to me, one thing, every single one: Finish the job, sir. Please finish the job.”

During his speech, Trump suggested that he is planning on ending the war in the next two to three weeks leaving Iran in control of the Strait of Hormuz after falsely claiming Iran’s President has requested a cease-fire. He also stated that when the war is over, the Strait of Hormuz will somehow “open up naturally” but then called on our European allies to help open the Strait presumably because the US Navy doesn’t want to lose a carrier strike group to Iranian hypersonic anti-ship missiles while attempting to do so. With permanent Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, de-dollarization is well underway in the Gulf region as Iran will be in a position to force our European allies to pay $2 million or higher tolls to transit the strait for many years to come if not indefinitely. Trump also falsely claimed US troops “liberated Venezuela in minutes” on January 3rd and that the US is now in control of more oil than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined when including Venezuelan oil even though their Communist regime remains in total control of the country.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian pictured here after winning Iran’s 2024 presidential election recently sent a letter urging Americans to call for peace with Iran and tell Trump to end the war to end the killing on both sides. His letter provided a huge contrast to President Trump’s speech last night during which he pledged to bomb Iran “back into the stone age where they belong” likely leading to the deaths of millions of innocent Iranian civilians for whom he falsely claims to be fighting to liberate.

Iran saw this war coming 23 years ago when Bush invaded Iraq and they were ready for us decentralizing their command-and-control system and moving their nuclear program, long-range ballistic missiles, and military industries underground. Iran’s command, control and communication network has proven to be extremely robust and they continue to destroying key US and Israeli military targets with great precision thanks to Chinese and Russian satellite targeting intelligence. Iran has had the technical capability to build a nuclear arsenal since 2003 according to both Netanyahu and Dr. Peter Pry so either they are a peace loving regime and have elected not to have nukes or they have built a modest arsenal of 15-100 nukes as myself and other experts have concluded.

Trump spent much of his speech spouting misinformation about Iran’s nuclear weapons program. First, he claimed if he hadn’t pulled out of the JCPOA, Iran would have a significant nuclear arsenal right now and would have used their nukes against the US while also using its nuclear shield to allow them to conduct terrorist attacks against the US and Israel from Iran with impunity. Trump says even though he saved America from the threat of Iran building nukes under the JCPOA, our B-2 bombers were forced to obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program in June that he prevented Iran from developing. Then, he says that we had to go back to presumably re-obliterate it eight months later after we totally destroyed their nuclear program and that had we not gone back and re-obliterated, Americans would be living under the threat of Iranian nuclear attack right now.

When President Trump stated he wanted to end the war in three weeks, I was hopeful he was sincere in wanting to bring rapid end to the conflict. If Trump were serious about peace with Iran, he would be escalating the war by trying to destroy their power plants, oil refineries, bridges, medical research centers and desalinization plants, he would be de-escalating the war to prove he was sincere about peace. Instead, he said “we have to finish the job” by bombing Iran “into the stone age” and destroying them as a nation so they can never build back, destroying the ability of the Iranian people and their children to subsist in the process, which is serious war crime that could perpetrate a genocide against the Iranian people.

Perhaps, he fails to realize that Iran could retaliate by shutting down US critical infrastructure with a massive cyber and/or super-Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack on the US homeland that could lead to the deaths of millions of Americans. In any case, it’s crystal clear that Trump places very little value on human life whether it’s the lives of our soldiers and citizens or theirs. If anyone thought we were fighting Trump’s war on Iran for a noble cause like liberating the Iranian people from its authoritarian Islamist regime, that misperception was completely blown away by his remarks tonight.

Dr. Robert Pape had the best analysis of the night of President Trump’s speech. As he notes, Trump says that “we must honor the dead by completing the mission” and says the new US military mission is “bombing them into the stone ages” i.e. destroying Iran’s electrical power grid implying a massive escalation of the war that could prolong it indefinitely or perhaps even cause it to escalate to the cyber, super-EMP or nuclear level--i.e. World War Three. Trump also declared if Iran did not capitulate to the US fifteen point peace ultimatum, that “if there is not adeal we will hit each and every one of Iran’s power plants and probably simultaneously” and “hit their oil” which “would not give them even a chance of survival” and “there is nothing they could do about it.”

General Curtis LeMay first used the phrase bombing “back to the Stone Age” when the US dropped the equivalent of over 500 Hiroshima size atomic bombs on North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1965-1973 suggesting Trump is planning a months or even years long conventional (or perhaps even nuclear) bombing campaign against Iran that will prolong the war far beyond his stated two-three week timeframe. It is worth noting that the most massive US strategic bombing campaign ever waged against North Vietnam didn’t lead to a US victory. Rather, it led to its victory over the US and its Republic of Vietnam allies. Furthermore, no US strategic bombing campaign in history has ever succeeded in overthrowing a regime without the assistance of large-scale opposition groups.

Both President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatened to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age” on Wednesday night.“We’re going to bring them back to the stone ages where they belong,” Trump said during a prime-time address while threatening to hit Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.” “Back to the Stone Age,” Hegseth echoed in a post on X shortly after the speech.

On Wednesday, Trump reiterated that he would target Iranian energy infrastructure if Iran didn’t reach a deal to end the war. He’s also suggested the U.S. could attack the country’s desalination facilities, fueling concerns that he would intentionally decimate civilian infrastructure and commit a war crime. (Iran has also responded with its own threats.)

The phrase about bombing “back to the Stone Age” was used by Gen. Curtis LeMay, the Air Force chief of staff during the Vietnam War who also oversaw the extensive bombing of Japan during World War II. (LeMay later disputed how his comments were characterized.)

If Trump follows through on his threat to bomb Iran into the stone age by destroying all of their power plants, his administration will likely prove far more murderous and terrorists than Iran’s ever was up until this point but Iran will likely try to outdo him by killing millions of Americans and possibly Israelis in response.

U.S. stocks fell sharply and oil prices rose, as doubt took over again on Wall Street about a possible end to the war. What Trump didn’t say is that he continues to surge thousands more US ground troops to the Middle East for a possible invasion of Iran. He also didn’t threaten repercussions against our NATO allies after giving an interview with Reuters saying he was going to announce he was seriously considering pulling the US out of NATO because just like everything else he threatens, it was just an empty bluff.

Iran has refused all of Trump’s cease fire offers stating the need to restore deterrence against the US and Israel aggressors and stating that it will only agree to a peace deal in which the US agrees to permanently withdraw all its military forces and bases from the Persian Gulf region. Because Iran controls the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, the war will not end until Trump accepts their peace terms. The only question has been whether Trump is smart enough to declare victory now and cut our losses or wait until America’s defeat is far more costly and humiliating with the loss of trillions of dollars and many thousands of US military servicemen. Trump’s fiery and bombastic speech last night would strongly suggest he is not. A recent poll revealed 79% of Trump voters want him to declare victory and end the war immediately. Trump recently declared that he thinks it would take fifteen years for Iran to build back its military capabilities and that is an acceptable outcome of the war.

Trump’s Foolish Plan to Stage an Airborne and Amphibious Invasion of Kharg Island

On March 8^th, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declared that President Trump was refusing to rule out reinstituting the draft. The last war we used the draft was Vietnam when we had half a million troops deployed there. The only reason Trump would need a draft would be if he was considering a full-scale invasion of Iran with half a million troops. It would likely take two to three years at best to amass an invasion force of that size and successfully invade Iran. Further, we could not transport those troops to Iraq through the Persian Gulf because it is now controlled by Iran. However, Iran has almost a million active duty military servicemembers and could mobilize up to 13.6 million more including army reserves, paramilitary and national police forces so even if the US deployed all 1,150,000 US Army active and reserve troops to invade Iran across mountainous terrain, success would be far from assured.

On March 19^th, Trump asked if he is deploying ground troops to invade Iran, responded, “No, I’m not putting troops anywhere.” Later the same day, Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu said there would be “a ground component” to the war. That night, it was reported that the USS Basser has left San Diego with a second Marine Expeditionary Unit and will arrive in the Arabian Sea in one month. As I have demonstrated earlier in this article and in past articles, it seems like Trump is always saying one thing and doing the exact opposite.

Pete Hegseth has reportedly asked U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Randy George to step down and take immediate retirement. One source said Hegseth is seeking a successor who is aligned with the defense and leadership vision of Donald Trump and willing to implement both Trump’s and Hegseth’s direction for the U.S. Army. The Secretary of War firing the Army’s top general in the middle of the biggest war the US has fought in decades is certainly not conducive to increasing confidence that Trump’s War in Iran is going as planned. The reason for the firing is most likely because General George has expressed major reservations over Trump’s reported plans to drop thousands of 82^nd Airborne Division troops on Kharg Island just sixteen miles from the Iranian mainland where their planes could be shot out of the sky and they could be subjected to serious and sustained bombardment from heavy artillery fire, combat drones and short-range ballistic missiles.

Two weeks ago, one Trump official stated the administration’s plan is to use 5,000 US Marines and up to 8,000 light infantry troops from the 82^nd Airborne’s division which we found out is being sent to the Middle East to invade Kharg island to use it as a bargaining chip in exchange for Iran re-opening the Strait of Hormuz. That number has since risen up to 17,000 troops. Despite Trump’s failure to state whether he is planning on invading Iranian territory, thousands of US Special Operations forces—Navy SEALs and Army Rangers—are either en route or soon will be to zones within striking range of the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial choke points for the shipping of oil from the Middle East to the rest of the world. Add the number of those en route to those already stationed in the region, and Trump easily could have fifty thousand US troops ready to clear the Strait of Hormuz or even to dig out the partially enriched uranium Iran is believed to have tucked away in one or more of tunnels under the nuclear facilities the US and Israel attacked last June.

On March 26^th, it was reported that Trump had told his senior advisors he wants the war wrapped up in weeks, not months with the plan to invade Kharg Island in mid-April with up to 8,000 airborne troops and Marines and use US control of this key Iranian island through which ninety percent of oil passes to negotiate a better peace deal with Iran. Trump’s reported plan to try to use thousands of US Marines to take control of multiple Iranian islands in what would likely prove to be a failed and futile attempt to re-establish control of the Persian Gulf could result in thousands of US military casualties. Renowned foreign policy theorist Dr. John Mearsheimer has stated it would be a military debacle like the British-led amphibious invasion of Gallipoli. But it won’t just be a military debacle like Gallipoli. It will likely result in multiple US warships including the USS Tripoli being sent to the bottom of the Persian Gulf from Iran’s hundreds if not thousands of anti-ship missiles including hypersonic missiles. If so, it would prove the most humiliating US naval defeat since Pearl Harbor. America First conservative champion and war hero Joe Kent’s decision to resign as Director of the Counterterrorism Center, which was announced on March 17th, could very well be in partial response to Trump’s decision to move forward with these amphibious assaults.

As I mentioned in my last article, both Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and its Foreign Minister Abbas Araghch are trying to goad Trump to send thousands of US Marines, Airborne troops and dozens of US ships into their ‘kill box’ in the Persian Gulf before it springs the trap, sinks our ships and uses the thousands of our troops stranded on the island and up to five other strategic Iranian islands as hostages and bargaining chips. The problem is that if he attempts to send amphibious assault ships through the Strait of Hormuz and Iran sinks them and we lose thousands of US military casualties, Trump will likely fall into an escalation trap. He will come under tremendous pressure to escalate the war and keep fighting it until the Democrats defund his unwinnable and unjust war of aggression early next year when they take control of both Houses of Congress.

A modest ground incursion of 8,000 airborne and amphibious troops into a massive country like Iran isn’t going to win a war. In fact, it might not even win a battle as Iran is likely to sink any amphibious assault ships like the USS Tripoli and USS Boxer that attempt to pass through the Strait of Hormuz meaning that our amphibs and thousands of US Marines might never reach Kharg Island unless Iran allows them to. Even if the US succeeds in capturing Kharg Island in an airborne and amphibious assault with thousands of US military casualties, it will just play into Iran’s hands as it will greatly increase the global price of oil pressuring Trump to accept Iran’s peace terms rather than pressuring them to accept ours. The US could lose as many military servicemen in a single day as it lost during two decades of war in Afghanistan and Republican support for Trump’s unwinnable and unnecessary great power war with Iran will seriously erode. Previous America First conservative GOP leaders who converted to the neocon side with their support of the War on Iran will realize they’ve been misled into supporting a war that is making the US far less safe and secure with no discernible benefits to US national security.

Not unsurprisingly, Israel has announced that if Trump engages in a massive US ground invasion of Iran, it will not send any IDF troops to assist us because Israel prefers to use tens of thousands of US military servicemembers as cannon fodder to fight its imperial wars of aggression and expansion. Meanwhile, Russia and China seem very pleased with Trump’s apparent plan to sacrifice the lives of thousands of US soldiers to take Kharg Island. Trump is foolishly falling into their trap to bleed the US military dry so China can invade Taiwan without worrying about any effective US military opposition and Russia can finish the job in Ukraine.

Trump Reveals Massive Iranian Missile Strike on USS Abraham Lincoln

On March 24^th, just ten days after boasting that the US had destroyed 100 percent of Iran’s military capacity, Trump revealed that Iran attacked the USS Abraham Lincoln with 101 supersonic anti-ship missile traveling at a speed of 2,500 miles an hour, which equates to Mach 3.3, “approaching from 17 different directions” saying “I think we are in trouble” and “we ran for our lives” suggesting he thought the carrier might be sunk and sped away to a distance of 1,000 kilometers from the Iranian mainland to escape future Iranian anti-ship missile strikes.

According to Naval Today, Trump stated:

“They shot 100 missiles at one of our aircraft carriers, one of the biggest ships in the world, actually. And of 101 missiles shot, every single one of them was knocked down. So you think of it, think of what that means. 101 missiles, highly sophisticated, very fast missiles shot, and of 101, all 101 were shot down, and now for the most part lying at the bottom of the sea,” Trump stated. He added, “When a missile is going at 2,500 miles an hour, I don’t care how far away it is you don’t have a lot of time [to shoot them down]. The remarks came at the swearing-in ceremony for the new Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, in the Oval Office on Tuesday. Trump disclosed the details amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East linked to Operation Epic Fury, which began on February 28.

The comments follow earlier claims from Iran regarding the same carrier. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has asserted that its naval drone units struck the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Sea of Oman. According to Iranian state-linked reporting, the carrier had approached within roughly 340 kilometers of Iran’s territorial waters near the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz. A spokesperson for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters claimed the vessel was hit by drones and subsequently withdrew from the area. Iranian officials further stated that the carrier strike group retreated more than 1,000 kilometers following the alleged engagement.

On March 27^th, he added additional details to this blockbuster revelation of a massive Iranian supersonic anti-ship missile strike.

“We knew there was a problem when we noticed at one o’clock in the morning every 32 seconds another airplane, a very fast plane, was coming off the deck of an aircraft carrier.” He added, “That’s actually the biggest aircraft carrier in the world, and every 32 seconds, boom, boom, boom. And it was one o’clock in the morning. So, we said, okay, I think we’re in trouble.” “But they were ready for us, Johnny. And we were ready. He said we were ready. And then they hit us, and they came from 17 different angles. They were here, they were there… we ran for our lives. It was over. And uh, it was over,”

If Iran attacked the USS Abraham Lincoln from seventeen different directions, it would demonstrate an impressive level of sophistication in their missile arsenal only seen in the arsenals of nuclear great powers like Russia, China and North Korea and the US itself.

Trump Warns He is Seriously Considering Withdrawing US from NATO

President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other prominent members of the Trump administration have expressed their anger at America’s NATO partners for refusing to provide any aid whatsoever to the US in our continuing efforts to force Iran to re-open the Strait of Hormuz. Multiple countries including Spain, France and Italy have refused to allow US aircraft transiting to and from the Middle East to land or refuel on US military bases in their countries. In response yesterday, Donald Trump has warned he is strongly considering pulling the US out of NATO in his latest attack on the ‘paper tiger’ bloc. In an interview with the London Telegraph, he said removing America from the 77-year-old alliance is now ‘beyond reconsideration.’ He said: ‘I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.’ Since the start of the war with Iran, the US has unsuccessfully tried to lobby his NATO allies into joining the fight.

NATO Headquarters in Brussles. Once a laudable defensive alliance that helped deter a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, over the past twenty-eight years it has become an alliance of aggressors starting wars in the former Yugoslavia, Libya and now Ukraine and changing for the borders of Europe by force for the first time since World War Two. Trump has rightly denounced NATO as “obsolete” and '“a paper tiger” and twice told his senior Cabinet members he wanted to get out of NATO during his first term.

In a second interview with Reuters, Trump said he would state in an address to the nation last night that he was “absolutely” considering withdrawing from the NATO alliance. “Il’l be discussing my disgust with NATO” he said of the speech. Asked if he was thinking about pulling out of NATO, he said. “Oh, absolutely without question. Wouldn’t you do that if you were me?” Earlier that day, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declined to reaffirm the US commitment to NATO’s collective defense.

While Secretary Rubio voted with the majority of members of Congress to block Trump from pulling the US out of NATO unilaterally, there is nothing to stop President Trump from renouncing the US military and nuclear guarantee for our European NATO partners and from pulling the US out of NATO’s military command structure and withdrawing all US conventional and nuclear forces from Europe while the US remains as a nominal NATO member state.

Predictably, Trump did not follow through on his purported plan to say he was seriously considering pulling the US out of NATO during his White House address but a number of his neocon supporters including Lt. General Keith Kellogg (USA Ret.) are now openly calling for him to withdraw the US from NATO while others are calling on him to withdraw tens of thousands of US troops from Europe in retaliation to our European NATO frenemies refusing to aid us in our illegal, unjust and unprovoked war of aggression. A poll published by X by Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity revealed that 84 percent of respondents supported ending US membership in NATO.

In related news, a couple of months ago, Foreign Affairs reported that the US Ambassador to NATO announced that the US wants a German general to replace the US as Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

Last November, Matthew Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, startled a gathering of European officials at the Berlin Security Conference by remarking that he looked forward to the day when Germany would tell the United States, “We’re ready to take over the supreme allied commander position.” Despite Whitaker’s acknowledgment that such a moment was not imminent, his comments nonetheless shocked the audience of seasoned security officials who, like much of Washington, have long regarded NATO’s top military post as an American prerogative.

Trump is Committing Political Suicide for the GOP

Trump’s unnecessary great power war with Iran has proven to be extremely unpopular. Only 27% of Americans polled on the night after US military strikes on Iran supported Trump’s decision to start a major regional war with Iran. Since then, the popularity of the war has increased to 38 precent helped by the White House’s war propaganda and information warfare campaign designed to mislead the American people into supporting the war. Trump continues to struggle to articulate a justification for why he felt he had to embroil the US in yet another forever war in the Middle East in flagrant opposition to US national security interests.

President Trump campaigned against regime change wars and promised to end the Ukraine War on his first day of office and save America from World War Three. But he has done the exact opposite over the past ten months. His National Security Strategy was brilliant as was his long since aborted plan to divide the Sino-Russian military alliance, but he has been going against his own National Security strategy since it was first published in early December and really for the six months prior with his first bombing of Iran in June. Except for Trump’s first term, every time we elect a new president, they end up putting America Last and doing the bidding of the Deep Warfare State. Trump has now broken all the promises he made to tens of millions of America First conservatives like me to put America First economically and militarily. Even worse, he is now weaponizing federal law enforcement against longtime America First conservative allies like Tucker Carlson and Iraq War hero Chief Warrant Officer Joe Kent who dare oppose his unjust war of aggression against Iran.

I have always said good policies make for good politics. On the contrary, bad policies make you lose elections. Trump’s decision to double cross his America First conservative base by starting yet another forever war in the Middle East has caused his election winning MAGA coalition to break apart with the more ideological principled faction led by Tucker Carlson to move into the opposition against Trump’s unwinnable major regional war with Iran while his other supporters happily fall in line with his every flip flop to the left claiming supporting Deep State forever wars is putting America First even though he campaigned strongly against forever wars in the Middle East.

The Trump administration continues to issue threats to perpetuate acts of state sponsored terrorism as White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has stated the message other countries should receive from Trump’s decision to decapitate the Iranian leadership that offered a sweetheart nuclear deal to the US a day before we killed their Supreme Leader is that “if we don’t like the way you negotiate, we’ll kill you” all in the name of fighting terrorism, which seems unbelievably Orwellian. Yet somehow, MAGA members continue to support this nonsensical war which is all but certain to result in political suicide for the Republican Party.

Thirty-six US House Republicans are retiring and that number is likely to increase. The last time that happened in 2018 the Democrats netted a gain of forty US House seats. One of the biggest consequences from Trump’s war in Iran is that the Republican Party is extremely likely to lose control of both Houses of Congress in a landslide losing around six US Senate seats and forty House seats in November. This is because millions of America First conservatives are going to stay home because they are not going to vote for neocon Republicans who voted for this stupid unjust forever war in Iran and independents and young people are going to vote for the Party of Peace not the Party of War.

If neocon America Last President Donald Trump keeps fighting his unwinnable forever war against Iran for another few months or more the Republican Party will be unable to win another national election for at least a decade and maybe even a generation. Trump is in the process of destroying the GOP’s electoral hopes in an act of self-immolation and political suicide and Republican members of Congress are applauding like trained seals while he does so. He will likely be remembered as the Republican Party’s minority maker and the Democrat Party’s unlikely political savior. That will be Trump’s greatest legacy, not regime change in Iran, but regime change here at home.

President Lyndon B. Johnson rehearsing his speech announcing he was withdrawing from the 1968 presidential election due to his rising unpopularity stemming from his decision to embroil the US fighting a no-win war in Vietnam. President Donald Trump would similarly be unelectable were he eligible to run for re-election due to the increasing popularity of his no-win war against Iran. I assess that Trump’s Iran War quagmire will end up being a far greater strategic debacle for the US than was the Vietnam War.

If the US survives Trump’s Deep State War against Iran, which it very well might not, I expect that Trump’s poll numbers will be less than Herbert Hoover’s when he left office during the Great Depression. Trump will forever be remembered as the president who lost the biggest war since Vietnam, who broke the US military, who transformed the Republican Party into a permanent minority party, transformed the US into a one-party Democrat socialist republic and destroyed America’s global standing in the world.

How Might the Iran War End?

It’s probably impossible to overstate what a strategic disaster this war will end up being for the United States I predict that unless Trump ends his war on Iran in the next few months by accepting Iran’s peace terms, it will likely escalate to World War Three by the end of the year with a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Maybe that’s why the White House said Trump is considering reinstating the draft for the first time since 1972.

The best-case scenario would be for Trump to declare mission accomplished, agree to Iran’s reasonable terms of guaranteeing the US and Israel will never attack Iran ever again and closing all US military bases in the Persian Gulf as part of his America First National Security Strategy. Then, he could lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for them conducting all their oil sales in US dollars.

The worst-case scenario would be Iran nuking Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem with hypersonic missiles and Washington DC with nuclear missiles fired from cargo ships and then China nuking every other target of strategic military significance in the US. Alternatively, Iran could employ a massive cyber or super-EMP attack any one of which could kill 260 million Americans within a year. How many Americans know that Trump is fighting a war against a country with intermediate-range nuclear missiles and super-Electromagnetic Pulse weapons and understand that Trump’s unnecessary war could end in the destruction of our great country? I am guessing not a lot.

Conclusion

While President Trump and his supporters continue to claim he isn’t fighting a war but that he is ending a war that has lasted forty-seven years with the deaths of 992 Americans at the hands of Iranian proxies, Communist China has killed over 1,600 times more Americans in just the past eight years through their COVID-19 biological warfare attack and fentanyl poisoning. Yet Trump rewards mass murderer President Xi Jinping by praising him as “brilliant” and “a great leader”--words similar to those he used to describe his feelings for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Trump seems to love mass murderers as he is happy to provide unlimited bombs and ammunition to Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu who has mass murdered 58,000 Gazan civilians in his mass terror bombing campaign 45,000 of whom have been admitted killed by Israel along with unlimited direct US military support for Israel’s imperial war against Iran.

Trump’s forever war with Iran is an existential conflict for the US which threatens to provoke our national suicide by threatening our very existence as a nation. We must not allow his forever war on Iran to continue as the longer the war continues the more it will serve to maximize Iran’s incentive to attack the US with a massive cyber or even a super-EMP attack that could shut down our electrical grid for weeks or perhaps even for good causing our nation to collapse and millions of Americans to starve to death. Alternatively, we could see China and North Korea join the war by expanding the war from one front to three with invasions of Taiwan and South Korea expanding the conflict to a Third World War that would further increase the risk of a nuclear exchange which could destroy the US. That’s why the US should never fight a total war with a nuclear power that has the capability to destroy us. Most Americans don’t understand that the US has never been closer to being destroyed than it is right now thanks to Trump who has taken little to no action to defend against the existential threats of super-EMP and nuclear missile attack.

The best way to protect against the Iranian nuclear and super-EMP threat as well as the Russian, Chinese and North Korean nuclear/super-EMP threats is to build the Golden Dome space-based national missile defense system and harden the US electrical grid against such existential attack. The amount of sunk costs stemming from Trump’s unnecessary great power war with Iran including lost economic production and missed opportunities for ensuring US national security cannot be overestimated. The administration’s request for an additional $200 billion to fund Trump’s war on Iran through September happens to be the exact amount of money that I have estimated would be needed to build the Golden Dome and harden the grid against super-EMP attack.

If anyone wants to know what’s going on in Trump’s mind right now, the best historical apology is the movie “Downfall” about Hitler’s last several weeks in his bunker before he committed suicide at the end of the Second World War. Trump seems just as deluded, deranged, and insane and like Hitler he’s provoking the potential destruction of the country he was elected to lead. The historical analogy between Trump and Hitler continue to grow with every passing day Trump’s modern-day Operation Barbarossa continues. Trump’s forever war on Iran has the potential of ending even more badly for the US than Hitler’s war with the Soviet Union ended for Germany when it was broken up into eight pieces and occupied with the loss of up to 25% of its population. The destruction of our great country may end up being Trump’s greatest presidential legacy.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published in December 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

March 1st—Interview with Brandon Weichert on his National Security Talk podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to start an illegal, unconstitutional, unprovoked war of aggression with a nuclear-armed Iran that could quickly escalate to World War Three.

March 3rd—Interview on The Political Current talk show hosted by Sara Katib to discuss the rising tensions between Iran and the US and the growing threat of a US attack and the terms of what a workable peace deal to avert a US-Iran military conflict might look like.

March 4th—Interview with Brandon Weichert on Emerald Robinson’s show “The Absolute Truth” to discuss Trump’s forever regime change war on Iran, what Trump’s objectives are, whether it can be won and whether it could escalate to World War Three.

March 4th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych on his podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to start the biggest regional war in the Middle East in 35 years and what the ramifications will be and who will likely win the war.

March 10h—Interview with Harrison Smith on his ‘The War Room’ podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to start the biggest regional war in the Middle East in 35 years and whether it could lead to the outbreak of World War Three.

March 17th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss Trump’s Neocon Deep State War on Iran and how he has transformed from an America First hero president into an Israel First zero president.

March 18th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s unnecessary, unwinnable forever war in Iran and the chances that the war will escalate to World War Three and end with the destruction of America.

March 19th—Iran War Debate at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. I will be leading a debate team of three panelists on the Ant-Iran War side arguing why the war is an unprovoked war of aggression that must be ended as swiftly as possible to avert the outbreak of World War Three.

March 24th—Interview with IranTalks to discuss Trump’s unjust, unnecessary and unwinnable war with aggression, escalation on both sides, which side is likely to win a protracted war of attrition and potential compromise solutions to avert the outbreak of World War Three.

March 30th—Interview with Dr. Maria on the Dr. Maria show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s Operation Epic Fiasco and Iran War debacle and how the war risks escalating into a forever war with the chances of it escalating to World War Three increasing the longer it goes on.

March 31st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss Trump’s Neocon Deep State War on Iran, why the US is losing the war and what Trump needs to do to end it quickly to minimize US military, economic and political losses.

Upcoming Interviews

April 3rd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on “The National Security Hour” to discuss Trump’s great power war with Iran that is threatening to escalate to World War Three and how it has proven a strategic, military, economic and political debacle for him.

April 8th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran “back into the stone ages where they belong” and destroy Iran’s civilization in one night seeming to imply the use of nuclear weapons to kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 10th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on Lindell TV to discuss what happens if Iran doesn’t meet Trump’s ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday night and whether Trump’s threat is serious or a bluff which he has no intention of carrying out.

April 10th—Interview with Stanislav Krapivink on his “Eyes of Truth” podcast to discuss Trump’s threats to bomb Iran back into the stone age and the ramifications of him threatening to target and destroy Iran’s electrical power plants and potentially kill millions of Iranian civilians.

April 20th—Interview with Pascal Lottaz on his “Neutrality Studies” podcast to discuss the ramifications of Trump’s unwinnable great power war against Iran for the US and the world, Trump’s plans for escalation and the prospects for peace before it escalates to World War Three.

April 21st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss the latest news relating to Trump’s Great power war with Iran and his ongoing attempts to start World War III in flagrant violation of his campaign pledges to prevent the outbreak of a Third World War.

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President Donald Trump giving an Oval Office address on September 10, 2025 condemning the assassination of America First conservative champion Charlie Kirk who reportedly traveled to the White House to urge President Trump not to start a new unwinnable regime change war with Iran. Averting an unnecessary war with Iran war probably the main focus of Kirk’s last several months of his life because he knew it would be a massive betrayal of Trump’s America First conservative base to whom he had promised “no new wars.” Many believe his opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s plan to drag Trump into an unnecessary war with Iran was the reason he was assassinated.

When President Donald Trump was elected President in November 2024, he campaigned on a platform of ending America’s forever wars and preventing new wars from breaking out. He campaigned against regime change wars and pledged to stop World War Three from breaking out. Now, that he has embroiled the US in an unnecessary regime change forever war against Iran, he is on track to breaking all of those promises causing his supporters to feel betrayed and imploding his election winning America First conservative coalition seven months ahead of the critically important November mid-term elections. After calling for George W. Bush to be impeached for starting an unnecessary war in the Middle East, some of his former supporters are now calling for his impeachment and removal from office for the same reason.

The war that Trump has stated isn’t just ‘a special military operation’ as Fox News teased in a caption when the war I have been referring to as ‘Operation Epic Fiasco’ first began but it is a major regional war and essentially America’s first great power war that it has fought since the Korean War nearly three quarters of a century ago. Iran possesses multiple classes of advanced missile systems including mobile medium-range and intermediate-range missile systems, supersonic and hypersonic anti-ship cruise missiles and supersonic and hypersonic Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBMs) that the US does not. It has proven to be a near-peer adversary that the US military is unable to defeat militarily without escalating to the use of nuclear weapons. Iran possesses powerful weapons of mass destruction including very potent cyber-offensive capabilities and likely super-EMP and nuclear weapons that could potentially destroy all US critical infrastructure. As such, continuation of the war itself poses an existential threat to the United States making negotiating a swift end to Trump’s war with Iran our overriding national security imperative.

There never was any military solution to Iran’s decision to build nuclear weapons or its decision to close the Strait of Hormuz days after Trump started the war against them only a diplomatic solution. Iran’s nuclear and nuclear-capable ballistic missile arsenal cannot be destroyed with conventional bombing strikes alone as they are buried deep underground in hardened bunkers. Iran is nearly four times larger than Iraq with twice as many people and its western border is full of mountainous terrain that greatly favors the defender. It would take six months to a year to amass the 500,000 US troops necessary to give us even a chance to overthrow Iran’s Islamist regime and Iraq would have to give the US permission to host those troops which they very likely would not as it has a defense pact with Iran which has 14.5 million troops including paramilitary reserves.

Just like all of America’s other no-win forever wars we have fought in the Middle East, Trump’s war on Iran is a manufactured crisis that would not exist if Trump had refrained from attacking it. The Pentagon has declared there was no intelligence indicating Iran planned to attack the US or Israel preemptively. Both President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have stated that they took the US to war because Israel had informed us they were planning to attack Iran on February 28^th and we had reason to believe that if Israel did attack Iran, it might respond with attacks on US military bases admitting that Israel forced us into this unwinnable war.

Iran’s Sweeping Peace Offer to De-Nuclearize the Day Before Trump Started the War

The most obvious way to protect the US against a nuclear-armed Iran is to stop attacking them and maximizing its incentivizes to nuke our major cities by ending all hostilities against them. Iran offered to permanently suspend their nuclear program the day before Israel forced Trump to start a war with Iran, committed to give up their entire Highly Enriched Uranium stockpile and allow unfettered access to all of their nuclear sites by IAEA inspectors. Unfortunately, Israel assassinated Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the day after Iran provided the US with their most sweeping offer yet to suspend Iran’s nuclear weapons program along with nearly fifty other top Iranian leaders because they were afraid Trump might accept Iran’s generous peace offer which Trump and Rubio claims forced the US to join Israel’s war against Iran. Israeli bombing strikes on Iran forced the US into the war according to both President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio even though the US was caught unprepared to fight a war of more than one week’s duration.

UK National Security Advisor Jonathan Powell who stated Iran made a surprising and impressive offer to permanently suspend its nuclear offer that made more concessions to the US than it had ever made before the day before Trump assassinated its Supreme Leader.

The London Guardian newspaper has reported that the UK regarded the US and Israeli attack on Iran as unlawful and premature since UK National Security Advisor Jonathan Powell believed the path remained open to a negotiated solution to the long-running issue of how Iran could reassure the US that it was not seeking a nuclear weapon. We now have two external participants of the US-Iran talks (Oman’s foreign minister and the UK’s National Security Advisor Jonathan Powell) who have confirm that the US and Israel attacked despite Iran offering to permanently suspend its nuclear weapons program. The Guardian reports that Jonathan Powell “believed the path remained open to a negotiated solution to the long-running issue of how Iran could reassure the US that it was not seeking a nuclear weapon,” and “UK officials…were impressed that Iran was prepared for the deal to be permanent.” Accordingly, US Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner lied when they claimed Iran refused to make a deal.

On March 19^th, the Trump administration has granted a 30-day waiver on Iranian oil exports to slow the increase in global oil prices, but the effect of that decision is that Iran stands to make $50-75 billion in oil revenues in the coming year helping to fund its existential war for independence against the US and Israel. Previous to that, the White House lifted US sanctions on Russian oil exports which will provide them with $55 billion in additional oil profits to fund their war in Ukraine. Thus, you could make a credible argument that Trump is now funding both sides of the war in both the Russo-Ukrainian War and the US-Israel-Iran War. This show that Iran, not the US that is increasingly achieving escalation dominance over the US certainly when it comes to the financial and economic arenas of the war.

Non-Existent US-Iran Peace Negotiations

During the first week of the war, President Trump began falsely claiming that Iran was desperate for peace when in fact Iran has been refusing all cease-fire negotiations since the first night of the war when it was Trump who first asked for a cease-fire after Iran fired four subsonic anti-ship cruise missiles at the USS Abraham Lincoln as a warning shot for it to stay far away from Iranian territory. On March 21^st, President Trump began issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or the US would destroy its power plants and plunge Iran’s citizens into darkness. However, on the morning of March 23^rd he extended the deadline by five days announcing that “great progress had been made” in peace negotiations with Iran and that Iran had accepted virtually all of the points in the US fifteen-point peace plan. Later that day and several times since, Iran swiftly rejected Trump’s peace plan to end the war calling it “unrealistic,” “irrational” and “unacceptable.” Trump continues to claim as recently as March 31^st, that Iran has accepted most or even all US peace demands at the same time as he has stated the US does not need to negotiate a peace deal with Iran and that “we will be leaving in two to three weeks” regardless of whether a peace deal has been reached or not.

On March 29^th, Trump again claimed that Iran had accepted the US fifteen-point peace plan while top Iranian officials stated they had rejected it as entirely “unacceptable” and that no counteroffer had been issued by Tehran:

United States President Donald Trump claimed that Iran is “agreeing” with a US-proposed 15-point plan for ending the ongoing war in the Middle East during a press conference held on Air Force One on Sunday. When asked about Iran’s response to the plan, which was sent to Iran via Pakistan, Trump said, “They gave us most of the points,” and asked, “Why wouldn’t they?” He added that Iran is “agreeing” with the US on the plan and that, in addition to the original 15 points, the US will be “asking for a couple of other things.” ‘“We’ve had regime change if you look… because the one regime was decimated, destroyed - they’re all dead,” he said, adding that the US is “dealing with different people than anybody’s dealt with before.” Trump asserted that the current Iranian leadership “seems to be much more reasonable.” When asked if Trump was still considering deploying ground troops to Iran, Trump stated that the US is looking at “lots of alternatives.”

The BBC reports that the US fifteen-point peace plan includes the following points. I have noted in parenthesis which ones I believe would be acceptable or unacceptable to Iran.

• The nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow will be taken out of use and destroyed (likely unacceptable)

• Transparency and oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over activities in Iran (acceptable)

• Iran will abandon the use of armed proxies in the region, and stop its funding and arming of regional affiliates (unacceptable)

• Dismantling of existing nuclear capabilities that have already been accumulated

• A commitment to never strive to achieve nuclear weapons (acceptable)

• No nuclear material will be enriched on Iranian soil, and all enriched material will be handed over to the IAEA (unacceptable)

• The Strait of Hormuz will remain open and constitute a “free maritime zone” (unacceptable)

• Iran’s missiles will be subject to a future decision, but they would be limited in quantity and range, and only for self-defence purposes (likely unacceptable though acceptable to postpone the question)

In return for accepting these terms, Iran would receive a few things in return:

• American assistance in developing a civilian nuclear project in Bushehr for electricity production

• Removal of all sanctions

• Removal of the threat of renewing sanctions

There are also reports that the White House would be willing to agree to a thirty-day cease-fire to negotiate a peace deal much as he has been urging Russia and Ukraine to do over the past year. However, Iran has made clear it will not agree to any proposed cease-fire and will insist on a permanent and comprehensive peace agreement with guarantees for Iran’s security from future US and Israeli aggression.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian who President Donald Trump recently praised as “Iran’s new regime president” despite the fact that he has served as Iran’s president for over twenty months now. Pezeshkian, who was previously considered a moderate in Iranian political circles, has called on the US to stop making threats and send ground troops to invade Iran under the likely assumption that Iran could either wipe them out or use them as hostages to force the US to accept Iran’s peace demands.

Iranian officials have rejected Trump’s fifteen-point peace plan as “maximalist” and “excessive” and have told Iranian state media that they have five conditions the US and Israel must meet before they agree to end the war.

Here are Iran’s five peace demands to end the war:

• A complete halt to “aggression and assassinations” by the enemy

• The establishment of concrete mechanisms to ensure that the war is not reimposed on the Islamic Republic

• Guaranteed and clearly defined payment of war damages and reparations

• The conclusion of the war across all fronts and for all resistance groups involved throughout the region

• International recognition and guarantees regarding Iran’s sovereign right to exercise authority over the Strait of Hormuz

While I welcome, President Trump’s attempts to begin high-level peace negotiations with Iran are likely to end in failure if does not accept most of Iran’s five peace terms as Iran has rejected Trump’s 15-point peace plan and has declared it will only negotiate peace terms with Vice President JD Vance. The White House may be concerned that accepting Iran’s five peace demands could be portrayed as a capitulation to a country that Trump has falsely characterized as the loser of his unprovoked war of aggression.

A More Realistic US-Iran Peace Proposal

Two weeks before the outbreak of the US-Israeli war with Iran, I published a ten-point peace proposal I believe might have averted the outbreak of war. Here are the updated terms of what I believe to be a realistic peace proposal that incorporates a number of US and Iranian peace terms that I believe both sides might find acceptable to end the present war:

1. Both sides shall endeavor to normalize bilateral diplomatic and trade relations and declare their commitment to the realization of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. The US recognizes Iran’s Islamist regime as the government of Iran and commits to never seek to overthrow it or assassinate any of its political or military leaders. Both sides commit to a policy of non-interference in each other’s affairs and shall pursue a productive relationship based on mutual respect. The US shall lift all economic sanctions on Iran in return for its full compliance with this agreement.

2. Iran agrees to ensure and guarantee the freedom of navigation of international commerce through the Strait of Hormuz and may charge a $2 million toll per ship providing at least half of all such transactions are denominated in US dollars.

3. Iran will dismantle its long-range ballistic missile program and destroy all its ballistic missiles with ranges in excess of 3,000 kilometers including its Shahab 5 and Sejil 3 IRBMs.

4. Iran will destroy its two Noor 2 and Noor 3 super Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) satellites and dismantle all its space launch vehicles (SLVs).

5. Iran will dismantle all its terrorist cells (including proxy terror cells) in the US and commit to never support any terrorist strikes by its proxies against the US or its military forces or citizens abroad.

6. The US agrees never to rebuild all thirteen of its military bases in the Persian Gulf region which have been rendered unusable by Iranian missile strikes. The US further agrees not to deploy any US military forces in the Persian Gulf aside from unarmed reconnaissance aircraft.

7. The US will help fund the reconstruction of damaged or destroyed Iranian civilian infrastructure providing that the contracts for reconstruction be awarded to US contractors.

8. Iran commits to totally abandon all efforts to produce nuclear weapons. The US and Iran agree to negotiate a separate nuclear deal in which Iran agrees to unfettered access for International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) inspectors to verify all its nuclear weapons program activities have been suspended. Iran agrees to transfer all its Highly Enriched Uranium to either IAEA or the Russian Federation. Iran may continue to produce Low Enriched Uranium (enriched up to 3.66%) for its peaceful nuclear energy program.

9. Both sides guarantee that they will never attack each other’s military forces, citizens or territory ever again as part of a new US-Iran non-aggression pact. The U.S. and Iran solemnly pledge that neither side will go to war against the other in the event they are attacked by a third party. In return for this non-aggression pact being extended to include Israel and Iranian proxies, Iran agrees to halt all arms shipments to its proxies unless they are attacked by Israel. In return for Iran’s allied resistance groups pledging not to attack Israel, the State of Israel agrees to withdraw all its military forces from Lebanon.

10. The US and Iran shall encourage Israel and Hamas to strictly observe the terms of the October 2025 Gaza Cease Fire Agreement including ending military strikes, facilitating the shipment of all humanitarian aid to Gaza, helping to restore and rebuild Gazan critical infrastructure and implementing phased Israeli military withdrawals in exchange for Hamas disarming except for light weapons and small arms. Then, Hamas can be replaced by both an International Security Force consisting of troops from Muslim nations and a non-Hamas led Palestinian security force.

The Trump Administration should be willing to accept less than its desired terms outlined in its fifteen-point peace plan if necessary to ensure a swift end to the war since Iran may have escalation dominance and the ability to inflict as much economic and financial pain on the US and its allies as we can inflict on them. While some of these terms might prove difficult for the White House, the alternative of doubling down and falling into an escalation trap with a US ground invasion of Kharg Island risking the loss of thousands of US troops with no prospects of achieving its stated objectives in its great power war with Iran would be far worse.

Furthermore, continuation of Trump’s forever war against Iran could lead to the mutually assured destruction of Iran’s and US Gulf State ally energy infrastructure, along with very possibly our own. Meanwhile, the White House continues to commit political suicide as the war becomes increasingly unpopular helped by an almost certain economic recession caused by massively increased oil prices. Trump has reported told his advisors he is ready to move on to other priorities possibly including a possible US invasion of Communist Cuba.

Trump Fostering the Illusion of Victory as He Considers Agreeing to Iranian Terms

Over the past month, President Trump has repeatedly misled the American people by delcaring the war has already been won, that we don’t know who is running Iran because all their leaders are dead, their air force, is destroyed, their navy is sunk and the US has destroyed one-hundred percent of Iran’s military capability, none of which is true.

On March 24^th, Trump clamed Iran gave him “a present worth a tremendous amount of money”:

As President Donald Trump attempts to engage in peace talks with Iran and rally domestic support for his war effort, he boasted of receiving a “very big present worth a tremendous amount of money” from Iran. The president remained coy about what the gift was. “I’m not going to tell you what that present is, but it was a very significant prize,” he told reporters gathered for Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday, March 24. “They gave it to us, and they said they were going to give it. So that meant one thing to me: We’re dealing with the right people,” Trump said, adding “it was a very nice thing” that was “oil and gas related” and not related to Iran’s nuclear program. “It was related to the flow and to the Strait, yeah, it was,” he conceded when asked by a reporter.

A British oil tanker seized by Iran near the Strait of Hormuz. The Islamic Republic has been blockading the Strait of Hormuz to all Western oil tankers since Trump started his war against it except those that pay a $2 million toll in Chinese yuan currency. President Donald Trump would have us believe that Iran is sending the US twenty oil tankers full of oil as “a present” presumably to reward him for helping to kill fifty of Iran’s top leaders including their political and religious Supreme Leader and the First Family, bombing Iranian cities and attempting to destroy Iran’s military. The Fox ‘Fake’ News Network and his sycophants like Sean Hannity have been reporting his false claims as if it were gospel truth.

On March 29^th, Trump revealed what this “present” was stating that Iran had granted passage for 20 oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz though none of which appeared to be headed to the United States. The New York Times reported on his statements:

President Trump said on Sunday night that Iran had agreed to release 20 more cargo ships of oil through the Strait of Hormuz starting on Monday, in what the president insisted was a “tribute” to the United States and a “sign of respect.” Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington from a weekend spent in Florida, Mr. Trump cast Iran’s decision to allow free passage for the ships as a sign that negotiations were underway toward ending the military conflict in the region, in what he said were direct and indirect talks. But to many outside experts, Iran’s ability to turn the spigot of oil deliveries on and off simply demonstrates its power to control the narrow, 21-mile-wide passage. Previously Mr. Trump had said he did not care much about what went through the strait because most of the oil goes to customers in Asia and Europe, and very little to the United States. It was not clear where the 20 cargo ships were headed. China and India are major buyers of Iranian oil. The ships may also belong to Gulf Arab states. Last week, the Iranians allowed about 10 ships to transit the strait, a development that Mr. Trump also hailed as a sign of progress.

On March 30^th, President Trump stated Iran gave us “a tribute…I think as a sign of respect, twenty boats of oil, big, big boats of oil” while stating on Truth Social that “the US is in negotiations with a new and more reasonable regime” in Tehran. Trump made a similar claim that Communist Venezuela gave us a gift of thirty million barrels of oil right after we abducted their President and First Lady—an amount of oil that is the equivalent of fifteen supertankers. He appears to envision himself as a modern-day Roman Emperor to which every other country in the world except for Russia and China must pay tribute as our vassal states.

Trump had stated previously that the claimed gift of 8-10 oil tankers sent by Iran to the US proved that “we are dealing with the right people” now in control of the Iranian regime even as he prepares to invade Iran’s Kharg Island with the first major US amphibious invasion since Reagan’s invasion of Grenada forty-three years ago. This is the same farce he perpetrated with Venezuelan Communist dictator Delcy Rodriguez depicting her as a great leader while he continues to wage an undeclared war on her country with a total oil blockade. The “new and more reasonable regime” led by Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, strongly supported by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, that he is referring to in Tehran is even more hardline than the one led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei whom Trump assassinated and even more to accelerate Iranian nuclear weapons production. However, Trump wants to provide the illusion of victory even as he considers capitulating to Iran’s demands to cede control of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz to Iran and vacate our Persian Gulf military bases which have been destroyed or rendered unusable by Iran.

White House Signals Willingness to End Iran War Without Reopening Strait of Hormuz

On March 29^th, the Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump told his aides he was willing to concede Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz for the time being pending future negotiations after the war has reached a negotiated end. If so, I’m sure his sagging poll numbers and rapidly rising energy costs pushing the US into a recession right before the November mid-term election have caused him to realize that a US victory over Iran is impossible making him decide it would be better to cut our losses. If indeed it is rue that Trump is trying to avoid the appearance of capitulating to Tehran and spin a US defeat as a victory, that would be a very prudent and welcome course of action.

President Trump told aides he’s willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, administration officials said, likely extending Tehran’s firm grip on the waterway and leaving a complex operation to reopen it for a later date. In recent days, Trump and his aides assessed that a mission to pry open the chokepoint would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks. He decided that the U.S. should achieve its main goals of hobbling Iran’s navy and its missile stocks and wind down current hostilities while pressuring Tehran diplomatically to resume the free flow of trade. But after saying Monday on social media that Iran was now led by a “more reasonable” regime, he threatened to target the country’s electric plants and oil sites—including oil-export hub Kharg Island—“if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business.’”

On March 30^th, the Trump administration began signaling that the US would be willing to agree to a peace deal with Iran which would leave them in full control of the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz which is one of Iran’s key demands along with the closure of all US military bases in the Persian Gulf, which given the fact that thirteen of them have been destroyed or rendered unusable should not be a difficult demand for Trump to accept.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt who has sometimes struggled to defend and explain his many contradictory statements and his every monumental Iran War flip-flops he makes sometimes multiple times in the same day.

As Time magazine is reporting, “The prospect of Iran continuing to exert greater control over the narrow Strait could make it one of the lasting legacies of the conflict.” Ensuring safe passage for oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz is not one of the “core objectives” President Donald Trump has set for ending his military operation against Iran, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday, potentially setting the stage for Iran to continue to flex its strategic position over one of the world’s busiest oil shipping channels for the foreseeable future. Leavitt was asked at a White House press briefing on Monday whether Trump was willing to declare victory in Iran and end the war even if Iran continued to block most vessels from passing through the strait. Leavitt said the U.S. and Israel began their military strikes in late February to destroy Iran’s navy, dismantle its missile and drone infrastructure, weaken its proxies in the region and prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. “The full reopening of the Strait is something the Administration is working towards, but the core objectives of the operation have been clearly defined for the American people by the Commander in Chief,” Leavitt said.

However, on March 31^st, Trump executed another massive flip-flop by posting on Truth Social that the US will continue “blasting Iran into the stone age” if they don’t re-open the Strait of Hormuz which they refuse to do without a peace agreement.

Trump Claims US “Will Be Leaving Very Soon” and Ending His War on Iran in Two to Three Weeks

During remarks in the Oval Office on March 31^st, President Donald Trump says the US military “will be leaving very soon” reportedly within 2-3 weeks essentially admitting that the US military which has been based in the Persian Gul region for the past 36 years will be leaving never to return. He previously told his advisors that he would be willing to end the war with Iran in total control of the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz. If indeed, it is true that Trump is caving to Iran’s demands that the US military permanently vacate the Persian Gulf region and never rebuild its 17 destroyed US military bases and allow Iran to retain control of the Persian Gulf then I think the chances for a peace deal with Iran become much more possible.

Iran has rejected Trump’s pleas for a cease-fire over the past month denouncing the US fifteen point peace plan as “unacceptable” while no negotiations have yet begun. However, If the US pulled out of the region, it is possible that Iran would stop attacking us while they continue to fight Israel so that remains a good option as peace negotiations could take months or even early next year to finalize a peace agreement. Historians may recall that it took over two years to negotiate an armistice ending the Korean War while it has taken more than four years to negotiate an end to the Russo-Ukrainian War with no end in sight.

Trump again extended his ultimatum on March 27th just before the deadline was set to expire until April 6^th. As I predicted at the time he first issued the ultimatum it ended up being an idle threat he likely never meant to follow through on because Iran threatened to retaliate by destroying our Gulf Allies’ power grids which would completely shut down their oil production and cause oil prices to spike to $200 a barrel and the average price of gasoline in the US to $6 a gallon.

On March 29^th, Trump told reporters that the US would be ending his war on Iran and leaving the Persian Gulf region within two to three weeks and that it would not be necessary for Iran to make a peace deal with him likely in view of the fact that US-Iran peace negotiations have yet to begin.

Donald Trump had said the United States could end its military attacks on Iran within two to three weeks and that Tehran does not have to make a deal as a condition for the war ending. “We’ll be leaving very soon,” Trump said at the White House on Tuesday, adding the exit could take place “within two weeks, maybe two weeks, maybe three”. Asked if successful diplomacy with Iran was required to bring the conflict to an end, Trump said it was not. “Iran doesn’t have to make a deal, no. No, they don’t have to make a deal with me.” Trump also says Iranian leaders are “begging to make a deal” with the US to end the war, a claim that has previously been denied by Iran.

The US is in the process of sending 7,000 troops to the Persian Gulf and the Department of War has notified another 10,000 more to prepare to deploy to threaten a ground invasion of Kharg Island through which ninety percent of Iran’s oil flows. However, on March 26^th, the Wall Street Journal reported Trump told his advisors he wanted a speedy end to his war in Iran and had decided to cancel his plan to use thousands of US military forces to invade Iran’s Kharg Island, telling them it would likely push the war well beyond his reported mid-May deadline for ending military operations against with Iran.

President Trump has told associates in recent days that he wants to avoid a protracted war in Iran and that he hopes to bring the conflict to an end in the coming weeks. Nearly one month into the war, the president has privately informed advisers he thinks the conflict is in its final stages, urging them to stick to the four-to-six-week timeline he has outlined publicly, according to people familiar with the matter. White House officials planned a mid-May summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing with the expectation that the war would be concluded before the meeting begins, some of the people said. Trump told an associate that the war was distracting from his other priorities, one of the people said. The president appears ready to shift to his next big challenge, another person who spoke to him recently said, though Trump didn’t say what that might be. Some allies are hopeful he can pivot to ousting the communist regime in Cuba. One idea that Trump has floated to advisers: securing U.S. access to some of Iran’s oil as part of any deal to end the war, according to a senior administration official.

How Will Trump’s Iran War Debacle End?

During his Oval Office address tonight discussing his great power war with Iran, President Trump will likely tell the American people why we had to start a ‘special military operation’ against Iran to defend US military bases and Israel. He will boast about how the US has achieved nearly all its objectives in his war on Iran repeating the same dubious claims he has stated previously that the US has destroyed 100% of Iran’s military capacity. He will say the US military is the most powerful in the world and has sunk Iran’s Navy, destroyed its air force and decimated 90 percent of its missile force and its nuclear program setting back its military capabilities by 15 years.

It will be the equivalent of George W. Bush’s ‘mission accomplished’ speech in May 2003 after he announced victory over Iraq only to see the war drag on eight years longer. He will praise Iran’s “new more reasonable leaders” who he will claim are desperate for a peace deal and offer them a cease-fire but then threaten to destroy Iran’s power plants and invade Iran if they refuse to accept his generous offer while likely planning to launch a costly ground invasion of Iranian territory as soon as this weekend. But Iran will most likely continue to reject his offer and will keep fighting until Trump has suffered a humiliating defeat with thousands of US military casualties and the loss of both Houses of Congress by wide margins.

An artist’s depiction of a super-EMP detonation over the US. As I reported two and a half years ago, Iran has deployed its Noor 2 and Noor 3 satellites at an optimum super EMP attack altitude of 285 miles in low-earth orbit over the US. This means that it could destroy all US critical infrastructure without warning at the press of a button and kill up to 260 million Americans within a year unless the Trump administration were to act first and shoot them down.

The Hill is reporting that even Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was one of the main bad actors that urged Trump to start his forever war with Iran is now urging President Trump to “wind down” the war and “wind up” efforts to negotiate a peace deal with Iran while neocon warmonger former Gov. Nikki Haley is warning that the biggest winner of Trump’s Iran War thus far has been Russia. Meanwhile, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) is rightly warning that the neocon warhawks in and out of the Trump administration are trying to drag us into a ground invasion of Iran to make it another Iraq.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Monday he has encouraged President Trump to “wind down” the Iran war and “wind up” efforts for a peace deal while noting that it would take an agreement from both parties to resolve the conflict in the Middle East. “Washington’s war machine is hard at work. They are try to drag us into Iran to make it another Iraq. We can’t let them,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) wrote in a post on X last week. “And yes, when we say Washington’s war machine, we mean Lindsey Graham,” she added.

The Wall Street Journal reported ten days ago that President Trump has apparently settled on a plan to try to use thousands of US Marines to take control of Kharg Island and potentially additional Iranian islands in what will ultimately be a failed and futile attempt to re-establish control of the Persian Gulf and likely result in thousands of US military casualties. But it won’t just be a military debacle like Gallipoli. It will likely result in multiple US warships including the USS Tripoli being sent to the bottom of the Persian Gulf from Iran’s hundreds if not thousands of anti-ship missiles including hypersonic missiles. If so, it would prove the most humiliating US naval defeat since Pearl Harbor. America First conservative champion and war hero Joe Kent’s decision to resign as Director of the Counterterrorism Center, which was announced earlier this morning, is likely a response to Trump’s decision to move forward with these amphibious assaults.

During an interview on Brandon Weichert’s outstanding National Security Hour podcast, Matt Brackon, a former US Navy Seal, stated “The Iranians don’t mind dying for their cause, especially if we’re the ones invading, Anybody who thinks that the US has a technological upper hand, and that American marines are somehow tougher than the Persian Revolutionary Guards is really crazy. What they’re going to do is… let the Americans in. They’re going to turn off radar, turn off defenses… And then they’ll close the trap.” So Iran is going to let the US amphibious assault vessels land thousands of US Marines on Kharg Island and then sink all US Navy ships in the Persian Gulf to leave them stranded and isolated subjected to incessant barrages of Iranian artillery, combat drone and missile fire.

It would be the modern-day equivalent of Iran’s taking US embassy personnel in 1979 but on a far larger scale. Then, if Trump wants to rescue our stranded US Marines, he will have to capitulate to all of Iran’s peace demands. Meanwhile this Iranian Kharg Island hostage crisis, covered every day by all US regime media outlets, will result in the GOP Congress being obliterated in the November mid-term elections ensuring Trump’s impeachment and removal from office early next year. At that point, Iran hopes a President JD Vance will negotiate a Nixonian ‘peace with honor’ and end the war on terms acceptable to Tehran.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and its Foreign Minister Abbas Araghch are openly stating that they want the US to invade Kharg Island so Iran can entrap thousands of US troops in the Persian Gulf and hold them hostages and refuse to allow them to escape a hellscape of Iranian artillery, drone and missile strikes until Trump capitulate to every single one of Iran’s peace demands. Meanwhile, Iran’s Parliament Speaker. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. whom Trump reportedly had been considering supporting to lead Iran, warned that Iranian forces are already “waiting for American soldiers to enter on the ground so they can rain fire upon them.”

Iran clearly knows that we are coming and without the element of surprise, a US ground operation, even with vastly superior firepower, could quickly turn into a bloodbath. This is how Iran plans to restore deterrence with the US once and for all and deliver a lethal blow to Trump’s presidency and to his political party. The question is will President Trump be foolish enough to fall into Iran’s trap or will he negotiate a peace deal along the lines I have proposed above, declare victory and end US involvement in the war to cut our losses. Based on Trump’s record during the past ten months I fear it will be the former. If so, it is very possible that this war will continue to escalate and only end with a nuclear exchange which could cost the lives of tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of innocent people fought on behalf of Israeli imperialism and regional domination of the Middle East.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. . He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published in December 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

March 1st—Interview with Brandon Weichert on his National Security Talk podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to start an illegal, unconstitutional, unprovoked war of aggression with a nuclear-armed Iran that could quickly escalate to World War Three.

March 3rd—Interview on The Political Current talk show hosted by Sara Katib to discuss the rising tensions between Iran and the US and the growing threat of a US attack and the terms of what a workable peace deal to avert a US-Iran military conflict might look like.

March 4th—Interview with Brandon Weichert on Emerald Robinson’s show “The Absolute Truth” to discuss Trump’s forever regime change war on Iran, what Trump’s objectives are, whether it can be won and whether it could escalate to World War Three.

March 4th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych on his podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to start the biggest regional war in the Middle East in 35 years and what the ramifications will be and who will likely win the war.

March 10h—Interview with Harrison Smith on his ‘The War Room’ podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to start the biggest regional war in the Middle East in 35 years and whether it could lead to the outbreak of World War Three.

March 17th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss Trump’s Neocon Deep State War on Iran and how he has transformed from an America First hero president into an Israel First zero president.

March 18th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s unnecessary, unwinnable forever war in Iran and the chances that the war will escalate to World War Three and end with the destruction of America.

March 19th—Iran War Debate at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. I will be leading a debate team of three panelists on the Ant-Iran War side arguing why the war is an unprovoked war of aggression that must be ended as swiftly as possible to avert the outbreak of World War Three.

March 24th—Interview with IranTalks to discuss Trump’s unjust, unnecessary and unwinnable war with aggression, escalation on both sides, which side is likely to win a protracted war of attrition and potential compromise solutions to avert the outbreak of World War Three.

March 30th—Interview with Dr. Maria on the Dr. Maria show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s Operation Epic Fiasco and Iran War debacle and how the war risks escalating into a forever war with the chances of it escalating to World War Three increasing the longer it goes on.

March 31st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss Trump’s Neocon Deep State War on Iran, why the US is losing the war and what Trump needs to do to end it quickly to minimize US military, economic and political losses.

Upcoming Interviews

April 3rd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on “The National Security Hour” to discuss Trump’s great power war with Iran that is threatening to escalate to World War Three and how it has proven a strategic, military, economic and political debacle for him.

April 21st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss the latest news relating to Trump’s Great power war with Iran and his ongoing attempts to start World War III in flagrant violation of his campaign pledges to prevent the outbreak of a Third World War.

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The day after Iran offered the US a peace deal it seemingly could not refused committing to permanently suspend its nuclear program with unfettered access by IAEA inspectors, President Trump responded by assassinating Iran’s head of state, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In so doing, he set a dangerous international precedent that the US can assassinate US leaders with impunity on the pretext that the US did it first.

At around 2am EST on February 28^th, the US military launched Operation “Epic Fury” against Iran alongside the State of Israel. I think the military operation would have been more aptly titled “Epic Folly.” The US and Israel were successful in decapitating much of Iran’s top political leadership including the Ayatollah Khamenei and nearly fifty other Iranian leaders and have conducted strikes on over 1,700 Iranian targets while the US is in the process of achieving air superiority over Iran. When Iran launched four anti-ship cruise missiles at the USS Abraham Lincoln the day the strikes began, Trump panicked and reported asked Iran for a truce, but they refused and have reportedly cut off all negotiations with the US. White House officials have made it clear they have no plan for what comes next and have no exit strategy now that Iran has rejected Trump’s cease fire offer. Iran responded by immediately closing the Strait of Hormuz to all oil tankers except China’s while Iran’s Yemeni allies—the Houthis--announced it would close the Red Sea to western shipping as well.

During the first few days of the war, the US kept its aircraft carriers out of strike range of Iran knowing Iran has hypersonic antiship missiles thar could sink them while the US and Israel have been conducting the vast majority of its airstrikes against Iran from Iraqi airspace as Israel did before to try to stay out of range of Iran’s potent air defense systems. But now the US has begun employing heavy bombers to drop 2,000-pound JDAMs on Tehran and other Iranian targets indicating that the US and Israel may have largely succeeded in neutralizing Iranian air defenses and may be on the verge of achieving air superiority. While the US and Israel have succeeded in inflicting major damage on Iranian targets, the Islamic Republic of Iran is showing unexpected strength and resiliency in response to US and Israeli bombing strikes striking targets in eleven neighboring countries aligned with the US.

Trump Blows Up His Election Winning MAGA Coalition

Earlier today, President Donald Trump got angry at America First conservative heroes Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly saying they’re not MAGA, a term which he has recently redefined as anyone who is blindly loyal to him and supports his Israel First/America Last neocon regime change wars of aggression.

President Trump ran as a champion of America First conservatism promising to end America’s forever wars in Ukraine and the Middle East which is why I proudly and enthusiastically supported him in the 2024 presidential election. Prior to being re-elected as President, Donald Trump said: “There must be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire globalist neocon establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars, pretending to fight for freedom and democracy abroad…We should have never gone into the Middle East. Under my leadership, we will turn the page forever on those foolish, stupid days of never-ending wars…Stupid, senseless, endless wars…” Instead, he started new wars in Yemen, Venezuela and now Iran and has morphed into John McCain 2.0 and an Israeli puppet president while having the gall to claim earlier today that America First conservative hero and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is not America First.

The US Senate voted on an Iran War Powers Resolution yesterday barring Trump from further military action against Iran as a lawless neocon warmongering president acting well outside his constitutional authority. However, only one Republican—Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voted in favor of it and it failed by a vote of 47-53. The US House of Representatives voted to reject the War Powers Resolution earlier this afternoon by a vote of 219-213. Israel-First/America-Last Deep State Republican congressional leaders acted to limit any debate on the merits or risks of Trump’s potentially existential military conflict as much as possible with disgraced House Speaker Mike Johnson denouncing attempts to limit the president’s ability to fight the war in perpetuity “shameful.” Johnson has warned that it would be “dangerous” to limit the president’s authority while the U.S. military is already in conflict. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has requested an urgent $50 billion supplemental to fund its unconstitutional regional war of choice against Iran.

The UK Guardian reported that Republicans who backed the resolution argued the constitution requires president seek congressional authorization before entering military conflicts. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) one of the co-sponsors of the resolution noted:

“The 1973 War Powers Resolution states plainly that the president may only introduce US armed forces into hostilities pursuant to three conditions: either one, declaration of war; two, specific statutory authorization; or three, a national emergency created by an attack upon the United States. None of those conditions exist today.” The measure was also supported by Warren Davidson, a rightwing lawmaker, who warned that Trump has overstepped his authority by attacking Iran. “Make no mistake, Iran is an enemy of the United States. As our military engages them, they do so justly. Unfortunately, they are not yet doing so constitutionally,” Davidson said.

There were only three America First conservative GOP heroes in Congress that voted for the War Powers resolution that would bar President Trump from further offensive US military strikes against Iran without specific congressional authorization. That means that the number of MAGA conservatives in Congress has decreased by almost 98 percent since Trump returned to the White House. Virtually every Republican in Congress is now an America Last neocon Deep State forever war cheerleader. President Trump has succeeded in accomplishing what Democrats have been trying to do for the past decade. He has single handedly destroyed the America First conservative MAGA movement almost overnight! As a result, Trump’s MAGA conservative voting base is going to sit out the November 2026 mid-term elections and usher in a generational Democrat majority likely to last the next decade.

During a Fox News interview on March 3^rd, Senator Tom Cotton, who serves as the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee claimed made the ludicrous claim that “Iran has posed an imminent risk to the United States for 47 years.” If Iran indeed has posed an imminent threat to the US during the past near half century and has been weeks or months away from obtaining a nuclear weapon for the past thirty years, why has Iran not directly attacked the US even once other than in retaliation for US strikes against Iran and why has Iran not killed US troops or citizens for fifteen years except in response to US strikes?

Trump Has Lied Us Into Iraq War 2.0

As General of the Army Omar Bradley stated 75 years ago, Trump’s open-ended unwinnable forever war on Iran is “The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy.” At a time the US should be securing the US homeland and hemisphere against the existential threats of a massive nationwide cyber, super EMP attack, or nuclear missile attack with the Golden Dome program, Trump has embarked on yet another Middle East foreign war adventure which could serve to severely weaken US national security. The current US-Iran military standoff is a manufactured crisis that would not exist if Trump had not created it. That is the way the warfare state works by manufacturing crisis all around the world to justify the US bombing and invading any nation it wants. Since the end of the Second World War, the US Warfare Deep State has needed to create new enemies, some real and some imagined, to fight to justify the continuation of its global empire and its ongoing sacrifice of trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of US lives to fight wars that do nothing to advance US national security interests, make the US less safe and secure.

It is important to note that the history of US military interventions from World War One onward is to leave the world worse off than it would have been had US military interventions not taken place with very few exceptions. World War One gave birth to Nazism, Communism, the Holocaust and World War Two and World War Two enabled the Communist takeover of half of Europe and East Asia forcing us to fight a Cold War against the Soviet Union for half a century costing the lives of 100,000 US military servicemembers that nearly ending in America’s nuclear annihilation Trump’s war in Iran will be no exception likely giving rise to new wars and terrorist strikes and increased Iranian regional hegemony over is neighbors.

President George W. Bush proclaiming “Mission Accomplished” in his war on Iraq in May 2003. The war continued another eight years before ending with an embarrassing US military defeat at the hands of Iranian-backed militias. Trump would be wise to declare “mission accomplished” and end his forever war with Iran before the US loses tens of thousands of US military servicemen (including suicides) as we did during the Iraq War.

On February 25^th, President Donald Trump delivered a State of the Union address with foreign policy talking points that could have been lifted directly from President George W. Bush in his February 2003 State of the Union. Trump’s speech was littered with misstatements and warfare state propaganda talking points with regards to Iran. In fact, if you were to replace the word “Iran” with “Iraq” when Trump was warning that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, and you would think you were listening to a neocon warmongering President Bush instead of Trump. Yet the scary fact is that over the past few months we have seen President Trump morph into a Bush-like neocon war president who believes US military bombing strikes and war is the answer to every problem and has even less use for diplomacy than Joe Biden. Just like George W. Bush, President Donald Trump has now lied the US into an unnecessary and unprovoked war of aggression in the Middle East, but this one could lead to thousands of US casualties in the first two weeks with the potential for millions more.

On March 2^nd, Trump told a reporter this morning that he had to bomb Iran because it was two weeks from assembling an atomic bomb. That is the same lie he spouted in June before falsely claiming he had totally obliterated Iran’s nuclear program. The Department of Defense stated earlier this week that Iran had no plans to attack us and did not pose an imminent national security threat to the US or Israel. So many US presidents have lied us into wars in recent history including Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama and Biden many Americans have begun to view America’s unprovoked wars of aggression as positive goods viewing it as unpatriotic to oppose the sacrifice our sons and daughters in furtherance of Israel’s national interests rather than in defense of our great country. Trump is no different. Almost everything he says about his regime change wars he promised never to fight is a lie and he’s now falsely claiming his neocon wars are all about putting America, not Israel, First.

Sadly, many if not Republicans are falling for Trump’s lies believing that he can violate his supposed America First principles at will and that they are obligated to justify whatever war propaganda lies are peddling. It has gotten so absurd that they continue to claim five days into the war that it is not a war at all. Speaker Mike Johnson has been one of the worst offenders denying the biggest regional war in the Middle East in decades is a war even after we have bombed over 1,700 Iranian targets in just the first four to five days while decapitating their top political leadership. Even otherwise solid America First conservatives like Rep. Anna Paulina Luna are trying to make us believe an unnecessary war of aggression started by Trump with over 1,700 Iranian targets hit by the US and Israel is not a war at all. If a Democrat were fighting an all-out regional war like this that threatened the loss of millions of American lives, Luna and other conservatives would be calling for impeachment right now. Americans have got to stop believing the propaganda lies propagated by the warfare state regime media which lead them to support continued unprovoked US wars of aggression and they need to vote out of office any Republicans in and out of Congress who have supported Trump’s monumental betrayal of America First conservative principles

After Ayatollah Khamenei was assassinated, President Trump boasted that he had succeeded in his main objective of regime change in Iran and suggested Iran had successfully been “liberated.” Trump apologists immediately picked up the propaganda talking point. Meanwhile, Trump’s neocon America Last supporters have been spreading disinformation not only laughingly claim the most massive regional war in Middle Eastern history is not a war at all but that “Iran has been liberated!” following Trump’s successful assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. This even though the US has spent the past five days conducting the most massive bombing campaign we have conducted in twenty-three years while Iran has been launching missiles at eleven different countries in retaliation. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth subsequently stated that while the US had not sought regime change, there sure was a change of regime.

Prelude to War with Iran

On February 13^th, President Trump revealed he was considering sending ground troops to invade Iran. The New York Times reported: More concerning is the fact that Trump has allegedly been weighing sending “commando teams”—or, in other words, ground troops—into Iran, presumably to attempt another snatch-and-grab-style raid as seen in Venezuela. A couple of days ago, Trump stated he was seriously considering sending US ground troops to fight and die in Iran and would support Kurdish militias if they wanted to invade Iran as well which could potentially transform the war in Iran into America’s 21st century Vietnam War.

US Army troops deployed during the eight-year long Iraq War. Members of US Congress should hold congressional hearings to ask Trump administration officials how many US military servicemembers’ lives the president he intends to sacrifice to die for Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu’s Greater Israel project and how long he intends to keep them fighting there.

A couple weeks before Trump started the war, Fox News analyst Rachel Campos Duffy criticizes President Trump for not presenting a legitimate case as to why he should bog the US down in yet another open-ended, unwinnable war of aggression in the Middle East against Iran, risking the lives of thousands of US military servicemen in the process. Sadly, Trump failed to do that coming up with all kinds of justifications for his forever war in Iran after he invaded it, none of which have been sufficient to warrant his decision to go to war with it. In mid-February, it was reported that President Donald Trump had proposed to the Iranians that they allow the US to strike two targets and then let them hit one of ours in response to give both sides a face-saving exit to a major regional war he seemed at one point unsure if he really wanted. However, Iran responded that any new US or Israeli military strikes on Iran would result in massive Iranian retaliation against both the US and Israel, leading to up to 4,000 US military casualties and potentially the sinking of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Trump responded by deciding to go to war with Iran anyway.

Seventy-seven million Americans voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election after he promised an America First foreign policy based on peace with Russia in Ukraine and the Middle East. However, he has been giving us an America Last foreign policy similar to what White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller warned us Kamala Harris, Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney would give us instead. Two weeks before he bombed Iran, I warned that Trump was preparing to start an unnecessary, unprovoked war of aggression with the Islamic Republic of Iran that not even George W. Bush or Dick Cheney seriously considered doing.

There are no US national security interests that are served by starting a protracted regional war with Iran. Israel has killed nearly twice that many Gazan civilians as protesters Iran is alleged to have killed but strangely, we don’t see Trump threatening to bomb Israel which presumably he would be doing if his war against Iran were being fought for humanitarian reasons. Indeed, Trumps big regional war with Iran will likely end up killing more innocent people than Iran has killed and Iran may very well retaliate against the protesters by killing and imprisoning hundreds of thousands more of them to ensure the security of their Islamist regime. Obviously, bombing Iran has nothing to do with humanitarian reasons and everything to do about helping to realize Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu’s dream of making Israel the undisputed regional hegemon of the Middle East.

Is Trump Committing War Crimes Against Iran?

This is the first time that a US president has taken the US into a major regional war without congressional authorization in the past 73 years. It may also be the first time a US president has engaged in terror bombing of civilians since World War Two unless you count US bombings of Vietnam and Cambodia. Trump has reportedly resorted to the barbaric World War Two era practice of terror bombing the very Iranian civilians he is calling on to rise up and overthrow their Islamist regime. The UK Daily Telegraph has reported that the US and Israel killed 787 Iranian civilians during the first four days of the Iran War by bombing Iranian schools, hospitals and apartment complexes which is substantially more civilians that Hamas killed in its October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel. But sadly few Americans seems to care when it is the US or Israel that engages in mass terror strikes.

This is something we haven’t seen any other country do in recent history but Israel in its punitive war on Gaza in which it has killed or wounded over 7.5 percent of Gaza’s population with 58,000 civilians, including over 20,000 children dead and ninety-two percent of their homes destroyed. If it is true that Trump is deliberately bombing hospitals, schools and apartment buildings and killing women and children, then he has committed war crimes and should be impeached or better yet Vice President JD Vance should invoke the 25^th amendment to remove him from office without delay!

As the Modern War Institute notes, Trump’s apparent decision to pursue a terror bombing campaign against innocent civilians with increasingly intense B-52 bomber strikes against Tehran serves to rally the Iranian people behind its Islamist regime and will likely serve to signficantly undermine the chances of the people rising up again to try to overthrow it.

A high civilian death toll has the potential to quickly undermine US and Israeli operations with the sympathetic population and international community. In Gaza, Israel turned from victim to aggressor in the eyes of the international community when civilian casualties mounted. If civilian deaths begin to rack up—particularly if they include high-profile incidents like attacks on schools and hospitals—supportive members of the Iranian population are likely to become disillusioned with the United States’ so-called help. This could make the perceived cost of regime change too high to support, making the case for maintaining the status quo and ending violence rather than risking more deaths of family members and neighbors.

This is only the second time a US president has taken the US to war against a nation that is likely a nuclear power that likely could destroy the US homeland with a massive cyber or super-Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack. The first time was Trump’s Operational Midnight Hammer bombing strikes against Iranian nuclear sites which was less dangerous because he made them a deal in advance of the strikes to get Israel to agree to a cease-fire immediately thereafter. Interestingly, as shown above, a recent Fox News poll found that 51 precent of Americans believes that Trump is making the US less safe with his immoral, unprovoked forever war of aggression against Iran while only 29 percent of Americans believe he is making us safer. Meanwhile, a Reuters poll found that only 27 percent of Americans support Trump’s War on Iran. Clearly, the American people are not as stupid as Trump must thinks they are. They know that his forever war against Iran is making them much less safe and secure as the prospects for massive Iranian cyber and terror strikes continue to increase with every passing day the war continues and that’s why they oppose it.

Trump’s Archduke Ferdinand Moment

Before the war started, President Trump, I wrote that it was reported that he was considering assassinating Iran’s ‘Crown Prince,’ Mojtaba Khamenei, who on March 3^rd was elected as Iran’s new Supreme Leader by Iran’s Assembly of Experts to replace his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was assassinated by the US and Israel. He is a hardliner who was reportedly elected under pressure from the hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fulfilling Trump’s statement earlier the same day that the worst case would be someone coming to power “as bad as” the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“I guess the worst case would be we do this, and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person,” Trump told reporters. “That could happen. We don’t want that to happen,” the president said. “That would probably be the worst: You go through this, and then in five years you realize you put somebody in that was no better. So we’d like to see somebody in there that’s going to bring it back for the people.”

If it’s true that the IRGC pressured Iran’s Assembly of Experts to elect him as Iran’s new Supreme Leader we can rest assured he is as bad or worse as his father was. CNN had previously reported that the younger Khamenei “is known to wield significant influence behind the scenes and has strong links with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the most powerful military body in the country, as well as its Basij volunteer paramilitary force.” Reuters reports that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have tightened their grip on wartime decision‑making despite the loss of top commanders, senior sources say, driving a hardline strategy that is propelling Tehran’s drone‑and‑missile campaign across the region. Accordingly, at this point it appears that Iran is more likely to pursue hardline policies against the US and Israel under its new Supreme Leader than it did before the war when it was anxious to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the crisis Trump created. In fact, on March 5^th, on his Danny Davis Deep Dive podcast, LTC Daniel Davis reported that Iran’s incoming Supreme Leader opposed his father’s fatwa against the production of Iranian nuclear weapons and may shift Iran’s nuclear policy to accelerate Iranian nuclear weapons production.

I warned Trump’s assassination of Khamenei could potentially lead to the outbreak of World War Three much as the assassination of Austria-Hungary’s Crown Prince Archduke Francis Ferdinand In June 1914 led to the outbreak of World War One a little more than a month later. We have seen this movie before and the last time I ended with 40 million dead and gave birth to Nazism and Communism and led to a war that cost 70 million lives. Some of the best Western historians such as Patrick Buchanan view US involvement into World War One as an unmitigated catastrophe for the US and the world which led to a century of conflicts including the Middle Eastern conflicts that have plagued us for the past quarter century.

The US entered World War One on April 6, 1917, largely in response to the so-called Zimmermann Telegram which was sent by then German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann offering a defensive military alliance with Mexico if the US declared war on Germany after Germany had asked the US to mediate an international peace conference to end the war on terms acceptable to Britain and France. Similarly, Trump engaged in a sneak attack against Iran the day after it offered a peace offer to the US that the Trump administration had given indications might be acceptable as it would have permanently suspended Iran’s nuclear weapons program with unfettered access by IAEA inspectors. The US sneak attack against Iran was reminiscent of Japan’s ‘surprise’ attack against Pearl Harbor which was undertaken after the US rejected Japan’s final peace offer a couple weeks earlier. During World War Two when the US economy and industrial base was much larger than the combined manufacturing capacity of the combined Axis Powers of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Italy. However, the US today is weaker militarily in comparison to our enemies than it has ever been in its history with every wargame showing the US would lose a war with Communist China according to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth so the risk of Trump’s war on Iran embroiling us in a nuclear superpower war with the Sino-Russian military alliance is far more dangerous.

On March 2^nd, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated the US had to go to war for a similar reason because Iran had warned if Israel engaged in new bombing strikes on Iran, it would retaliate by attacking US military bases in the region and the US had reason to believe Israel was planning to engage in such bombing strikes in the very near future. Americans are left to ask why the US had surrounded Iran with fifty US military bases in the first place since Rubio citied the presence of US military bases as the reason we had to fight another forever war with Iran that threatens to cost thousands, and potentially millions, of American lives. We should also question the value of our military alliance with Israel and NATO since those alliances have served to entrap the US in wars with a nuclear superpower Russia and another likely nuclear power Iran threatening to embroil the US in an unnecessary nuclear war being fought on behalf of the State of Israel. We have also been told by America Last neocon Republican members of Congress that we had to go to war with Iran because Iranians have been shouting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” for the past forty-seven years and because Iran killed hundreds of Americans over fifteen years ago. These are not legitimate reasons to start a war let alone imminent threat to the US as they falsely claim.

What geopolitical catastrophes might be triggered by Trump bombing Iran and assassinating and making martyr out of Iran’s top political and religious leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? How many American and Israeli lives will end up being lost as a result? The potential casualties from such a war particularly if it leads to a massive Iranian attack on the US homeland or if it pulls in Russia and/or China and triggers the outbreak World War Three could be measured in the millions yet President Trump seems not to care of the massive security threats to 290 million Americans that he has created from his unnecessary war with Iran. Iran hitting Israel with a nuclear first strike using hypersonic cruise missiles Israel is unable to intercept is one plausible outcome to Trump’s planned massive bombing campaign against Iran. In the name of fighting yet another unprovoked war of aggression against Iran in support of Netanyahu’s Greater Israel hegemonic program, Trump may end up provoking the destruction of the State of Israel. Does he not understand this?

Trump’s War on Iran Has Created Potential Existential Risks to US

For the past several months, I have been warning that if the US engaged in a massive bombing campaign it could not only lead to uncontrollably regional escalation but could exhaust the US military’s munitions stockpiles potentially emboldening our enemies to engage in international aggressions elsewhere around the world. Trump’s regional war of choice with Iran is making the US weaker and less safe and secure to a much greater extent than Bush’s invasion of Iraq did. As such, Trump is acting in furtherance of China’s strategic objectives and falling into its trap by getting the US bogged down in a major regional war with Iran.

Trump planned for a quick war lasting less than a week this past weekend and ended up with a major regional war with Iran that US CENTCOM projects could last seven months potentially exposing hundreds of millions of Americans to extreme peril not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis while Trump has no exit strategy to end this potentially existential crisis. While neocons argue now was the best time to strike because Iran is in their view never been weaker, the truth is Iran has never been stronger militarily and the window to strike them with relative impunity passed a couple decades ago. As Trump has learned the hard way over the past five days, Iran is armed to the teeth with several thousand advanced long range, hypersonic cruise missiles, combat drones, ballistic missiles and antiship missiles.

Map showing the effect of a super Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack on the continental United States. Many years ago, I calculated a burst altitude of 285 miles as the optimum altitude for a super EMP attack over the center of the United States. In September 2023, Iran deployed its Noor 2 and Noor 3 satellites at precisely that altitude. Both Center for Security Policy President and CEO Tommy Waller and myself have assessed that both satellites are likely armed with super-EMP warheads ready to take down all US critical infrastructure without warning.

A protracted US bombing campaign against Iran lasting several weeks or even several months could result in, what Russia has warned would be uncontrollable regional, or even global, escalation. US military casualties could be in the thousands within the first couple weeks of the war. Iran possesses, massive cyber and counterspace capabilities and likely nuclear and super-Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) satellites as well. Worst case, if Trump is on the verge of overthrowing Iran’s Islamist regime, Iran and/or China might conduct a massive terrorist, cyber and/or counterspace attack against the US homeland shutting down most or even all US critical infrastructure potentially causing tens of millions of Americans to starve to death over a year’s time and the US to collapse in a war fought not on our behalf but rather on behalf of Greater Israel. Then, the US military could melt away as soldiers desert to return home to protect their families leaving the US effectively defenseless to a potential Chinese invasion of Hawaii and perhaps even the US West Coast. The longer Trump continues this war, the greater the chance this war will end in such a cataclysmic way for the US.

Such an attack could effectively wipe the US off the geopolitical map of the world enabling Russia and China to forge a new world order stating with a Chinese military takeover of Taiwan. We can only hope that Mutual Assured Destruction will prevent them from employing these weapons of mass destruction against the US homeland. However, if Trump keeps engaging in massive bombing strikes against Iran and gets close to achieving his objective of overthrowing its Islamist regime it could incentivize them to use these weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands if not millions of Americans and Israelis--the exact opposite of what he was hoping to accomplish.

Some Trump officials have argued that one of the main reasons Trump decided to take military action against Venezuela and now Iran was to cut off their oil supplies to China. While Venezuela’s oil shipments to the PRC were only around six and a half percent, China imports up to thirty percent of its oil from Iran so a US cut off Iranian oil to China could make a major impact on them. This is a very dangerous policy. Trump’s efforts to embargo oil to China is reminiscent of FDR’s decision to join in a US-UK-Dutch oil embargo against Japan in July-August 1941 that provoked them to launch a ‘surprise attack’ on Pearl Harbor that destroyed most of the US Pacific Fleet and propelled the US into a war that cost the lives of seventy million people. Will Trump’s attempts to cut off Chinese oil imports cause China to react in a similar fashion perhaps by launching a massive nationwide cyberattack on the US homeland to cause our government and society to collapse causing the deaths of millions of Americans.

Unexpected Blowback From War on Iran

The Ayatollah Khamenei was the highest ranking Shiite religious leader in the world killed during their biggest religious holiday. This could very well spark Shiite terrorist strikes on the US and Israel for a generation to come and has accomplished nothing in terms of furthering US national security interests.

During a recent interview, General Sir Richard Shirreff, NATO's former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe highlighted my point:

He stated that that the UK "should not, in any way, shape or form be involved with the Americans because they are being led by a couple of gung-ho nutters like Trump and Hegseth without a proper strategy and without serious thought about what the end state for this war is." He goes on: "Yet again we have an American president who has gone to war, a war of choice, a war of hubris frankly, without ANY [the emphasis is his] clear idea of how the war ends and without any clear strategy." He predicts that "this thing is going to go south very, very quickly."

He highlights in particular just how foolish it was to kill Ayatollah Khamenei: "The idea of assassinating the Ayatollah Khamenei who was not just Iran's head of state but he was the religious symbol for Shiites worldwide. Assassinating him during the month of Ramadan is about as subtle as murdering the Pope on the steps of St Peter's in Holy Week. It will inflame the Shiite world and what you're doing by doing that is probably pushing large numbers of Iranians who might have been reconcilable, who might have thought about rising up, back into the fold of the irreconcilable."

Iraqi Shiites are now mass protesting in the streets against the US and in support of Iran. So, it looks like Trump has now turned Iraq into an enemy as well. Maybe he will send our sons and daughters to invade Iraq again to teach them a lesson not to ally with Iran.

The occupant of the White House may change but out Deep State America Last foreign policy never does except during Trumps first term which was great. This is the problem with empires. The more wars you start and the more counties you bomb and invade unjustifiably the more enemy nations and the more dire national security threats you create. And then eventually you unite your enemies together and they invade and destroy you. That was the fate of the Roman Empire and it will likely be America’s fate as well thanks to neo-imperialist US presidents like Biden and Trump.

Iran’s strikes on eleven different countries with US military bases or which are aligned with the US and its increasing strikes on Gulf nations’ energy infrastructure is forcing US warships to leave their bases and is forcing US military forces to cover in place and perhaps be withdrawn. Iran is attacking the US-led regional order and is punishing countries that have aligned with the US to potentially put their economies in crisis and greatly increase global oil prices. This will help fund Russia’s proxy war against NATO in Ukraine and hurt the US and its European NATO partners. With the US on the verge of running out of offensive and defensive missiles and Trump’s objective of regime change impossible without a massive US invasion force, an Iranian strategic victory over the US and Israel is increasingly seeming inevitable. The longer the war goes on the more Iran will have the advantage over us in a protracted war of attrition. That is why Trump needs to end this war as swiftly as possible to cut our losses before Iran starts sinking our warships.

How Trump Lost My Support

I have spent much of the past year championing Trump’s outstanding plan to break up the Sino-Russian military alliance and his brilliant 2026 National Defense Strategy which pledges an end to “interventionism, endless wars, regime change, and nation building.” However, Trump has admitted his invasion of Iran is all about regime change and national building by helping the Iranian resistance build a new post-Islamist Iran the very policies he repudiated during his presidential campaign. During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing with Under Secretary of War Elbridge Colby on March 3^rd, Ranking Member Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) pointed out it only took Trump five weeks to abandon his National Defense Strategy that suggests the US would hand over to Israel primary responsibility to deter Iran and ensure regional security, reduce US military forces in the region to free them up for hemispheric defense, and that the US would not start any new wars.

What is the point of the US having a National Defense Strategy if Trump flushes it down the toilet weeks after its release and transforms into John McCain 2.0? President Trump is going in the exact opposite direction of his outstanding National Security Strategy. Instead of prioritizing homeland and hemispheric defense with a secondary focus on Asia, Trump has begun cannibalizing US global offensive and defensive missile stockpiles to fight yet another forever war in the Middle East this time against a nuclear missile armed Iran. As I noted previously, the results could very well be catastrophic for the US as the virtually inevitable loss of our war with Iran would likely embolden China to invade and conquer Taiwan knowing the US military is too weak to respond. During the same hearing, Sen. Roger Wicker, who serves as Committee Chairman condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “reckless war of choice” in Ukraine yet he strongly supports Trump’s “reckless war of choice” against Iran which was far less provoked and had no discernible national security necessity.

I do not have Trump Derangement Syndrome and have never hated Trump. I support the efforts of anyone, Republican or Democrat who takes action to put America First and promote peace as Trump promised but has failed to do. My conservative principles have remained the same for the past four decades. Trump’s first term foreign policy was outstanding America First and scandal free while his second term foreign policy has been an America Last globalist deep state disaster and a complete betrayal of the very conservative principles he claimed to champion. I still have his picture as my cover picture on my X account. The more Democrats unfairly accused him of things he didn’t do with the two impeachments and with the lawfare the more militantly I supported him especially after the January 6, 2021, riot when he did nothing wrong. I literally cheered jumping up and down in the air like a high school cheerleader when my wife told me Trump won the presidential election because Trump’s stated foreign policy was the one I had championed my entire adult life.

Trump promised us “no new wars” and said that he would be a transformational peace president who would end America’s forever wars and prevent new ones from breaking out. Instead, he has bombed eight countries and engaged in the very regime change wars he railed against when he ran for president from 2016 onward. I never left Trump. He left me and tens of millions of other America First conservatives like America First conservative heroes Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) when he betrayed us all and defected to the Deep State like Anakin Skywalker when he transformed to the Dark Side in the popular Star Wars movie prequel trilogy.

When you want to believe that someone is telling the truth and strongly support them it hurts worse when they betray you and you realize everything they told you during the campaign about what they believed was little more than a pack of lies. That is what I am feeling about Trump. He doesn’t have a workable plan as to how to achieve regime change in Iran and he has no use for diplomacy demonstrating instead a penchant for duplicity and bad faith by bombing countries like Iran and Venezuela in the middle of negotiations with them after they offer us great peace deals. As a result, international leaders know he cannot be trusted and enemy leaders around the world are accelerating their nuclear programs knowing only nuclear weapons will protect their nations from potential future US and Israeli aggression.

Trump views the US military as a toy to unnecessarily risk and sacrifice the lives of our brave US military servicemen in unwinnable wars of choice. He loves fighting new wars, but he generally prefers quick and decisive wars. This is the first ‘forever war’ he has chosen to fight although he deluded himself into believing it would be quick and easy lasting only one week much as Nazi dictator predicted that the Soviet Union would “collapse like a house of cards” and the war would be won within six months. Trump doesn’t have an exit strategy. Trump’s only plan was to kill the Ayatollah. Now that he has, he doesn’t seem to understand that Iran’s new IRGC backed Supreme Leader who is much less averse to building and perhaps even using nuclear weapons than his father could actually use Iran’s potent arsenal of cyberweapons, super-EMP satellites and perhaps even a modest force of nuclear missiles to destroy the US or Israel when we least expect it.

According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the leader of a country 444 times smaller than the United States, once considered the leader of the free world, reportedly forced President Donald Trump and the US into a major regime change war with Iran which US CENTCOM has been ordered to plan to last seven months.

With his unnecessary war on Iran in furtherance of Israeli national security interests rather than America’s Trump has shown his true colors as little more than an Israeli controlled asset. Much as Biden pursued policies favorable to his Chinese paymasters, Trump does whatever he is told to do by the Deep State neocons, Israeli American billionaire donors and Israeli agents of influence pulling his strings. This is why we need a constitutional amendment banning senile 80ish year-olds from ever serving as President again. If President Trump wants to save whatever is left of his shattered presidential legacy and chances of preserving Republican control of the US Senate, he should end his no-win war with Iran as swiftly as possible and declare “mission accomplished” before the US military runs out of missile defense interceptors. If he keeps bombing Iran for two weeks or more the chances this war might escalate into a Third World War which the US would be almost assured to lose will continue to increase.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published in December 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

February 16th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss whether Trump will go through with starting a new regional war with Iran and Trump’s misleading claim he rebuilt the US nuclear arsenal to be the largest and most powerful in the world.

February 17th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast to discuss the latest news regarding Trump’s plans to start a war with Iran, progress negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine, Trump’s reported commitment to go to war with Russia to defend Ukraine and his claim that the US has the strongest nuclear arsenal in the world.

February 18th—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Trump’s apparent plan to start new regional war with Iran as he continues to mass additional US military forces in the Middle Eastern region as well as the state of diplomatic negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

February 20th—Interview on the Canadian Prepper podcast to discuss the prospects that President Trump will start a new regional war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, how many Americans would likely be killed in such a war, and whether such a war would escalate into a Third World War. We will also discuss the chances of World War Three with Russia over Ukraine and with China over Taiwan.

February 24th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her “Get Free with Kristi Leigh” show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s plans to start an unnecessary, protracted regional war with Iran as well as the state of diplomatic negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. We will also discuss Trump’s upcoming State of the Union.

March 1st—Interview with Brandon Weichert on his National Security Talk podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to start an illegal, unconstitutional, unprovoked war of aggression with a nuclear-armed Iran that could quickly escalate to World War Three.

March 3rd—Interview on The Political Current talk show hosted by Sara Katib to discuss the rising tensions between Iran and the US and the growing threat of a US attack and the terms of what a workable peace deal to avert a US-Iran military conflict might look like.

March 4th—Interview with Brandon Weichert on Emerald Robinson’s show “The Absolute Truth” to discuss Trump’s forever regime change war on Iran, what Trump’s objectives are, whether it can be won and whether it could escalate to World War Three.

March 4th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych on his podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to start the biggest regional war in the Middle East in 35 years and what the ramifications will be and who will likely win the war.

Upcoming Interviews

March 10h—Interview with Harrison Smith on his ‘The War Room’ podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to start the biggest regional war in the Middle East in 35 years and whether it could lead to the outbreak of World War Three.

March 17th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss Trump’s Neocon Deep State War on Iran and how he has transformed from an America First hero president into an Israel First zero president.

March 18th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s unnecessary, unwinnable forever war in Iran and the chances that the war will escalate to World War Three and end with the destruction of America.

March 19th—Iran War Debate at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. I will be leading a debate team of three panelists on the Ant-Iran War side arguing why the war is an unprovoked war of aggression that must be ended as swiftly as possible to avert the outbreak of World War Three.

March 24th—Interview with IranTalks to discuss Trump’s unjust, unnecessary and unwinnable war with aggression, escalation on both sides, which side is likely to win a protracted war of attrition and potential compromise solutions to avert the outbreak of World War Three.

March 30th—Interview with Dr. Maria on the Dr. Maria show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s Operation Epic Fiasco and Iran War debacle and how the war risks escalating into a forever war with the chances of it escalating to World War Three increasing the longer it goes on.

March 31st—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast. We will discuss Trump’s Neocon Deep State War on Iran, why the US is losing the war and what Trump needs to do to end it quickly to minimize US military, economic and political losses.

April 2nd—Interview with Brandon Weichert on “The National Security Hour” to discuss Trump’s great power war with Iran that is threatening to escalate to World War Three and how it has proven a strategic, military, economic and political debacle for him.

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Over the past several weeks, President Donald Trump has continued a massive US military buildup in the Middle East region with one-third of the US Navy’s deployed warships currently in the Arabian Sea, threatening the outbreak of a regional war that could escalate to include Iran’s allies nuclear superpower allies Russia and China and end with a massive cyberattack against the US. Trump recently ordered a second aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford to the region. He has stated he is considering the use of US special forces to capture or kill Iranian leaders potentially including the Ayatollah Khamenei himself.

The Trump administration recently published its outstanding new 2025 National Security Strategy and 2026 National Defense Strategy which are based on “flexible realism” and prioritize the survival of the United States of America and wisely prioritizes homeland, hemispheric and strategic defense above the defense of Europe, the Middle East or even the Western Pacific. Such a strategy should include a substantial pullback of US military forces in Europe and the Middle East and refocus US military power in the Western Hemisphere and to a lesser extent in the Western Pacific. The strategy is similar to my Assured National Survival national security strategy that I have been proposing in various itinerations. Over the past twenty-three years, I have argued that the US would be far safer and more secure if we transformed from a global superpower with military forces deployed along Russia’s and China’s borders to a hemispheric superpower that continues to exert naval dominance over the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean out to the Second Island Chain to reduce their incentives to ally together and attack us. The primary objective of US national security strategy should be to make the US safer and more secure with the understanding that this cannot be accomplished by military means alone or continuing to pursue policies like Biden’s war in Ukraine that serve to provoke our enemies to unite and ally together and potentially attack and destroy us.

The new NSS states that US national security strategy must be governed by realistic and achievable foreign policy objectives even though in practice the Trump administration has not appeared to execute that policy with regards to the Islamic Republic of Iran where its objectives remain entirely unrealistic and unachievable and with regards to Russia with its 20-point peace plan which Russia has rejected outright. US leaders must understand America lacks the ability to coerce our nuclear-armed adversaries to do its bidding and realize the only way they can achieve their objectives with them is through peaceful diplomatic negotiations with the result of greatly reducing the existential threats we face from them as we reduce their incentives to attack us.

The Balance of Power has Shifted in Favor of the Sino-Russian Military Alliance

The world today is defined by a bipolar international order with the US-led Western alliance on one side and the Sino-Russian military alliance on the other but the Sino-Russian alliance is primarily made up of ascending powers like China, India and Russia while the US alliance is made up of powers that are declining in their economic and military power relative to the Sino-Russian axis of adversaries. The Sino-Russian military alliance poses the greatest threat the US has ever faced to its existence because their aggregate strategic nuclear, non-strategic nuclear, conventional military and military industrial capabilities in many ways far exceed our own. China maintains the largest army, air force, navy, coast guard in the world and a nuclear capable ballistic missile force many times larger than our own even while the US maintains the strongest conventional naval force in the world with a larger aggregate naval displacement than any other country in the world.

Pre-Ukraine War map showing the NATO alliance since expanded to include Finland and Sweden versus the Sino-Russian-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization since expanded to include India, Pakistan, Iran and Belarus to include over 71 percent of the Eurasian landmass. Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the military alliance as “a reborn Warsaw Pact.” I describe it as a geopolitical catastrophe for the West.

Increasing nuclear supremacy on the part of Russia and China over the US means that our enemies would be heavily favored to win any direct military conflict with us. Indeed, as I wrote in my last article, America’s extreme vulnerabilities in terms of our nuclear command and control system mean that an enemy could potentially destroy or disable our Looking Glass aircraft and underground command centers and early warning satellites within fifteen minutes before our NC3 aircraft could launch. This could potentially prevent the president or his successor from being able to transmit nuclear launch orders to our nuclear triad and enabling an enemy to conduct unlimited nuclear strikes on the US homeland without any fear of US nuclear retaliation. Furthermore, as I also noted, the FBI reported years ago that China has a Huawei cell tower in Washington DC that has the ability not just to intercept but to disrupt nuclear launch orders from the capital which could prevent the US from being able to launch a nuclear retaliatory strike so long as the President remains there.

Avoiding War with Our Nuclear Adversaries

Pursuing a strategy of Assured National Survival requires prioritizing the aversion of a direct military conflict with our nuclear-armed adversaries. A few years ago, I attended a speech by a US Army Colonel, who was then serving as the top cyberwarfare expert to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who stated that the overriding focus of the Biden administration was to avoid the outbreak of a direct war with the PRC. He stated that China could effectively shut down our country with a massive cyber attack that could sow chaos and confusion and prevent us from surging any additional military capabilities to the Western Pacific.

There are currently four nuclear adversaries with both the capability and the potential motivation to want to destroy the US—Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. I assess, along with Dr. Peter Pry, former CIA Director James Woolsey, William Graham, Henry Cooper and Center for Security Policy President and CEO Tommy Waller, that Iran likely has succeeded in amassing a modest nuclear arsenal but would most likely never use it unless the US conducts massive military strikes against it threatening the destruction of its Islamist regime. While the US can continue to bomb and invade non-nuclear medium powers with the potential for only limited blowback, these four countries should be treated differently because direct military action taken against them could potentially lead to the destruction of the US homeland. This is what makes Trump’s reported plan to engage in a protracted bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran in a futile attempt to overthrow their regime and destroy their nuclear missile program so dangerous to both the US and Israel.

The current threat level in terms of both the potential outbreak of a Third World War and the threat level to our critical infrastructure is “moderate.” However, if President Trump opts to conduct massive air and missile strikes against Iran over the course of a week or more targeting Iran’s political and religious leaders with regime change, then both threats will increase to “high.” US leaders fail to understand that attacking nations that can disable or destroy US critical infrastructure and kill tens of millions of Americans monumentally increases the chances they will in fact conduct such existential attacks on the US homeland. Yet presumably these same leaders would find it reasonable to react the same way in response to enemy conventional air and missile strikes targeting US political and military leadership in and out of Washington, DC along with American’s nuclear triad. Indeed, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu reportedly urged President Trump to postpone planned air and missile strikes against Iran on January 14^th for the reason that Israel was not yet prepared to defend against Iranian retaliatory missile strikes against its own critical infrastructure.

The existential threats the US faces today are from nuclear missile attack, including hypersonic nuclear cruise missiles (with as little as five minutes warning time), orbital nuclear strikes including FOBS (Fractional Orbital Bombardment System) and Multiple Orbital Bombardment System (MOBS) missiles (with as little as ten minutes warning time), hypersonic glide vehicles (with fifteen minutes warning time). We also face existential threats from super Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack primarily from Russian, Chinese, North Korean and Iranian super EMP satellites in orbit over the US as well as a massive cyber and counterspace first strike on the US which alone could disable and destroy all US critical infrastructure potentially leading to the deaths of up to a quarter billion Americans. In a direct war with Russia or China, they would likely engage in a surprise attack to destroy all US critical infrastructure with a massive nationwide cyber and counterspace first strike on the first day of major combat operations.

Map showing the effect of a super Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack on the continental United States. Many years ago, I calculated a burst altitude of 285 miles as the optimum altitude for a super EMP attack over the center of the United States. In September 2023, Iran deployed its Noor 2 and Noor 3 satellites at precisely that altitude. Both Center for Security Policy President and CEO Tommy Waller and myself have assessed that both satellites are likely armed with super-EMP warheads ready to take down all US critical infrastructure without warning.

In the event of a war between Russia and NATO, Russia would likely destroy all NATO critical infrastructure at the same time as it destroys ours enabling them to effectively win any war with us on the first day. US enemies, including Iran, are acutely aware of how vulnerable the US is to such asymmetric attacks on US critical infrastructure to induce our collapse as a nation and have integrated the use of such weapons against us into their military doctrine believing that the use of super-EMP weapons would be under the nuclear threshold even though they are nuclear weapons by definition and that the US would be highly unlikely and perhaps even unable to retaliate against such attacks with a nuclear retaliatory strike. Indeed PDD-60 essentially says the US will not retaliate with nuclear weapons until after the first nuclear impact which inevitably would be against Washington, DC an attack which could destroy all three nuclear footballs causing the US to lose launch control of the US nuclear arsenal for days if not much longer.

The best way to enhance US national security is to break up our enemy military alliances through diplomatic means. Peace through strength requires robust US diplomatic negotiations which can be a force multiplier for US national security particularly with regards to achieving President Trump’s goal of dividing the Sino-Russian military alliance and potentially prying Russia and India from Communist China’s orbit. Trump would be wise to prioritize achieving a new Triple Entente with Russia and India over relations with America’s NATO partners. Achieving better relations with America’s nuclear-armed adversaries should be a higher national security priority than maintaining good relations with our allies who in the case of our European NATO partners often act against US national security interests in attempting to sabotage Trump’s efforts to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine and continue to act to provoke a direct war with Russia, which could end in the destruction of the US homeland. In addition, the US should act immediately to harden US critical infrastructure against cyber and super EMP attack while also deploying a comprehensive national missile defense system focusing on space-based elements to protect the US against nuclear missile attack.

A new US national security strategy can utilize threats of US military action, enacting major economic sanctions and even blockades against non-nuclear medium powers to pressure them to agree to better negotiated peace deals. However, threatening direct US military action against Russia in Ukraine or against China in Taiwan or blockading Russia may lead to full-scale war that could lead to the destruction of the US homeland.

Trump’s Threats to Start a Regional War with Iran

Engaging in a protracted, unprovoked and unnecessary regional war with Iran, which is desperately trying to avoid war with us, is currently the most immediate existential threat to the US and Israel. As I have noted above, the existential threats to the US from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea increase exponentially when we confront them militarily whether through direct military action or through indirect proxy wars as former President Joe Biden Biden and President Donald Trump have pursued against Russia in Ukraine. Fighting another war with Iran would be highly unlikely to achieve any of the White House’s objectives including regime change, eliminating Iran’s nuclear program or its medium to long range ballistic missile program and the US could run out of weapons and munitions to fight a war with Iran after the first two weeks of high-intensity military operations.

Iran has mass produced thousands of medium range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones capable of hitting Israel and all fifty US military bases in the Middle East and likely could hit, but likely not sink, US aircraft carriers with its conventional-armed hypersonic anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles. Such successful Iranian missile strikes on US aircraft carriers would be a tremendous blow to US prestige globally in exposing their increasingly vulnerability to hypersonic missile attacks and dispense with the myth of American military invincibility. In addition, according to leaked excerpts from the top-secret US intelligence Overwatch Brief, China has deployed 6G-powered electronic warfare systems in the South China Sea capable of making US military aircraft such as F-35 fighter bombers “uncontrollable.” One wonders if they have deployed such electronic warfare systems to Iran to cause approaching $2 billion B-2 stealth bombers, which advanced Chinese strategic three-dimensional YLC-8B radar systems sent to Iran can reportedly detect at a distance of hundreds of kilometers, to crash. Iran also has the fifth strongest cyber offensive capabilities and is one of no more than four nations in the world that has super-EMP satellite capabilities that could be used to destroy the US homeland in an instant without warning.

In addition, Iran has reportedly test fired both the Dezful and Kheibar Shekan Medium-Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBM) from shipping containers on civilian cargo vessels with ranges of up to 1,400 KM that could be tipped with either standard nuclear or a super-EMP warhead to conduct a decapitation strike against Washington, DC from the northern Atlantic. Both missiles travel at hypersonic speeds between Mach 7-8.2 and the latter MRBM features a maneuverable re-entry vehicle—an advanced feature not found on US intercontinental nuclear missiles, which are anywhere between 34-56 years old—capable of evading Israeli and most US missile defense systems. Accordingly, it should be clear to President Trump and his top advisors that war with Iran could be disastrous to the US.

There is no justifiable US national security rationale to bomb Iran. In fact, I would argue that US national security demands we refrain from doing so. The US and Israel do not currently face any imminent threat from Iran and Iranian leaders have expressed no intent to preemptively attack us. Quite the contrary, they have repeatedly sought to accommodate US concerns about their nuclear program to prevent war and ensure peace much as Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro did before his forced ouster from power.

Here are the terms of what I believe to be a realistic peace proposal that I believe would achieve several important US objectives diplomatically and thereby avert the perceived need for another US war with Iran.

US-Iran Peace Proposal

1. The US will drop its demand for regime change in Iran. Both sides commit to a policy of non-Interference in each other’s affairs and shall pursue a productive relationship based on mutual respect.

2. Both sides agree not to attack each other’s military forces, citizens or territory as part of a new US-Iran non-aggression pact.

3. Iran will agree to unfettered access for IAEA inspectors to verify all its nuclear weapons program activities have been suspended.

4. Iran agrees to transfer all its Highly Enriched Uranium to the Russian Federation.

5. Iran may continue to produce Low Enriched Uranium (enriched up to 3.66%) for its peaceful nuclear energy program.

6. Iran will dismantle its long-range ballistic missile program and destroy all its ballistic missiles with ranges in excess of 3,000 kilometers including its Shahab 5 and Sejil 3 IRBMs.

7. Iran will destroy its two Noor 2 and Noor 3 super Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) satellites and dismantle all its space launch vehicles (SLVs).

8. Iran will dismantle all its terrorist cells in the US and commit to never support any terrorist strikes by its proxies against the US or its military forces or citizens abroad.

9. The US shall encourage Israel to fully implement the Gaza Cease Fire Agreement including ending its military strikes, ending its starvation blockade of Gaza and implementing phased military withdrawals to incentivize Hamas to disarm. Then, it can be replaced by both an International Security Force consisting of troops from Muslim nations and a non-Hamas led Palestinian security force.

10. The US will withdraw all its troops from the Middle East except for Bahrain in furtherance of its 2025 National Security Strategy.

Negotiating an End to the Russo-Ukrainian War

Russian President Vladimir Putin with President Donald Trump at the Alaska Summit, held on August 15th, the theme of which was ‘Pursuing Peace.’ The two leaders reportedly concluded an unwritten agreement on a peace framework to end the conflict but Trump has failed in all of his attempts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept the terms of the peace deal since.

President Trump’s decision to continue arming Ukraine and providing it with offensive US intelligence over a border war between two dictators the outcome of which would have no discernible effect on US national security continues to threaten the outbreak of a full-scale war between Russia and NATO that would quickly escalate to the nuclear level. This is particularly true of Trump’s decision to provide Ukraine with 3,550 ERAM Air-Launched Cruise Missiles which would be fired from F-16 fighter-bombers piloted by USAF combat veterans. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been claiming a peace deal has been ninety percent negotiated. In fact, the US and Ukraine have not been farther away from negotiating a peace deal since Trump took office. The reason is because Trump backed away from the peace deal negotiated with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Anchorage Summit on August 15^th and has since issued a 20-point peace plan embracing most of Zelensky’s maximalist objectives which Russia has categorically rejected.

I published my latest peace plan in September. Here are some of the key elements:

Proposed Russia-Ukraine Peace Agreement

1. All hostilities between the parties to the conflict will cease effective immediately. Ukraine pledges to amend its constitution back to its pre-2019 status to enshrine its permanent neutrality as well as to prohibit the presence of foreign troops and bases on its territory while removing its commitment to become a NATO member. Ukraine may retain all its bilateral security guarantees it has received previously and can join the European Union. In addition, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council shall issue a security guarantee of all the territory remaining under Ukraine’s control conditioned upon its adherence to the terms of the agreement.

2. Ukraine shall withdraw all its remaining troops from the small amounts of territory it occupies in Kursk and Belgorod oblasts and recognize de facto Russian control of Kherson and Zaporizhia along the current lines of contact, as well as Crimea, and renounce any attempt to retake them by military force, pending a final determination of their status by 2040. In return for Ukraine recognizing de facto Russian control of all of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts along their constitutional borders, Russia shall renounce all claims on the Ukrainian-controlled portions of Kherson and Zaporizhia and shall return the territory of Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy oblasts it currently controls to Ukraine.

3. A thirty-kilometer-wide demilitarized zone, policed by an international force of no more than 15,000 unarmed United Nations Military Observers from BRICS nations, shall be created along the entire length of Ukraine’s border with the four Russian-controlled oblasts to prevent future conflict. All prisoners of war shall be returned to their home countries and all refugees including forcibly displaced persons shall have the right to return to their homes. There will be no war crimes prosecutions or reparations. Ukrainian reconstruction assistance shall be provided by the European Union as well as from the proceeds of Western tariffs on Russian gas exports. Furthermore, Russia agrees to devote a large proportion of its $300 billion in financial assets abroad to pay for reconstruction costs in the four formerly Ukrainian controlled oblasts. Ukraine shall facilitate the repair of the Druzhba oil pipeline.

4. Ukraine agrees to Russia’s proposed limits on the ranges of its offensive “strike systems” systems’ outlined in the April 15, 2022 version of the Istanbul Agreement including howitzers, heavy mortars, multiple rocket launch systems, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, as well as air defense missile systems. In addition, the maximum range of Ukraine’s combat drones shall not exceed forty kilometers. Ukraine also agrees to Russia’s proposed limits on the number of its combat aircraft. All weapon systems exceeding these limits as well as all F-16 strike aircraft will be transferred to an EU country and shall only be accessible to Ukraine in the event Russia were to engage in an unprovoked military intervention in Ukraine. All long-range strike system production facilities in Ukraine shall be dismantled or destroyed. BRICS weapon inspectors shall ensure these arms limitation provisions are strictly enforced.

5. The number of active-duty troops in the Ukrainian army shall be limited to no more than 150,000 with up to 650,000 troops in reserve. In exchange, Russia agrees to limit the total number of its active-duty troops in the former Ukrainian controlled regions to the total number of active-duty troops in the Ukrainian armed forces. Russia agrees that there shall be no other restrictions on the size or composition of the Ukrainian armed forces or the number of its primarily defensive weapon systems including tanks, armored vehicles, anti-tank guns, ATGMs, auxiliary aircraft, reconnaissance drones, auxiliary vessels, MANPADS and anti-aircraft artillery and that the Western powers may continue to provide it with any arms that do not violate these limitations. Ukraine may also continue to produce offensive strike systems including missiles and combat drones so long as their maximum range does not exceed the forty-kilometer limit. Ukraine further commits to refrain from producing or possessing weapons of mass destruction and to close all foreign biological labs.

6. Full diplomatic relations between Russia and Ukraine will be restored and all bilateral sanctions rescinded. All public and private Russian financial and economic assets seized by Ukraine, or for which it was the recipient, shall be fully restored to their Russian owners. Russia and Ukraine agree to renew the 1997 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, committing each party not to use its territory to harm the security of the other and further their shared goal of peaceful co-existence.

7. Following the signing of this treaty, Ukraine shall rescind martial law and lift all restrictions imposed thereunder, including its March 20, 2022 decree banning eleven Ukrainian political parties, removing party members from the Verkhovna Rada and shutting down opposition media networks. Ukraine shall hold presidential and parliamentary elections within four months of the signing of this treaty. The vote shall be conducted with in person voting by paper ballot with international election observers from both OSCE and BRICS nations. The Russian language shall be restored as one of the two official languages of Ukraine with equal status to the Ukrainian language. The rights of Ukraine’s Russian minority population as well as the rights of Ukraine’s Orthodox Christian church members shall be guaranteed by law.

Proposed US-Russia Strategic Framework Agreement

1. The U.S. guarantees that NATO will never expand eastward. All U.S. economic sanctions against Russia enacted from 2014 onward shall be rescinded and the US will encourage its allies to do the same. All seized public and private Russian financial and economic assets shall be fully restored to their Russian owners. In addition, the US will encourage its allies not to recognize or attempt to enforce the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against the President of the Russian Federation.

2. In return for a withdrawal of all Russian troops from Belarus, all 20,000 U.S. troops shall be withdrawn from those nations in Europe that were not part of NATO prior to 1999 and the overall number of U.S. troops in Europe shall be reduced to their 2021 level. The U.S. will encourage its western European allies and Canada to withdraw their troops from those nations as well. The U.S. and Russia shall refrain from flying heavy bombers or deploying major surface combatants within two-hundred miles of the other’s territory, except for the Bering Strait.

3. In exchange for Russia removing all its air and land-based nuclear weapons from Kaliningrad, Belarus and all territories previously controlled by Ukraine, the U.S. will redeploy all its B-61 nuclear gravity bombs from Western Europe to its aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific. The U.S. and Russia agree to begin negotiating a New START II Treaty with a limit of 3,500 operational strategic nuclear weapons.

4. In return for Russia committing not to interfere in the Western Hemisphere or in NATO member states, the U.S. commits to a policy of non-interference in all former Soviet republics which are not NATO members. The U.S. and Russia solemnly pledge that neither side will go to war against the other in the event they are attacked by a third party.

Other Critical US National Security Priorities

China/Taiwan—As noted above, the US reportedly only has enough precision guided munitions to engage in two weeks of high intensity combat with Iran. Doing so would badly deplete our missile stocks leaving us too poorly equipped to deter or repel Chinese aggression against Taiwan. Furthermore, China would be highly likely to take advantage of our window of vulnerability to blockade and/or invade Taiwan during a US war with Iran or shortly thereafter in the belief that the US would be unable to respond effectively militarily.

A US war fought against China in defense of Taiwan would not only likely lead to a massive US military defeat as well as the sinking of all our aircraft carriers in the Pacific establishing Chinese naval supremacy in the Pacific and the Chinese takeover of Japan and perhaps the Philippines, it could also potentially lead to the destruction of the US homeland from a Chinese nuclear, super-EMP or comprehensive nationwide cyber first strike. China has set a goal of achieving unification with Taiwan by any means necessary by 2027 making Taiwan the world’s greatest potential nuclear tinderbox. Accordingly, Trump should negotiate a peace deal with China and Taiwan with the objective on the basis of an EU-style confederation to try to ensure Taiwan’s continued self-rule and control over its armed forces as well as its retention of its political and economic system to avoid a direct war with the PRC that could lead to our destruction.

North Korea’s first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine was revealed in December features ten Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles and displaces 8,7000 tons which will pose a deadly threat to the US once it becomes operational.

North Korea—While North Korea is not a focus of the 2025 National Security Strategy, it remains a very potent and deadly threat to the US and its neighbors and for the first time has established a nuclear diad with multiple ICBMs including mobile ICBMs and a new nuclear ballistic missile submarine capable of hitting the US from the sea. If the US were to defend Taiwan militarily from Chinese aggression, North Korea would be all but guaranteed to invade South Korea and could potentially destroy the US with a super EMP or massive cyber-attack.

Restructuring US involvement in NATO—As former Department of Defense official Matthew Kronig recently stated, the incorporation of eastern European nations into the NATO alliance poses a high risk to US national security because it threatens to pull the US into a war with Russia—the national with the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet—that it might not want. Withdrawing from NATO’s military command structure and removing most of US ground and air forces from Europe would go far to help alleviate this risk. This would also entail the US giving up its Supreme Command of Allied Forces in Europe as US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker has proposed doing. As Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby stated at the Munich Security Conference last week, America’s European allies will have to take primary responsibility for the conventional defense of Europe by next year while the US would continue to contribute our superior naval power to the NATO alliance but would condition our nuclear umbrella upon our allies that we would only go to war to defend them if the President and the US Congress determined it was in the US national interests to do so. Withdrawing all US ground forces from Europe would have the effect of incentivizing our NATO partners to stop provoking a direct war with Russia and negotiate an end the war in Ukraine in accordance with Trump administration objectives.

Defending America’s Pacific Allies--US leaders should realize that committing to defend allies half a world away along Russia’s and China’s border regions carry high risks to the US and the potential risks must be measured against the US capabilities to successfully defend those nations without incurring significant risk of adversarial massive cyber, super-EMP or even nuclear retaliation. That said, I believe the US should continue to guarantee Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia against Chinese aggression while not risking war over uninhabited islets or shoals.

Restoring US Dominance Over the Western Hemisphere--While I strongly support the White House’s objectives of achieving regime change in Venezuela and Cuba they have failed to achieve either to date. Trump’s decision to execute a snatch and grab of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro did not achieve much of anything as Venezuela remains Communist controlled and remains firmly allied with Russia and China and the US does not control the country or its vast oil resources. The US should retake control of the Panama Canal by any means necessary including military force and expel Chinese troops from the canal ports.

Venezuela Peace Plan—Before he was abducted by the US, Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro offered to step down as President and allow democratic elections in exchange for becoming the defense minister with control over Venezuela’s armed forces. He also agreed to significantly reduce cooperation with Russia and China and sign lucrative oil deals with the US. The US should offer Venezuela’s Interim President Delcy Rodriguez the same terms and consider returning Maduro in exchange for holding democratic elections and banning him from holding government office in the future in exchange for allowing the regime to retain control of the armed forces. The US can then offer the same 1991 Nicaragua formula to Cuba for its Communist leaders to step down while retaining control of its armed forces in exchange for an end to the US oil embargo and a major reduction or even elimination of US sanctions.

Israel-Gaza—President Trump negotiated an excellent cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, but Phase Two of the agreement has no chance of being implemented unless we agree to temporarily allow Hamas to retain defensive weapons—i.e. small arms—until a new Palestinian security forces can be created, and Hamas militia forces can be disbanded. Under this plan, Hamas would be forced to give up all its rockets, (apart from RPGs and ATGMs), mortars and combat drones ensuring it could possess no weapons with ranges of over six kilometers to ensure the safety and security of the State of Israel. Ending the Gaza War is the key to achieving a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and realizing Trump’s long-time objective of achieving a new strategic entente between Israel and the Gulf states including Saudi Arabia to counter Iran transforming the balance of power in the region in Israel’s favor.

Acquiring Greenland--the Trump administration should enact 100% tariffs and secondary tariffs on Denmark to force it to sell Greenland to the US based on the generous offer the administration has made for $700 billion and $100,000 to each Greenlandic citizen. EU threats to retaliate by selling all US debt securities should be met with a threat to leave NATO and permanently withdraw all US security guarantees from any country that does so starting with Denmark. That would enable Greenland to be annexed by the US as a Puerto Rico-like commonwealth without US military action making the US the second largest country in the world.

Why Negotiating Mutually Acceptable Peace Deals with Our Adversaries Should Not Be Viewed as Appeasement

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, one of the greatest appeasers of modern history, with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin at the Yalta Appeasement Conference in January 1945 at which he and FDR agreed to surrender the eastern half of Europe to Stalin.

The argument has been made that the US should refuse all negotiations with our adversaries like Russia, China and the Islamic Republic of Iran because we believe these regimes to be evil and doing so would constitute ‘appeasement.’ It was British Prime Minister Winston Churchill who first advanced this line of reasoning when he came to power in 1940 at a time when Nazi Germany’s defeat of France was imminent. However, in 1950, Churchill himself declared “appeasement from strength is magnanimous and noble and might be the surest and perhaps the only path to world peace.” Seen from this perspective negotiating an end to military conflicts as President Trump has attempted to do is not a sign of weakness but rather is an integral part of a policy of a Reaganite ‘peace through strength’ if done on terms that advance US national security interests as in the case of Trump’s 28-point peace proposal to end NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine.

It should be noted that Britain had spent the previous forty years accommodating historic enemies such as France, Russia and the US itself and transforming them into friends and allies to Britain’s extraordinary benefit proving Churchill’s statement that appeasement from a position of strength can actually serve to advance a nation’s national security. Decades earlier, former British Prime Minister British Lord Palmerston famously articulated Britain’s rationale for doing so stating that “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” The US would do well to adopt a similar national interest approach to our alliances, viewing them as only a means to the end of advancing US national security and being willing to discard them on a case-by-case basis if the time ever comes that they stop doing so. Similarly, the US should seriously consider if it would be more in the US interest to transform an adversary like Russia that has been seeking peace and friendship with the West since the dissolution of the Evil Soviet Empire into a strategic partner to eliminate the existential threat it poses to us rather than to continue to strive to engage in permanent hostilities against it. In other cases, it might make more sense for the US to adopt a position of benevolent neutrality rather than to take sides in continuing conflicts most notably in the Middle East.

America’s most brilliant foreign policy President Richard Nixon stated that the US should seek peaceful accommodations with Russia and China which satisfy the vital interests of all three nuclear superpowers and serve to increase international peace and stability while making no concessions to them without receiving reciprocal concessions in return. He also wisely stated that the US should seek better relations with Russia and China than they have with each other to prevent them from allying together against us. It was Nixon who pioneered the policy of peaceful co-existence and “peace through strength” with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China that President Ronald Reagan ended up adopting and using to win the Cold War. Reagan reportedly used Nixon’s outstanding book “The Real War”, which informed my own foreign policy understanding when I was a young man in the 1980’s, as his national security strategy blueprint to win the Cold War. President Trump should emulate this policy with regards to the People’s Republic of China and especially with regards to ending America’s Second Cold War with the Russian Federation and ending its existential threat to the United States in the process.

Why it is a Mistake to View Putin as a Modern-Day Hitler

Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two autocratic leaders have little in common despite the failed efforts of neocons to conflate them in the minds of gullible Western citizens. Hitler was hell bent on the conquest of western Russia and Ukraine while Putin is fighting a war to restore Ukraine to its pre-February 2014 Maidan coup status as a neutral buffer state between Russia and NATO. Hitler’s war cost the lives of twelve million innocents whereas Russia has only killed nearly 15,000 Ukrainian civilians to date. The one thing they both have in common is that both were staunch supporters of peace with the West and all of their peace offers were rejected.

Some neoconservatives have argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a modern-day Adolf Hitler and that therefore he must not be appeased in the mistaken belief that it was the Munich Pact, rather than the British decision to guarantee Poland from German attack, that led to the outbreak of World War Two. Nothing could be farther from the truth. When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, I believed it was the first step in his master plan to transform the former Soviet republics, excluding the Baltics, into Russian vassal states like Belarus. However, five weeks later when Putin ordered Russian troops unilaterally withdrawn from Kyiv which he had surrounded from three different axes on both sides of the Dnipro River along with the rest of northern Ukraine, which then constituted thirty percent of Russian occupied territory, I was forced to re-evaluate my mistaken assumption. He did this at a time when he was on the verge of forcing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to sign the Istanbul Agreement ending the war on terms acceptable to Russia.

At that point, it became clear that Putin’s objectives were exactly what he stated them to be which was to restore Ukraine to its pre-February 2014 Maidan coup status as a neutral buffer state between Russia and NATO. Furthermore, we have since found out that Russia agreed to withdraw from all prewar Ukrainian territory as part of the Istanbul Agreement, which was largely agreed to on the basis of a Ukrainian counteroffer rather than Russian terms, again showing that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had almost nothing to do with acquiring new territory. Furthermore, if Putin is indeed a modern-day Hitler, he is perhaps the least ambitious aggressor of all time as while Hitler expanded the territory under German control by over eight hundred percent in just four short years, Putin has only expanded the territory under Russian control by substantially less than one percent in the space of over a quarter century.

US leaders should stop and consider the real reasons that Russia invaded Ukraine. If Russia had overthrown the Prime Minister of Canada and transformed it into a Russian vassal state hosting over 1,000 Russian and Chinese troops with joint military exercises and Russian missiles capable of hitting New York City and Washington, DC as NATO did in Ukraine, the US would have bombed, invaded and annexed Canada and called it a defensive war. Faced with such an ominous situation on its borders, the US would likely have threatened nuclear strikes against Russia. We know that because that is how the US responded to a Soviet takeover of Cuba and the stationing of long-range nuclear capable missiles there during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. As Dr. John Mearschimer has stated “the United States is principally responsible for causing the Ukraine crisis…The tragic truth is that if the West had not pursued NATO expansion into Ukraine, it is unlikely there would be a war in Ukraine today and Crimea would still be part of Ukraine.” Mearsheimer noted that “Russia is acting the same way that we would in their position.”

Many Western analysts neglect to realize that Putin engaged in fifteen years of failed diplomacy with the West prior to invading Ukraine to resolve the Ukraine in NATO crisis without the need for war. That is not to say that Russia was justified in invading only that it is understandable that they viewed NATO forces in Ukraine as an existential threat given the fact that NATO is a three-power nuclear alliance aimed at Russia and could potentially station nuclear capable missiles and aircraft in Ukraine within three hundred miles of Moscow. Putin has set forth limited objectives which seem reasonable in many respects while expressing a willingness to see Ukraine remain independent and secure in control of eighty percent of its territory and to be well-armed with defensive weapons and a large army consisting of mostly reserve troops along the Swedish model. President Trump himself has recognized the reasonableness of many of these terms by initially agreeing to all but a few of them as part of his 28-point peace plan released in November.

Such a peace deal would not constitute appeasement as Russia already controls 95% of the territory they are demanding from Ukraine, and the war has proven there is nothing whatsoever the US can do to dislodge them from this territory after four years of the US and its NATO partners sending them all the weapons and munitions we could possibly spare. Indeed, if one believes that Putin’s objective was to conquer and annex all of Ukraine and/or overthrow the Zelensky regime and make it a Russian satellite state, such a peace deal could be seen as a frustration of all Russia’s supposed military aims.

Furthermore, as President Trump has repeatedly stated, Russia is in a position to take control of the remaining eleven percent of the Donbass region still under Ukrainian control if Ukraine refuses to concede it in exchange for a just and lasting peace agreement. Russian troops in Ukraine currently outnumbers Ukraine’s by about four to one while they have succeed in inflicting more than 5.2 times more deaths against Ukrainian troops than they have suffered with total Ukrainian troops killed in action to date estimated to be in excess of 933,000. If Putin was to order a second invasion of Kyiv oblast from Belarus using as few as 200,000 troops he could partially or fully surround the Ukrainian capital city and force Zelensky to capitulate on Russian terms within a month.

With regards to Iran, the thesis that a peace deal with Iran would somehow constitute appeasement is weaker still as the US would not be agreeing to concede any territory to them. Rather, it is Iran, not the West, that would be making most of the concessions in giving up their nuclear weapons program and long-range ballistic missiles. Iran proposed a five-point peace plan in the weeks and months before the US bombed Iran’s nuclear sites in June but unfortunately the Trump administration opted to reject their peace proposal and bomb their nuclear sites while peace negotiations were still ongoing. However, a peace deal along the lines I have proposed above is still possible to avert Trump’s perceived need for an unnecessary and destructive regional war that may escalate with little to no warning into a Third World War.

© David T. Pyne 2026

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He is the former President and current Deputy Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published in January 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

January 15th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s purported plan to bomb Iran in an attempt to overthrow its Islamic regime in support of the opposition members protesting against the regime. We will also talk about Trump’s threat to annex Greenland one way or the other—the hard way or the easy way.

January 20th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his Talk with Jon show to discuss the latest news regarding the war in Ukraine, China’s plans to blockade and/or invade Taiwan and Trump’s plan to overthrow the Maduro regime in Venezuela.

January 26th—Interview with Brandon Weichert on his National Security Talk podcast to discuss the latest with regards to the war in Ukraine, Trump’s attempt to gain control of Greenland and his seeming march to war with a nuclear-armed Iran.

January 27th—Panel Discussion with Jon Twitchell and Michael Letts on Main Street Radio on the Talk with Jon Show to discuss the latest news regarding Trump’s attack on Venezuela and his planned bombing strikes against Iran that could provoke a massive cyberattack on the US homeland as well as the ICE protest in Minneapolis.

February 2nd—Interview with COL Rob Maness on the Rob Maness Show to discuss Trump’s Board of Peace and his failed attempt to annex Greenland as well as Trump’s continued threats to bomb Iran and start World War Three.

February 2nd—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the latest on Trump’s plan to bomb Iran, the danger of a Carrington Event level super geomagnetic storm in the near future and what the US should have done differently during World War Two.

February 3rd—Interview on the Kianistan podcast with Tafhim Kiani to discuss U.S. National Security, Strategic Threats & Global Conflict Risks including Greenland, Venezuela, Iran, Ukraine and Trump’s long-terms plans for transforming the bipolar international order to a new tripolar international order with Russia and China.

February 16th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss whether Trump will go through with starting a new regional war with Iran and Trump’s misleading claim he rebuilt the US nuclear arsenal to be the largest and most powerful in the world.

Upcoming Interviews

February 17th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell on his “Talk With Jon” podcast to discuss the latest news regarding Trump’s plans to start a war with Iran, progress negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine, Trump’s reported commitment to go to war with Russia to defend Ukraine and his claim that the US has the strongest nuclear arsenal in the world.

February 18th—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Trump’s apparent plan to start new regional war with Iran as he continues to mass additional US military forces in the Middle Eastern region as well as the state of diplomatic negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

February 20th—Interview on the Canadian Prepper podcast to discuss the prospects that President Trump will start a new regional war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, how many Americans would likely be killed in such a war, and whether such a war would escalate into a Third World War. We will also discuss the chances of World War Three with Russia over Ukraine and with China over Taiwan.

February 24th—Interview with Kristi Leigh on her “Get Free with Kristi Leigh” show on Lindell TV to discuss Trump’s plans to start an unnecessary, protracted regional war with Iran as well as the state of diplomatic negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. We will also discuss Trump’s upcoming State of the Union.

March 1st—Interview with Brandon Weichert on his National Security Talk podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to start an illegal, unconstitutional, unprovoked war of aggression with a nuclear-armed Iran that could quickly escalate to World War Three.

March 3rd—Interview on The Political Current talk show hosted by Sara Katib to discuss the rising tensions between Iran and the US and the growing threat of a US attack and the terms of what a workable peace deal to avert a US-Iran military conflict might look like.

March 4th—Interview with Brandon Weichert on Emerald Robinson’s show “The Absolute Truth” to discuss Trump’s forever regime change war on Iran, what Trump’s objectives are, whether it can be won and whether it could escalate to World War Three.

March 4th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych on his podcast to discuss Trump’s decision to start the biggest regional war in the Middle East in 35 years and what the ramifications will be and who will likely win the war.

March 5th—Interview with Flora Swain with the Indian Express to discuss Trump’s decision to start the biggest regional war in the Middle East in 35 years and whether it could lead to the outbreak of World War Three.

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