How far will Trump go in the Iran War?

A remorseful update on Trump’s war in Iran

Bob Sheak, Sept. 20, 2026

Introduction

Trump set the stage for the war in Iran by withdrawing from an earlier agreement between the US and other states in which Iran allowed robust inspections of suspected sites and agreed, as Iran has consistently done, not to develop a nuclear weapon.

The terms of the agreement

The Arms Control Arms Control Association identifies some of the highlights of the agreement (https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheet/joint-comprehensive-plan-action-jcpoa-glance).

“The nuclear deal between Iran and the multilateral group of states known as the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) was endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231 on July 20, 2015.

Iran’s compliance with the nuclear-related provisions of the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) according to certain requirements set forth in the agreement.

July 14, 2015, Finalization Day: conclusion of the negotiations on the agreement. Finalization day triggers Iran and the United States to begin domestic review processes of the JCPOA. Iran also begins providing the IAEA with information necessary for the agency to complete its investigation into past activities related to nuclear weapons development.
October 18, 2015, Adoption Day: 90 days after the passage of the UN Security Council Resolution endorsing the deal (July 20, 2015). Adoption day triggers Iran and the P5+1 to take steps (outlined below) to meet the commitments to fully implement the JCPOA.
January 16, 2016, Implementation Day: the IAEA certifies that Iran has taken the key steps to restrict its nuclear program and has put in place increased monitoring. The IAEA’s report on implementation day triggers U.S., EU, and UN sanctions relief. The duration of the nuclear commitments begins on implementation day (for example 15 year commitments expire Jan. 16, 2031.)
October 18, 2023, Transition Day: Eight years after adoption day (or the IAEA reaching its broader conclusion on Iran’s nuclear program, whichever is sooner). Transition day triggers the UN to lift missile restrictions, Iran to seek ratification of its additional protocol, the EU to terminate all remaining nuclear sanctions, United States to remove certain entities from the sanctioned list, and the United States to seek legislative termination of certain sanctions.

The U.S. Congress never formally approved the JCPOA, but they also never passed a bill to block the deal. Iranian assets frozen under a variety of previous sanctions were released. The U.S. delivered about 1.7 billion in cash to Iran, representing money that Iran had paid the U.S. before the 1979 Iranian revolution for military equipment that was never delivered.

Trump withdraws the U.S. from an Iran nuclear deal and gives him an excuse for the later attacks on that country.

Amy Sherman, Jon Greenberg, John Kruzel report on this ill-considered decision during Trump’s first presidential term, in early May 2018

(https://politifact.com/article/2018/may/08/trump-withdrew-us-iran-nuclear-deal-heres-what-you).

On May 8, 2018, Trump delivered a statement announcing, “the United States would exit a nuclear pact with Iran and re-impose sanctions on Tehran, saying the Obama-era deal failed to contain the regime’s nuclear ambitions and regional meddling.” Trump did this without any evidence that Iran was creating a nuclear weapon, the key provision of the agreement.

Sherman and his colleagues offer additional information on Trump’s decision to abandon the deal. They write,

“Trump believed the deal should have allowed international weapons inspectors to have greater access to Iranian military sites. He’s also hammered the deal for not covering Iran’s missile program and repeatedly underscored the need to stop the country from developing an intercontinental ballistic missile.

“Finally, Trump criticized the deal for failing to rein in Iran’s support of sectarian violence in places like Syria and Yemen, despite the deal’s promise to contribute to ‘regional and international peace and security.’”

“A last-ditch effort by leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom to address Trump’s concerns failed to persuade him to remain in the deal.”

Was Iran in compliance on nuclear weapons development?

Sherman and his colleagues found “that Iran had largely complied with the deal, and many experts praised the pact for keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of Tehran.

They add: “Over the 28 months the deal has been in effect, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the foremost authority on the matter, said it found Iran committed no violations — aside from some minor infractions that were rectified.”

What is the practical impact of Trump’s decision?

The White House renewed sanctions targeted “critical sectors of Iran’s economy,” including its energy, petrochemical, and financial sectors.

“Prior to the deal, American and international sanctions shackled the regime. From 2012-15, the Iranian economy shrank by 9 percent per year, oil exports fell by more than half and more than $120 billion held in overseas banks were frozen.

“The lifting of sanctions had roughly the opposite effect. It spurred around 7 percent growth over the past two years, returned oil exports to nearly pre-sanctions levels and unfroze the country’s foreign assets.”

In response to Trump’s decision, former President Barack Obama defended the Iranian agreement and “called Trump’s announcement a ‘misguided’ decision that ‘risks eroding America’s credibility’ and warned that walking away from the deal could make conflict more likely.

“‘If the constraints on Iran’s nuclear program under the JCPOA are lost,’ Obama wrote, ‘we could be hastening the day when we are faced with the choice between living with that threat or going to war to prevent it.’”

Trump’s war is unlawful,

Trump launched the war with huge bombing attacks without consulting Congress or considering the UN Charter’s views on what makes a war lawful. The Charter says this:

“The United Nations was established in 1945 to prevent war and promote peace, human rights, and social progress. Its Charter emphasizes that all member states must settle disputes by peaceful means and refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, except in cases of self-defense or when acting under Security Council authorization (UN Charter Articles 1 and 2.”

Experts agree that, from the onset, the US war on Iran constituted a war crime”

JAMEY KEATEN considers that UN-backed experts cite possible US war crimes in Iranian strikes, AP, Sept 17, 2026 (https://apnews.com/article/un-human-rights-us-iran) …. Keaten is the chief Associated Press reporter in Geneva, focusing on Switzerland, diplomacy and U.N. institutions.

Here’s some of what Keaton reports.

“Experts commissioned by the U.N.’s top human rights body say they have found ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe the United States committed war crimes in two strikes in Iran, including on a school in the southern city of Minab.

“They also accuse Iran’s theocratic government of carrying out crimes against humanity against its own people, in a report published Thursday.

“The report, while not binding, adds to international evidence gathered about crimes in the war in Iran, and could eventually be used in efforts to reach justice in international courts.”

Keaton continues. “The fact-finding mission on Iran, chaired by jurist Sara Hossain of Bangladesh, is made up of independent experts and was created in 2022 by the Human Rights Council, the U.N.’s top human rights body, which is based in Geneva.

“The experts were expected to present their findings on Monday to the council, which is made up of 47 U.N.- member countries.”

In anticipation of the report, the White House’s spokesperson Anna Kelly rejected the report in advance saying the human rights body has “accomplished nothing for human rights while spouting unserious nonsense for decades.”

The UN experts report that the US launched “indiscriminate” attacks on Iran that constitute war crimes on Feb. 28 with special attention to “a pair of U.S. airstrikes that killed at least 178 civilians, including women and children.”

Keaton points out, “At the start of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran in February, at least one U.S. missile hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, according to an Associated Press investigation.” Iranian state media have said 168 people were killed in the strike, most of them children.

The UN experts “found reasonable grounds to believe the United States committed the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks resulting in the loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects,” a U.N. statement about the team’s findings said about the Feb. 28 attacks by the U.S. and Israel.

Bottom of Form

“The U.N.-backed team based its allegations on two strikes — one involving Tomahawk missiles that hit the ‘clearly identifiable’ school, and another in which Precision Strike Missiles dispersed tungsten pellets over a ‘clearly identifiable sports complex and residential area’ in the southern city of Lamerd, also on Feb. 28.”

The UN experts also cite “crimes against humanity’” by Iran’s government. Keaton continues. “The team found that killings by state security forces in Iran have occurred on a ‘staggering scale,’ and civilians faced ‘gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by their own government.’”

Both the US and Iran should provide reparations, they say

The experts said the United States and Iran should halt all rights violations and crimes and provide “full reparations to victims.”

The U.S. House has tried to limit Trump’s power to attack Iran

Caitlin Yilek reports for CBS News, Sept. 16, 2026, on how the U.S. House has voted three times to limit Trump’s power to strike Iran (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-approves-limiting trump-on-iron-for-third time). Here’s some of what she writes.

“For the third time, the House voted Tuesday [Sept. 15] to block President Trump from taking further military action against Iran, with seven Republicans breaking with the president.

“The vote ended in a 220 to 204 tally, marking a symbolic rebuke of the president over the largely unpopular war.

“Tuesday’s resolution drew more GOP support than the previous two efforts to limit Mr. Trump’s war powers in June and July.

Yilek continues. “Three new Republicans voted yes: Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn of Iowa. The four who supported the prior resolutions were Reps. Tom Barrett of Michigan, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

“Nunn, who is in a competitive reelection bid, said in a post after the vote that he will ‘not support another open-ended war.’”

“Miller-Meeks, another vulnerable Republican, added Wednesday, ‘The President needs to present a plan to Congress and the American people for how this end so we can focus on bringing our soldiers home and lowering prices.’”

“A war powers resolution that cleared the House in July has yet to see any movement in the Senate. Both chambers adopted another resolution in June, though the White House has argued against its validity.

“The resolution, introduced by Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, directs the president “to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities with Iran.”

Yilek points out that after six months of the war, “the Trump administration has yet to lay out an exit strategy as it seeks tens of billions in additional funding for the conflict that Mr. Trump initially predicted would last four to five weeks. The Pentagon has said Operation Epic Fury — the military’s term for the initial strikes against Iran — ended in May, but the U.S. and Iran have continued to exchange fire for months, and a ceasefire intended to bring the war to an end fell apart in July. Oil shipments from the region are still constrained, keeping global energy prices high.”

Meanwhile, Yilek writes, “Republicans are trying to provide up to $73 billion in new funding for the war through the party-line reconciliation process. The House adopted a budget blueprint in July to initiate the process, but it stalled in the Senate over the inclusion of funding for Mr. Trump’s voting regulations bill known as the SAVE America Act.”

The war is costly. “The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released an analysis Tuesday that estimated the war with Iran could cost approximately $2 billion to $3 billion per month for as long as it continues. Between Feb. 28 and Aug. 1, the war is estimated to have directly cost the U.S. about $38 billion.” Other estimates indicate the cost to be over $44 billion by September. Trump started this war with no idea of how long it would last, how much it would cost, and the inflationary effects on American consumers.

In short, Trump falsely believed it would be an easy war to win, and that Iranian citizens would rise and transform their oppressive government. The number of Iranian casualties did not matter to him. He expected there would be few if any American casualties. He gave little thought to the costs of the war or its domestic economic effects.

The relevance of the Strait of Hormuz was absent in his war impulses.

The cost of the war

Dave Jamieson reports on the financial cost of the war for MSN, Sept 17, 2026

(https://www.msn.com/news/other/iran-war-has-cost-pentagon-436-billion-politics) ….

Jamieson writes, “President Donald Trump’s war in Iran has cost the Pentagon at least $43.6 billion so far, according to a Defense Department assessment obtained by Politico.

“That estimate comes in several billion dollars higher than a different one released this week by the Congressional Budget Office, which pegged the tab at $38 billion.

The CBO estimates that price of the war going forward to be anywhere from $2 to $3 billion a month, depending on whether fighting flares up or dies down.

The CBO estimates “only cover direct military costs from fighting. They do not include indirect costs that U.S. families bear in the form of higher fuel prices. Researchers at Brown University estimate those to be roughly $110 billion and counting.” Gas prices have soared, along with prices for a host of essentials.

Ecocide in Iran

Ashley Gate reports on the environmental effects of the war for The Intercept, Aug 31, 2026 (https://2026/08/31/iran-war-environmental-toxic-chemical-exposure).

Gate’s main point: “The U.S.–Israeli war has caused massive environmental devastation, adding to the long history of American wars with toxic legacies.”

Trump started the war, claiming falsely that it would take less than two weeks to end it on US terms and that it would bring “PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!” But after more than six months and two failed ceasefires later, the floundering conflict sputters along. And you may have noticed that world peace has yet to be announced.

Gates continues. “Trump’s other stated war aims, like Iran’s unconditional surrender and seizing its oil infrastructure, have also fallen by the wayside. In the end, the major accomplishments of Trump’s war seem to be limited to death and destruction: hundreds of U.S. casualties that the Pentagon has sought to downplay and cover-up, and thousands of Iranian deaths that the Pentagon is loath to mention or investigate, including a family of eight — five of them children, one a 20-day-old infant.

“But the almost 40,000 Iranians killed or wounded in the war may only scratch the surface of the true toll.”

Gates writes, “The rough outlines of the ecological devastation are only just coming to light. And if history is any guide, the environmental fallout of the war may reach far into the future, affecting untold numbers of Iranians who survived the conflict and many others in generations to come.

The Toxic Inheritance of America’s Wars

Gates continues. “Esmaeil Baqaei, the spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, recently warned of the increasing environmental damage caused by the U.S. war, drawing attention to oil contamination in the Persian Gulf that has begun washing up on Iranian shores.

“This incident is only one visible example of the extensive pollution — both overt and concealed — that has degraded the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman,” he wrote on X. “Who bears responsibility for compensating these damages? Is it the nations that consume the inexpensive energy exported from our region, the shipping insurers, or the aggressors and their partners who have transformed the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman into a theater for military operations and the testing of highly destructive weaponry?”

“Alongside death and destruction that has killed or wounded tens of thousands of Iranians, the U.S.–Israeli war has caused massive environmental devastation. By March, attacks had already resulted in more than 300 incidents of potential environmental harm, documented across 12 countries in the region, according to a report by the Conflict and Environment Observatory. These toxic exposures threaten not only today’s war victims, but also future generations who will grapple with the knock-on effects.”

Additional facts.

“According to research by the Climate and Community Institute, U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran in the first 14 days of the war emitted roughly 5 million metric cubic tons of greenhouse gases. Put another way: In two weeks, coalition strikes produced roughly the same amount of carbon emissions as the country of Iceland does over the course of a year. And as the war dragged on, missile facilities, weapons depots, oil infrastructure, nuclear facilities, dual-use and civilian infrastructure including power stations and desalination plants were also increasingly struck.

The catastrophic effects to come

“The environmental threats these targets pose is enormous. Damaged desalination plants jeopardize the civilian water supply and flood nearby land and marine environments with harmful chemicals like sulfuric acid. Bombed infrastructure fills urban streets with asbestos-contaminated rubble and dust, heightening the risk of respiratory illness and cancer among exposed populations. Damaged weapons facilities pollute surrounding areas with explosives, highly toxic liquid propellants, and heavy metals. And the targeting of nuclear facilities risks radiation exposure or worse, an uncontrolled nuclear disaster, like a meltdown.

“Fossil fuel infrastructure has also remained a key military objective for all belligerents. Israeli strikes on more than two dozen Iranian oil depots in early March engulfed the capital city of Tehran in a cloud of toxic smoke that rained black carbon and sulfuric acid on the city’s 9 million residents. Attacks on oil tankers and other commercial vessels have leached oil and spilled fuel into myriad waterways from the Egyptian port of Damietta, where Iran struck two liquefied natural gas vessels, to the coast of Sri Lanka, where the U.S. sank an Iranian frigate. And such environmental damage is likely to increase as the conflict continues to sporadically flare up.”

US troops have been victims

“And for decades, U.S. troops have paid for it with exposures to toxic substances, including defoliants like Agent Orange, an herbicide the U.S. sprayed across Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s; smoke from oil depot fires that dotted the landscape in and around Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War; and the military base burn pits of the post-9/11 forever wars. The PACT Act of 2022 extended healthcare access to millions of veterans who served from the last half of the 20th century to today and now suffer from a wide range of conditions related to such wartime exposures, including cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and reproductive issues likely caused or exacerbated by their military service.”

Higher prices in US from the War drives Trump’s popularity down

Dave Jamieson reports on this for MSN on Sept 10, 2026

(https://msn.com/en-us/news/other/added-fuel-coss-of-trumps-war-in-iran-estimates-100-billion-for-us-families/ar-AA2bOXkw).

President Donald Trump’s war of choice in Iran has cost U.S. consumers at least $100 billion in added fuel expenses since Feb. 28, according to Brown University’s Climate Solutions Lab.

“Researchers estimate that the war has created an additional burden of $55 billion due to higher gasoline prices and $45 billion due to higher diesel prices as of Labor Day. They arrive at that figure by setting actual prices this year against estimates of what prices would have been without the war-induced surge in oil prices, then multiplying it by expected fuel usage.

“The tab translates to an average hit of $750 per household, though families with multiple cars and long commutes would bear more.

“‘Energy price shocks function as an economy-wide, unacknowledged tax on American households, with costs comparable to large federal programs and policies,’ the group said in a statement Tuesday.

“Oil prices have shot up since the U.S. and Israel launched their war and Iran choked off the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping way that carries about a quarter of the world’s oil supply. Prices have dropped at times only to bounce back up, just as they did on Tuesday, nearing $100 per barrel again due to the standoff in the strait.

“The price of gasoline was below $3 per gallon on average before the war and now hovers at $4.15 as of Tuesday, according to AAA. The higher prices at the pump have helped drive public support for the war to just 31% and Trump’s approval rating to a mere 33%, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos survey.

“Though less visible than the price of gasoline, the higher cost of diesel fuel has also squeezed Americans’ wallets since the war began. Diesel fuel is used in large trucks, farm machinery and power generation, so households ‘bear these increases through higher prices from their grocery stores, utility bills, and across the economy,’ the Brown researchers noted.

US troops killed and wounded in the region

“On top of the financial cost, the war has led to 18 service member deaths and roughly 800 wounded. Trump recently downplayed those losses by comparing them to the much larger toll of the Vietnam War.

“I’ll tell you what, a lot of people don’t call it a war,” Trump said of the fighting in Iran.“I call it a military conflict because it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing. We did Venezuela, and we did this. In Venezuela, we lost nobody, and this we lost 18 people. In Vietnam, you lost a hundred thousand people, and in other conflicts you lost tens of thousands of people.”

“It certainly doesn’t feel like small potatoes, Mr. President,” replied ABC News’ Rachel Scott. “Eighteen people have died in this.”

Trump’s popularity has plummeted

This in part reflects Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the resultant rise in prices for gasoline and many other items vital to the life of the majority of Americans. Prices began to rise before the War because of Trump’s imposition of tariffs on countries. His popularity has suffered. Fernando Cervantes Jr. presents the results of a recent poll on Trump (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/09/08/trump-approval-rating-poll/916625007). Here’s some of what he reports.

“President Donald Trump’s approval rating fell to a new low of 32% in a Focaldata/Financial Times poll released over Labor Day weekend, reflecting declines among both the general public and Republicans as midterm elections approach.”

“The president’s continued struggles in the polls come ahead of a vital midterm season as his party seeks to hold slim majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.”

Given all the bad news, would a desperate Trump authorize the use of nuclear weapons on Iran?

The Peril of Trump’s Final Act: Would He Use a Tactical Nuclear Weapon in Iran?

Robert L. Borosage considers this question in The Nation, Sept 18, 2026

(https://www.thenation.com/article/world/trump-iran-war-tactical-nuclear-weapon).

He is a leading progressive writer and activist.

Here’s some of his reply.

“Donald Trump is trapped: His war of choice against Iran is lost, an abject strategic catastrophe. Now Trump has to choose sustain another forever war until Iran breaks, a strategy his own generals oppose, or produce a grand finale to get out without admitting defeat. And there is the rub.

“Reality has shattered Trump’s conceits. Instead of a few days, the war has lasted six months and counting. Instead of regime change and popular uprising, the Iranian regime stands with new hardened leadership. Instead of another display of US military prowess, the US military has been driven out of major bases across the region, stockpiles of vital offensive and defensive missiles have been depleted, and

the US Navy has been overstretched and exhausted.

“And Iran keeps ratcheting up the pressure. It controls the Strait of Hormuz, and its Houthi allies have just seized control of the alternative route through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and blown-up Saudi Arabia’s key east-west pipeline. Crude oil is now over $110 per barrel and rising; the price of diesel—the fuel of commerce—is at record levels. The cost of fertilizer, fuel, and virtually anything that requires transport is going up, with the global economy at risk.

Borosage continues. “In response, Trump grows ever more delusional. ‘The failing Nation of Iran,’ he claims, ‘wants to make a deal, quickly and badly.’ He suggests that Iran is waiting until after our midterm elections to sue for peace, at which point the price of gasoline will ‘drop like a rock.’ Then he muses that we might just stay in Iran:

‘We’ll ultimately get out, unless we decide to stay and keep the oil like Venezuela.’ He turned to Oman as a mediator on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and then threatened that if it ‘gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.’

“He dismisses the war as ‘small potatoes,’ claims full control of the Strait, suggests that the ‘Countries of the World…should and will reimburse the United States of America when this SCAM Confligration [sic] is over,’ and jokes that he might rename the Strait ‘Trump Strait,’ saying, ‘I should get something out of it.’

Trump has no good options

“The real straits of Trump are dire: He is trapped in a war that has already been lost, a reality that he will never allow himself to admit. Under Republican control, the House has voted repeatedly to end the war. With Democrats likely to take the majority in the midterms, Trump faces the prospect minimally of investigative hearings that will bare the true extent of the losses, costs, and internal military opposition to his folly. He has to find a way to declare victory and get out, and soon.

“Many experts report that the United States and Israel are gearing up to launch another full-scale operation, probably just after the US midterms. The Trump administration has just approved a $2.8 billion Israeli arms package that includes 40,000 bombs, half of which are 2,000-pound bombs. Even so, skeptics question how much a new bombing wave could achieve, given the depletion of US weapons stocks, naval power, and base support, without the use of nuclear weapons.”

Hegseth’s Pentagon has been moving to integrate tactical nuclear weapons into conventional war strategy. The aim, as Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby put it in the chilling language of the megadeath intellectuals, is to provide ‘credible, rational nuclear options that a President of the United States adopting the simple principle of being a normal human being with common sense would actually implement.’”

Trump’s recklessness and mental instability

“The United States, the only country ever to drop a nuclear weapon, has repeatedly refused to adopt a “no first use” policy. The president has sole authority to order the use of a tactical nuclear weapon. Neither Congress nor the public would be given prior notice. Would Trump use a tactical nuclear weapon on relatively isolated Pickaxe Mountain in Iran as his exit line?

“According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, using a nuclear weapon against a non-nuclear nation is a violation of international customary law. But Trump, as his noxious deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, infamously asserted, dismisses international law and treaties as ‘international niceties,’ arguing that ‘the real world…is governed by strength, by force…by power.’ Trump boasts that the only limit on his international power is’one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.’”

Borosage continues. “Dropping a nuclear weapon on Iran would not only be criminal; it would be incredibly dumb. Iran would respond by unleashing an assault on oil and desalination and energy platforms across the Emirates and an unprecedented assault on Israel.

“It would also set off a race for nuclear weapons, as countries across the globe would understand that the reason Iran was targeted and not North Korea is that the latter has nuclear weapons and the former does not.”

“Use of a tactical nuclear weapon would set a precedent for Russia or China to invoke if they chose to use or threaten the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine or Taiwan or other adversaries. It would put the nuclear arms race, already gaining dangerous momentum, into hyperdrive. And it would indelibly brand the US as a dangerous, pariah nation, feared but despised across the globe.

“For these and other reasons, it is hard to imagine any president making that decision. But Trump, trapped, desperate, angry, delusional, intent on punishing his enemies and displaying his prowess, could well be tempted. And the anticipated Democratic election victories this fall will corner him—and that will make him even more dangerous, as we saw with the sacking of the Capitol after his 2020 loss in the presidential race.”

Borosage concludes. “The last weeks of reduced military activity and apparent stalemate have been misleading. The economic costs of the war—now with oil transport through both Hormuz and the Red Sea constricted—are escalating. The pressure on Trump to escalate, to unleash another round of bombing in order to declare victory and get out, is rising. Without a concerted movement toward a settlement, the unimaginable is becoming more conceivable.

Concluding thoughts

Trump has shown time and again how reckless, stupid, and narcissistic he is. A growing majority of Americans have also come to such conclusions. At the same time, he still had the power of the presidency. He is currently trying to rig elections in favor of Republicans to avoid any challenge to himself by Democrats. He spends much time thinking about how to put his name on monuments and ballrooms and other public places. He is still committed to waging the Iran War and adhering to his belief that the US military will ultimately open the Strait of Hormuz and end the war in favor of the US. Currently, it all sounds like bluster. But if there is no agreement with Iran to end the war, there is a concern that he could order the use of nuclear weapons in the Iran War. We can only hope that in such an eventuality, military officers will disobey.

Sleepy Donald and the Misbegotten Iran War

Bob and Arlene Sheak, June 23, 2026

I – Trump’s health

There are questions about his mental and physical health and thus his ability to be President. He rants from his social media platform early in the morning. He tends to fall asleep at his administration’s events.

Jem Bartholomew, considers this issue of Trump’s sleepiness in an article titled “Sleepy Trump” for the Columbia Journalism Review, June 15 2026, and what it reveals about the president’s mental and physical health (https://www.cjr.org/the_medea_today/sleepy-trump-discourse-health-reveal-conceal-oval-office-memorial-day-raskin-tapper-schiller-mtg-php). Here are a few excerpts.

He writes, “Donald Trump has seemed extremely sleepy lately. He appeared to doze in a cabinet meeting, caught forty winks during a meeting in the Oval Office, nodded off at a Memorial Day event, and fell into a light snooze during the NBA finals.”

Here’ are two of several other points Bartholomew makes. One, he writes “you’ve probably seen the footage from a June 4 event on what is being called ‘beautiful, clean coal,’ as Trump’s posture slumps, his eyelids droop, and he raises his eyebrows in what seems like a strained attempt to stay awake and pay attention.” Two, “Dan Diamond of the Washington Post wrote last month that Trump ‘now receives some of the same questions that dogged’ his predecessor, Joe Biden: ‘namely, whether he is mentally and physically fit to perform the duties of commander in chief.’”

II – Trump’s war of choice in Iran

He launched the war with huge bombing attacks without consulting Congress or considering the UN Charter’s views on what makes a war lawful. The Charter says this:

“

The United Nations was established in 1945 to prevent war and promote peace, human rights, and social progress. Its Charter emphasizes that all member states must settle disputes by peaceful means and refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, except in cases of self-defense or when acting under Security Council authorization (UN Charter Articles 1 and 2.”

Trump’s war raise questions about the legality of the war he started and his mental state.

Trump believed that the war was necessary to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, although there was no evidence they were doing this or had intentions of building such a weapon. Nonetheless, his assumptions about the upcoming war were justified by Trump’s false beliefs.

He falsely believed it would be an easy war to win, and that Iranian citizens would rise and transform their oppressive government. The number of Iranian casualties did not matter to him. He expected there would be few if any American casualties. He gave little thought to the costs of the war or its domestic economic effects.

The relevance of the Strait of Hormuz was absent in his war impulses.

III – Trump chooses to start the war

The US and Israel launched a full-scale war on Iran on February 28, 2026.

Damian Murphy, Allison McManus, Andrew Miller, critically analyze Trump’s Iran War after the first week of the war, March 5, 2026 (https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-case-against-trumps-war-choice-in-iran).

“In starting war with Iran,” they write, “President Trump and his administration have knowingly put service members in harm’s way, inflicted suffering on innocent civilians, and left the American people to bear the financial burden of this needless conflict.”

“President Donald Trump has dragged the United States into a needless war with Iran—and one with no clear end. His war has already exacted a steep human toll: Six American service members are dead, and President Trump has suggested more will follow. At the same time, hundreds of Iranian civilians [soon to be thousands], including children, have been killed in Operation Epic Fury strikes. And for what? The war promises to be a strategic disaster that risks long-term instability, with no clear strategy to mitigate Iran’s incentive for nuclear weaponization or establish a pathway to democracy.

“Who foots the bill for this needless, immoral war? The American taxpayer.” The journalists make their argument in three points. Bear in mind, they are writing this only after a week of the war has transpired.

IV – The reality of the war after the first week

Here are examples of the evidence compiled by Murphy, McManus, and Miller.

The war had already taken a massive human toll

“On March 1, 2026, the U.S. Department of Defense acknowledged that four U.S. Army Reserve soldiers—Capt. Cody A. Khork, Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, and Sgt. Declan J. Coady—had been killed in an Iranian drone attack in Kuwait. The death toll has since risen to six U.S. service members, and at least another 18 have been seriously wounded since the start of operations on February 28. Without a doubt, these service men and women—fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters—made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the nation. The deceased soldiers had been assigned ‘to a post with woefully inadequate protection in place, described as a ‘makeshift office space.’ One source put it bluntly, ‘We basically had no drone defeat capability.’”

“While the war has killed many officials in Iran’s brutal regime, the Iranian people—on whose behalf Trump said, at least at one point, that he was engaging in war—have already suffered greatly as well. The Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has reported that civilian fatalities exceed 1,000, with more than 180 children among the casualties. One strike on March 1 hit a school for young girls, killing as many as 175 children….”

“As the war continues and Iran expands its retaliatory strikes, casualties in other nations will mount as well. Already, deaths have been reported in Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iraq, and Oman.”

The war had cost billions already, and the costs would continue to rise every day.

Operation Epic Fury has already cost U.S. taxpayers more than $5 billion in its first few days—a figure that includes the expense of conducting massive missile barrages, repositioning forces, and the loss of three F-15 fighter jets. These costs increase by the day: Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY), who sits on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, has estimated the war costs around $1 billion daily.”

The war has upended global energy markets and risks long-term economic harm

“The war in Iran has also upended global energy markets and created volatility in financial markets. Iran plays a disproportionately large role in the global energy system, not only because of its massive crude oil and natural gas production but because of its strategic position along the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of the world’s oil, one-fifth of the world’s natural gas, and one-third of global trade in urea—the most widely used nitrogen fertilizer—usually pass through the choke point daily.”

The war subverts American democracy

“Trump has presented neither a logical nor a compelling rationale for a campaign that entails serious risks to American service members, U.S. interests, and innocent civilians across the Middle East. This is not only a strategic failure; the president’s refusal to come to Congress to authorize this war plainly undermines the U.S. constitution. Trump’s contempt for Congress’ constitutionally mandated role denies the American people a meaningful say in decisions of war and peace—particularly egregious when 59 percent of Americans disapprove of the war. This is not just a violation of process but a subversion of democracy itself: Members of Congress are the people’s representatives, giving voice to the full diversity of interests and perspectives in the country.”

V – Recent estimates of the costs of the war

The Costs of the Iran War: Thousands of Lives and Billions of Dollars

Edward Wong and Aruni Soni report recently on tentative agreements and the costs of the Iran War, pointing out that it has already taken thousand of live and led to billions in costs (https://www.nytimes/com/2026/06/19/us/politics/iran-war-costs-death.html).

There seems to have been US-Iranian agreement to cease hostilities on June 17.

“The war against Iran lasted just over 15 weeks before a preliminary U.S.-Iranian peace deal was reached this week. But the human and economic toll mounted rapidly, with consequences far beyond the region.”

Trump looked for a ceasefire after pressure mounted at home and abroad.

Wong and Soni write, “Facing pressure at home and abroad, President Trump announced on Monday that he and Vice President JD Vance had electronically signed a document the previous day with the Iranians formally ending the war. The conflict began on Feb. 28 when the United States and Israel attacked Iran.

“On Wednesday, the president signed the agreement again in France at the Palace of Versailles, where an ill-fated treaty was concluded to end World War I more than a century ago.

The costs of the war to the United States, estimated at $132 billion overall, are still being tallied as a 60-day period for further negotiations begins. Here is what we know, according to the report by Wong and Soni.

Death Toll

“About 3,500 Iranians have been killed in the war, according to an Iranian government agency. Israel says 26 Israelis have been killed. Thousands of people in both countries have been injured.

“The U.S. military says 13 of its members have been killed.”

“In the deadliest known civilian casualty incident, a U.S. missile strike demolished an Iranian school, killing at least 175 people on the first day of the war, according to Iranian officials.”

Financial Costs

“Iran’s economy was already deeply troubled before the war. But now it is free fall. Prices for food and other basic goods have surged, and daily life is a struggle.

“The scale of devastation has been great, with hundreds of schools and health care facilities damaged or destroyed in the war, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, the country’s primary humanitarian relief organization.

“For U.S. taxpayers and consumers, the cost of the war is at least $132 billion, according to Moody’s Analytics. That factors in military spending, rising energy and commodity prices and interest rates, said Mark Zandi, the company’s chief economist.

“A top Pentagon official told Congress last month that the cost had risen to around $29 billion for the military. That estimate did not include the price of repairing about a dozen U.S. bases in the region damaged by Iranian attacks.”

“The costs of repair and maintenance, as well as keeping carrier strike groups at sea, also need to be factored in. ‘It costs a lot of money to just keep everyone and all this apparatus deployed there,’ said Linda Bilmes, a public finance expert and senior lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School. She added that the replacement costs of the enormous number of munitions that the U.S. military has expended will be much higher than the original purchasing costs.

Energy Prices

“Americans have paid roughly $60 billion more for gasoline and diesel since the conflict began as a result of higher prices, according to an Iran War Energy Cost Tracker from Brown University. That’s about an extra $460 per household. That number is still rising.

“When the United States and Israel started the war with Iran, Americans were paying, on average, $2.98 a gallon at the pump, according to AAA, a non-profit organization of motor clubs.

“Since then, gasoline prices have spiked regularly and are now around $4 a gallon.

“Oil prices surged when the Iranian military attacked some commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passageway to and from the energy producers of the Middle East. That effectively shut down the strait and disrupted the global flow of petroleum. Crude oil is the main ingredient for gasoline.”

The global benchmark for crude oil has dropped since a peace agreement framework was announced on Monday. It is currently near $80 a barrel. At one point in March, prices climbed to around $120 a barrel.

“Those high fuel prices have trickled down the chain and inflated many other costs tied to fuel, like airline fares and the transportation of commodities and manufactured goods.”

VI – US Voters have disapproved of this war and continue to do so

Julia Conley reports that “Poll Shows US Voters Have Disapproved of Trump’s War of Choice Against Iran from Beginning to End,” June 19, 2026 (https://www.commondreams.org/news/pollint-on-iran-war).

“Nearly two-thirds of respondents to an Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll taken from June 11-17 said they were unhappy with President Donald Trump’s handling of issues with Iran, which he began attacking as he insisted the country must not have enriched uranium that can be used to make a nuclear weapon and that the US must ‘destroy their missiles.’”

“The poll was in line with an analysis of eight reputable surveys that were taken in early March, just days after Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began the attacks—a decision Secretary of State Marco Rubio said was made by the Trump administration because the White House believed Iran would retaliate against bombing that Israel was intent on starting.

“Those surveys found that just 38% of voters approved of the military strikes against Iran in the days after they began, with polling expert G. Elliott Morris warning that “wars only get less popular” over time.”

“In the poll released Friday, 53% of voters said the US military action against Iran has gone “too far,” slightly down from 59% who said so in March. The poll was taken as the US released a memorandum of understanding with Iran and as the president indicated a retreat from the central demands he had made regarding Israel’s missiles and nuclear program, which Iranian officials have maintained is not for military purposes.

VII – Trump lost the war

Tom Nichols maintains that Trump has lost the war and he doesn’t realize it, The Atlantic, June 16, 2026 (https://www.theatlantic.com/2026/06/trump-G7-comments),

Nichols reports that the “president’s comments at the G7 summit revealed that he doesn’t understand the war he started—or the words that come out of his own mouth.”

“Donald Trump arrived in France yesterday for this morning’s G7 summit and promptly confirmed America’s capitulation to Iran. Instead of merely repeating the outlines of what looks to be a terrible peace deal, however, Trump made a series of statements so bizarre, even by his usual standards, that they raise the question of whether the president still understands the words that come out of his own mouth.

“The president began with a classic Trumpian move, daring his listeners to forget today what they knew yesterday. Just this winter, Trump had promised the Iranian people that the tyrants who ruled them would be gone. But now? ‘I never cared about regime change,’ he told reporters, waving away his failure to achieve a primary strategic goal by denying that it had ever been a goal at all.

“Things got a little weirder, however, when he described the Iranians who have stepped in to replace the regime leaders killed in U.S. strikes: ‘We’re dealing with people that I think are very rational people. And they were nice to deal with.’

“‘They were strong people, smart people.’ he added. And then he dropped this remarkable claim: ‘They’re not radicalized, and they’re, you know, looking to help their country.’”

“Trump’s description of the current regime in Tehran as a bunch of swell guys was brewed in a heavy-duty vat of wishful thinking. It’s an extreme version of Trump’s tendency, when he’s been outplayed by powerful enemies, to describe his opponents as basically reasonable people.”

“Trump fared no better talking about the Iranian nuclear program. Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium exists largely because Trump unilaterally called off U.S. participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 agreement that was meant to prevent Iran from enriching uranium beyond minimal levels for civilian uses. After the U.S. and Israeli attacks last year, and yet more pounding during Operation Epic Fury, that uranium remains underground, either hidden in storage or buried beneath tons of rubble; some of it can likely be recovered and enriched for military uses. Trump has said, repeatedly, that Iran must hand it over.

“Until today.

“‘I call it the nuclear dust, their enriched material, right?’ Trump said. (Why he calls it this remains a mystery.) Does America still insist on its removal from Iran?

Well, maybe.

Trump said.

“‘You could make the case ‘Why are you even bothering?’ cause it’s not really valuable. It’s, you know, it’s probably half a million dollars’ worth. It’s not very valuable stuff, but I think psychologically we wanna get it.”

Nichols continues. “A regime that was once the epitome of evil is now a reasonable partner; nuclear material that once represented an existential threat to America might now sit in Iran forever; Syria and Iran and Israel and Lebanon will now do things that they would never do, just because he wants them to.

“None of this makes any sense, except as desperate rationalizations from a man who cannot face facts and admit defeat. Trump has always had a tenuous relationship with the truth, but evidence is mounting that on the most important questions of war and peace, the president of the United States seems to be losing his grip on reality itself.”

VIII – How Does Trump’s Deal with Iran Compare to Obama’s?

Ephrat Livni delves into this issue (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/world-middleeast/trump-obama-deals.html).

“President Trump has repeatedly said that any deal he made with Iran to curtail its nuclear program would be different from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that the Obama administration entered into in 2015.” Livni writes that Trump is “not wrong.”

Livni continues. “The current memorandum of understanding is a general agreement to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, putting off talks about Iran’s nuclear program for a subsequent round of negotiations. The Obama-era agreement, sometimes referred to as the J.C.P.O.A. or the Iran nuclear deal, was extremely detailed.” How do they compare at this point?

1 – “Who’s involved: The Obama-era deal involved Iran and the United States, and also China, France, Germany, Russia, Britain and the European Union. It addressed Iran’s nuclear program.

“The recently negotiated memorandum of understanding is an arrangement between Washington and Tehran that addresses the conflict that began with the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran in late February. It refers to the countries’ ‘allies in the current war’ but does not name them. It mentions Lebanon’s sovereignty, but not Israel or Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group that renewed fighting with Israel in March after the attack on Iran.

2 – Comprehensiveness –

“Iran’s nuclear program: The 2015 Iran nuclear deal was a comprehensive plan to address Iranian nuclear ambitions and ensure the country’s program was ‘exclusively peaceful.’ It was 18 pages long and accompanied by dozens of pages of additional details about specific elements of the nuclear program, monitoring, sanctions relief and more.

“The current memo is 14 paragraphs long. It states that Iran commits to not having a nuclear weapon but leaves all details to further negotiations in the 60 days following finalization, a time period that can be extended if both sides agree.”

3 – Sanctions on Iran. Sanctions relief for Iran: The J.C.P.O.A. [Obama’s deal] tied sanctions relief for Iran to specific goals related to its nuclear program. In the current agreement, the United States is explicitly committing to ‘terminate all types of sanctions’ against Iran, on ‘an agreed-upon schedule as part of the final deal.’ The J.C.P.O.A., meanwhile, was a final arrangement.”

4 – Other financial relief. “The current agreement commits the United States and regional partners to develop a plan for a fund with a minimum of $300 billion for reconstruction in Iran — an issue that was not on the table during previous negotiations, as they were not prompted by war. It also states that the United States will grant any required licenses, waivers and permissions needed for financial transactions related to the fund. Trump administration officials have said Iran will only receive these financial benefits and sanctions relief if it complies with its obligations under the agreements, but does not specify what precisely it must do to qualify for reconstruction funds.”

Concluding thoughts

This war is Trump’s war. The casualties, the economic devastation of Iran, the global turmoil and suffering, the extensive harms to the domestic economy, the humiliating US capitulation to Iran, all are attributable to Trump’s decision to start this war. It reflects his stupidity and narcissism. Now he has turned his attention to vanity projects in his hope of creating a legacy worth honoring, of subverting elections, and surrounding himself with cronies who are completely subservient to his presidential power.

Fortunately, his popularity is low and the democratic opposition to him is growing.

Trump’s policies are self-serving and harmful

Trump’s policies are self-serving and harmful

Bob Sheak, May 11, 2026

Arlene Sheak edits

Here are some examples.

#1 – As U.S. Debt Hits a Worrying Milestone, Washington Barely Notices

This is the title of Tony Romm’s article, New York Times, May 7 2026

(https://nytimes.com/2026/05/07/business/us-debt-trump-policies-budget.html). Here’s some of what he writes.

“The debt is outgrowing the size of America’s economy. The president’s policies could accelerate the country’s fiscal headaches, experts say, unless policymakers intervene.

The debt problem.

Romm writes this. “The U.S. government learned last week that it may have reached an unfortunate milestone: The size of its debt surpassed the nation’s total economic output.

“It was a striking imbalance, according to early estimates, one that the country has experienced only in rare circumstances — briefly during the pandemic, and in the aftermath of World War II.”

The source of the problem.

“U.S. debt has soared in recent years because of a mismatch between federal spending and tax revenue, one complicated by a rapidly aging population, which has driven up costs across government.

The problem increases.

“For economists, the fear is that these conditions are inching the United States toward a fiscal crisis, one in which its debt is so great that the country can’t easily afford to pay the rising interest on it. But their warnings have long gone unheeded in Washington, calcifying the strains on the government’s balance sheet in ways that President Trump’s agenda is expected to exacerbate.”

Republican-controlled Congress ignores the problem

“Despite winning a congressional majority, Republicans have cut little in spending over the past year. With the few savings they did achieve, they put that money toward offsetting a fraction of the cost of Mr. Trump’s tax cuts, which are still expected to add more than $4 trillion to the debt in the coming years.”

Evidence

“Those fiscal risks aren’t yet fully realized in the total federal debt held by the public, which topped about $31.26 trillion in March, federal records show. By comparison, the nation’s nominal gross domestic product, a measure of its output using current dollars, reached $31.21 trillion in the 12-month period ending in March, according to data released last Thursday and analyzed by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which supports deficit reduction.”

The looming threat of a “debt spiral”

“Marc Goldwein, its senior vice president, said the symbolic milestone helped to illustrate the fiscal risk facing the United States. If its debt continues to grow faster than the economy, he said, it will only become more expensive for the government to borrow money, as investors demand higher yields on bonds to finance that debt.

“‘When that happens, at some point, you’re in this debt spiral,’ Mr. Goldwein said.

““The only way to stop it is through some kind of big shock to the system.’

Image

The debt will be higher at the end of this fiscal year

“…the Trump administration itself has recently estimated that the annual imbalance will still reach around $2 trillion by the end of fiscal 2026, which could mark an increase from a year earlier.

“Adding to the challenges, the U.S. government is just beginning to refund billions of dollars collected from Mr. Trump’s once-vaunted, and now illegal, global tariffs, with the first checks expected to reach businesses next week. That could further rattle the nation’s finances, just as the Trump administration simultaneously confronts the potentially towering cost of the Iran war.”

The debt will continue to grow

“In its annual report, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected in February that the government’s debt would outpace economic growth this year — and worsen in the years to follow. Pointing to a changing, aging work force, the scorekeeper estimated that U.S. debt held by the public would soar to 120 percent of gross domestic product by the end of 2036.

The effects

“If that occurred, the budget office warned, the ‘risk of a fiscal crisis’ would increase, eroding trust in the dollar and constraining the ability of lawmakers to ‘respond to unforeseen events or for other purposes, such as to promote economic activity or strengthen national defense.’”

Trump will compound the problem

“In the meantime, Republicans under Mr. Trump added to the debt, chiefly through enacting their package of tax cuts last year. William McBride, the chief economist at the Tax Foundation, which generally supports lower taxes, said that the cuts may levels of debt closer in time, maybe a few years.’

“Mr. McBride said the problem would only be compounded by Mr. Trump’s push for a massive increase in military spending, which he hopes to set at nearly $1.5 trillion starting next fiscal year. The president first indicated he would seek the boost, the largest in modern history, before declaring war on Iran — and since has suggested that the administration could seek additional money for that conflict.”

——

#2 -America in Decline

In an article in The New York Times, Christopher Caldwell posits that “America Is Officially an Empire in Decline” (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/03/opinion/oran-us-empire.html).

Mr. Caldwell is a contributing Opinion writer for the paper and the author of “The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties.”

Caldwell makes his basic point as follows.

“The American-Israeli attack on Iran was more than a bad idea; it has turned into a watershed in the decline of the American empire. Some might prefer the word ‘hegemony’ to describe the world order the United States leads, since its flag does not generally fly over the lands it protects or exploits. But the rules are the same: Imperial systems, whatever you call them, last only as long as their means are adequate to their ends. And with the Iran war, President Trump has overextended the empire dangerously.”

“The assumption in Washington over the past decade has been that the world is engaged in a game of geostrategic musical chairs and the music is about to stop. China may soon overmatch us not just in military-industrial capacity but also in information technology. The world will harden into a new, less favorable geostrategic configuration. This is the last moment to reshape it in America’s favor.”

The war on Iran demonstrates this. Caldwell writes, “That is because the United States lacks the military means to impose its will on Iran in a long conflict.” Its missiles and other weapons “are needed to defend allies and interests in other theaters, and the United States is depleting them. According to reporting in The Times, it has already used 1,100 of its long-range stealth cruise missiles, earmarked for potential conflicts in Asia, leaving just 1,500 in the stockpile, and fired an additional 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, about 10 times as many as the military buys in an average year. American leaders have been scolding their European allies for years about the inadequacy of their fighting forces. But if one measures America’s military might against our pretensions rather than our G.D.P., it is just as inadequate.

Caldwell notes the U.S. has options, but it will “pay a very steep price, no matter which of them it chooses. It can desist in Iran — having demonstrated, for no good reason, that its military is far less dominant than the world had assumed. Or it can draw resources from theaters that are of vital national interest, such as Europe and East Asia, to fund what the president refers to as his Iranian ‘excursion.’ Or it can resort to the extreme military options Mr. Trump darkly alluded to in social media posts starting in early April, which will redound to the everlasting shame of the country he leads.

The United States stands to lose its reputation, its friends or its soul in this war of choice.

—–

#3 – As Trump’s Poll Numbers Fall, His Authoritarian Instincts Grow More Extreme

Sasha Abramsky, The Nation, April 1, 2026

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-authoritarianism-polls

Sasha Abramsky is the author of several books, including The American Way of Poverty, The House of Twenty Thousand Books, Little Wonder: The Fabulous Story of Lottie Dod, the World’s First Female Sports Superstar, and Chaos Comes Calling: The Battle Against the Far-Right Takeover of Small-Town America. His latest book is American Carnage: How Trump, Musk, and DOGE Butchered the US Government.

Increasingly unpopular and facing a fracturing coalition, Trump is using government power to punish his critics, take political revenge, and revel in his own cruelty.

“Even as President Donald Trump’s hold over the electorate wanes, his administration’s naked authoritarian tendencies intensify. If you can tell a man’s mettle by how he behaves under pressure, Trump—mired in a ludicrous standoff of his own making with Iran and cratering in the polls—is putting on a display of raw narcissism and petty cruelty unparalleled among modern democracies.

Abramsky writes: “When Robert Mueller died in March, Trump went onto social media to post a note explaining that he was glad that Mueller was dead. This was after he had declared that the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife by their mentally ill son was a result of ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome.’ Yet, when late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel made a mildly off-color joke about Melania Trump looking like an “expectant widow”—this was before the shooting and possible assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner—Trump responded first by demanding, again, that ABC fire Kimmel and then by siccing Brendan Carr’s pliant FCC onto the broadcaster, initiating an unprecedented review of many of the network’s local licenses.”

Abramsky points out, “The FCC has argued that the scrutiny being accorded ABC licenses is solely to do with an investigation into its diversity policies (since, clearly, according to the white supremacist mores of the administration any efforts to present a diverse face to US viewers are somehow, inherently, illegitimate). Yet the timing of this makes it all too clear that in reality it is spiteful, vengeance politics, designed to pressure ABC into ditching Kimmel.

“In all likelihood, the efforts to pull ABC affiliates from the air will go nowhere; after all, the broadcaster’s parent company, Disney, has pretty deep pockets, and its lawyers aren’t going to let the company go quietly into the night. But the mere fact that the Trump administration is attempting to pull this trick shows just how far from democratic norms it has strayed and just how much it is willing to lean into the playbook used to such great effect over the past two decades by authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, and Tayyip Erdoğan.”

“Now, any wrap-up of the week’s authoritarian bilge would be remiss in neglecting to mention the extraordinary State Department decision this week to issue a limited number of Trump-embossed US passports to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. Let me emphasize how abnormal this is. Not a single other country on earth—not North Korea, not Iran, not Putin’s Russia, not Xi Jinping’s China—etches its current leader’s image onto its passports.”

—–

#4 – Economist: Don’t Listen to Hegseth, Trump’s Iran War Will Cost ‘Very Possibly Trillions’

Jessica Corbett refers to sources that offer this viewpoint, May 8, 2026

(https://www.commondreams.org/news/cost-of-iran-war). Here are excerpts.

“University of Michigan professor Justin Wolfers on Friday joined a growing number of economists and other critics casting down on what he called ‘the Pentagon’s lowball $25 billion estimate’ for the cost of President Donald Trump’s illegal war on Iran.”

Trump’s cabinet officials vastly underestimate the cost of this war.

Corbett writes, “While testifying before Congress last week alongside US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Pentagon comptroller Jules ‘Jay’ Hurst offered the $25 billion figure. However, experts have responded with raised eyebrows. Stephen Semler, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, estimated that the government spent at least $71.8 billion during the first two months of the war, or around $1.2 billion each day.

Although Trump told Congress last Friday—a key deadline under the War Powers Act—that his assault on Iran had been ‘terminated,’ citing the ceasefire deal reached a month ago after his genocidal threat, the administration has maintained its naval blockade and on Thursday bombed what it claimed were ‘Iranian military facilities responsible for attacking US forces.’

“As the threat of more US bombings of Iran loomed, Wolfers wrote Friday in a New York Times opinion piece that ‘the Pentagon’s stated number reflects only a narrow accounting of the tab that Operation Epic Fury is running up. It’s the price of the more than 2,000 Tomahawk and Patriot missiles already fired, the warplanes already flown and in some cases lost, and the rest of the gear already chewed through. It does not measure the true cost of the war—including the human toll.’”

Corbett continues citing Wolfers.

“‘Since the start of the war, oil markets have been disrupted, consumer confidence has cratered, the global economy is groaning, and military budgets are growing,’ the economist continued. ‘The toll from this upheaval must be counted in lives disrupted, jobs lost, companies shut down (see: Spirit Airlines), and the income and output sacrificed. The less easily quantified costs—death, disability, and mental health—could become much more dramatic should President Trump send troops into Iran, which still can’t be ruled out.’”

The US and Israel have not achieved any of their objectives in the Iran War.

“The US and Israel said they wanted to eradicate Iran’s nuclear program and change its regime. The regime is now composed of more hard-liners than before, and Iran’s nuclear capability has not budged since last summer. Now the two sides are negotiating the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the conflict, and the terms of Iran’s nuclear program, which they were negotiating before the conflict. Moreover, the compromise being contemplated involves Iran pausing uranium enrichment in exchange for the US lifting sanctions and unfreezing Iranian funds. That sounds suspiciously like the deal President Obama struck in 2015 that Trump ripped up when he took office….”

The US war has done harm to Iran and also the US.

“All this war has done is killed thousands of people, opened a new front for Israel in Lebanon, damaged most US military sites and most energy production facilities in the region, led to oil spills that are visible from space, created a shipping bottleneck that will take at least a year to fix, raised domestic gas prices to a record for this time of year, cost American consumers $34.3 billion and counting, ended the life of one US airline with more likely to come, and led us down an imminent path to physical shortages of critical commodities like oil, including in the United States.

There is no end in sight.

Corbett continues. “The Washington Post reported Thursday that the Central Intelligence Agency has privately warned the Trump administration that ‘Iran can survive the US naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship,’ and its ‘analysis might even be underestimating Iran’s economic resilience if Tehran is able to smuggle oil via overland routes.’”

A global recession?

“The reporting heightened concerns,” Corbett writes, “about how long the war may drag on. The International Monetary Fund warned last month that a prolonged conflict could cause a global recession.”

Wolfers estimates “based on the movement of oil prices, along with the S&P 500—is that stocks are about 5% lower than they otherwise would be, suggesting that the war has wiped about $3 trillion off the value of these companies.”

Trump wants a huge increase in military spending

“Shortly after launching the war in February, the White House signaled it would need $200 billion for the operation. However, it is now seeking a $1.5 trillion defense budget for the next fiscal year—which Hegseth tried to frame as a fiscally responsible plan that puts ‘the American taxpayer first’ in a widely ridiculed video this week. Wolfers highlighted that the budget request is ‘a roughly 40% boost over this year. That’s a massive $600 billion increase, or roughly $4,000 per household.’”

Military costs will exceed what Trump anticipates

“‘The best any economist can do right now is get the order of magnitude right, and my math suggests the Iran war will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and very possibly trillions,’ Wolfers concluded.” Current estimates from the Trump administration also do not figure in ‘lifetime medical care and disability benefits for veterans, and the higher recruitment and retention costs that follow a bloody war—all compounded by a rising interest bill.’”

—–

#5 – Trump Administration Covering Up “Extensive” Damage Done to US Bases by Iran

Sharon Zhang reports on this cover up for Truthout, Published, April 27, 2026

(https://truthout.org/articles/trump-administration-covering-up-extensive-damage-done-to-us-bases-by-iran).

“In their initial retaliatory strikes of the war, Iranian forces caused far more extensive damage to U.S. military assets than Trump administration officials have admitted to in public and private, new reporting finds as Germany’s chancellor says the U.S. is being ‘humiliated’ by Iran.

“In these strikes, Iran hit over 100 targets across 11 U.S. bases in the Middle East, striking ‘warehouses, command headquarters, aircraft hangars, satellite communications infrastructure, runways, high-end radar systems and dozens of aircraft,’ according to reporting by NBC, citing an analysis by conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Zhang continues, “These strikes caused damage that will cost billions of dollars to repair, the publication found, citing U.S. officials, congressional aides, and another person familiar with the damage. The reporting corroborates earlier findings that many of the U.S.’s 13 bases in the region have been rendered ‘all but uninhabitable’ due to strikes.

Bottom of Form

“In all,” Zhang writes, “the damage is far worse than Trump administration officials have acknowledged both in public and in private briefings with Congress, aides told NBC. The Pentagon is not even disclosing the extent of the damage or estimated costs of repairs to members of Congress, the aides said.

“No one knows anything. And it’s not for lack of asking,” one congressional GOP aide said. “We have been asking for weeks and not getting specifics, even as the Pentagon is asking for a record-high budget.”

Zhang: “Officials told NBC that the Trump administration is still gearing up to request over $100 billion — on top of its record-shattering $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget ask — in supplemental funding for the war, despite some of the more expensive aspects of the war, like airstrikes, having come to a standstill in recent weeks.

The Trump administration is attempting to withhold information on the costs of the war.

“Meanwhile,” Zhang continues, “multiple private satellite imagery companies are withholding imagery of the region at the request of the U.S. government.

“Officials are also reportedly withholding U.S. casualty numbers. The Intercept has reported that the Pentagon’s casualty counts keep shifting, and that last week officials actually dropped the total number of casualties from 428 to 413, without explanation. One U.S. government official said the Pentagon’s practices are the ‘definition of a cover-up.’”

—–

#6 – An Almost Unthinkable Threat’: Trump Warning That Iran Will ‘Glow’ Sparks Latest Fears of Nuclear Attack

Stephen Prager reports on Trump’s seeming allusion to the use of nuclear weapons in his Iran War, May 8, 2026 (https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-make-iran-glow).

Prager writes, “As he struggles to force Iran’s capitulation, US President Donald Trump issued what seemed to be yet another threat to commit an act of mass destruction against the country through nuclear warfare.

“When negotiations have faltered in recent weeks, Trump has on multiple occasions defaulted to genocidal threats—including that the ‘whole nation of Iran’ would ‘die,’ and that the whole country would be ‘blown up’—which have only seemed to anger and galvanize his Iranian adversaries rather than make them quake with fear.”

“On Thursday, the US launched what it said were ‘self-defense’ strikes on military facilities it claimed were responsible for attempting to attack three US Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran called the attacks a violation of the ceasefire and said its attacks on US ships were in response to American bombings of Iranian oil tankers the previous day.

“Trump told reporters on Thursday that if the ceasefire were truly over, everyone would know. ‘If there’s no ceasefire, you’re just going to have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran,’ he said. ‘They’d better sign the agreement fast… If they don’t sign, they’re going to have a lot of pain.’”

“Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, the editor-in-chief of Responsible Statecraft, noted that if it were indeed a nuclear threat, it would be ‘ironic since the war today supposedly is to prevent Iran from getting… a nuclear weapon.’

“The National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) said that ‘threatening to make Iran glow—with nuclear weapons or otherwise—is an almost unthinkable threat to commit a mass war crime against 92 million people. It must never be normalized.’

“Trump’s pledge to wipe out Iranian civilization last month drew widespread condemnation and led dozens of Democratic members of Congress to call for his Cabinet to remove him from office using the powers of the 25th Amendment.”

—–

#7 – Sunlight Doesn’t Go Through the Strait of Hormuz: Bill McKibben on Iran Oil Shock & Green Transition, interviews on Democracy Now (https://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/30/climate_change_super_el_nino_amoc).

Bill McKibben. as a guest on Democracy Now, sees a good thing coming out of
Trump’s war on Iran, namely that some countries are moving away from fossil fuels to renewables. He has published many books and is a co-founder of 350.org and founder of Third Act.

The title of this episode it “Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization”

Here it most of the Transcript of the interview.

——————————–

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to climate change. Last month was the warmest March on record in over 130 years in the United States, and average rainfall across the country is at a record low so far this year. The dry conditions are fueling wildfires across Georgia and Florida ahead of what is expected to be a very hot summer. And now the WMO, the World Meteorological Organization, is predicting a likely super El Niño weather pattern to begin later this year through 2027, further driving up average global temperatures.

Meanwhile, new research has found that a major ocean circulatory system in the Atlantic, known as AMOC, is in danger of weakening to the point of collapse faster and sooner than previously thought. The AMOC system, which includes the Gulf Stream, helps distribute heat around the planet. Its collapse could have catastrophic consequences. Scientists are now concerned the tipping point could be reached as early as the middle of this century.

But despite overwhelming scientific consensus, the United States, the world’s largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, is moving away from taking the threat seriously. This is President Trump earlier this month at a [Turning] Point USA rally in Phoenix.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The green new scam, one of the greatest scams in history. Remember, climate change, global warming, all of this. They actually had global warming, remember. Then that wasn’t working, because we were actually cooling as a planet. … And then they just said climate change, because climate change takes care of heat, snow, whatever you have.

AMY GOODMAN: That was President Trump speaking at Turning Point. Despite this, the energy crisis caused by the war in Iran is underscoring the economic and security benefits of transitioning away from fossil fuels and towards renewable alternatives.

For more on all of this, we’re joined by climate activist and author Bill McKibben. His recent article in The New Yorker magazine is headlined “The Iran War Is Another Reason to Quit Oil.” Bill McKibben is co-founder of 350.org and Third Act, joining us here in our New York studio.

Welcome back, Bill, to Democracy Now! If you can talk about what the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran means for the climate?

BILL McKIBBEN: Well, what it meant, what it means for energy policy is that everyone around the world can suddenly see the utter folly of relying on a fuel that not only is destroying the planet’s climate, but also that can be bottled up behind a 20-mile-long waterway. I mean, sunlight has to travel 93 million miles to reach the Earth, but none of those miles go through the Strait of Hormuz. That makes it a very appealing alternative, especially now that it’s cheaper than burning coal and gas and oil. So, the movement in the last month has been pretty remarkable around much of the world in the direction of what we used to call alternative energy. The only place that’s not happening, of course, is here at home.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And could you explain? I mean, first of all, the U.S. now produces the most oil in the world. So, how does that play into this?

BILL McKIBBEN: Well, Pete Hegseth said the other day that there were tankers lining up outside the Texas ship channel to get good old American crude. It’s true that in the short run, this will probably be a bonus for the big American oil companies, whose profits are through the roof, and who, by the way, should be paying a serious windfall profits tax in any serious government. But over the slightly longer term, what we’re seeing is demand destruction around the planet.

Look, the forecast for how American oil companies were going to stay rich and prosperous for the next couple of decades pretty much depended on everybody in Asia deciding they were going to drive gasoline-powered pickup trucks. That’s not what’s happening. Instead, people are crowding into the showrooms of companies like BYD, the Chinese EV giant, because they don’t want to pay. I mean, we’re paying $4 and $5 for gas. It’s much higher in much of Asia, which is, you know, where this story will be decided.

Would that we were doing all this for climate reasons. I mean, we’re meeting right now, or just finished this big meeting in Santa Marta in Colombia, with many nations trying to work towards a fossil fuel phaseout on climate grounds. That isn’t happening anywhere near fast enough. A bigger catalyst at the moment is the clear geopolitical imperative to get off fossil fuel while you can.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about where you’re seeing this around the world. As you say, in fact, countries are running to this, as the U.S. administration is running away from this.

BILL McKIBBEN: The president of South Korea said the other day that he wasn’t able to sleep at night, trying to figure out where they were going to find energy supplies. The place they’re going to find them, he said, is homegrown energy. Indonesia, which is going to be one of the most important powers in the world, announced, within days of the start of hostilities, that they were going to put 100 gigawatts’ worth of solar on their grid in the next few years. Everybody’s figuring out that it is ludicrous to be exposed any more than you have to to the completely volatile and undependable supply of fossil fuel, when, you know, the sun rises pretty much every morning.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And if you could explain, to your point — you know, the argument here is that, you know, renewables are too expensive, they take too long. But China, meanwhile, has built so much clean energy very, very quickly, it’s a world leader in clean energy investment, installation and manufacturing. How did that happen?

BILL McKIBBEN: Well, the Chinese decided that this was going to be the strategic imperative, and so they got to work. And they’ve driven the price down so far that this is by far the — we live on a planet where the cheapest way, Nermeen, to produce energy is to point a sheet of glass at the sun. That’s been true now for three or four years. And it’s showing up in the fact that 95% of new electric generation around the planet last year came from the sun and the wind.

Now, the U.S. is the exception to that. Even here, though, we’re seeing continued investment in this stuff, just because of economics. The state where it’s growing the fastest is that radical progressive hub, Texas. And at Third Act, we’ve been having lots of luck this spring in state legislatures around the country, getting them to approve this so-called balcony solar, or plug-in solar, that’s the very easiest, cheapest way for apartment dwellers and others to get in on this burgeoning revolution.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill, we just have two minutes, and I want to get to the El Niño and the possible collapse of this AMOC, the Atlantic Ocean circulation system, what this means.

BILL McKIBBEN: Nothing good. When I wrote The End of Nature 40 years ago, this was one of the things that we were talking about as a possible result of climate change. As you melt, as fresh water pours off a melting Greenland, it changes the salinity, and hence the density, of sea water in the North Atlantic. That density drives this giant heat distribution engine, the biggest on the planet. If it collapses, as the chief scientist on this work now said is at least a 50% possibility this century, then it’s a civilizational-scale event. Temperatures plummet across Western Europe. Sea levels rise sharply and quickly along the eastern U.S. But, basically, this — basically, we add, I don’t know, 30 or 40 parts per million CO2 almost immediately to the atmosphere, as CO2 leaves the ocean. These are the kind of things that they make science fiction thrillers about. It would be the biggest tool that we have right now to do that is the very rapid deployment of clean energy.

——————————————–

Concluding thoughts

Trump and his administration are taking to country into a steep decline, with their right-wing policies that benefit the rich and powerful, along with Trump and his family, greatly. At the same time, they are advancing policies that will continue doing harm to most Americans. Trump pursues vanity projects while all this is taking place. He calls for massive increases in military spending, ostensibly for the continuation of the current war and to rely on force or the threat of force in his international relations. Under Trump, the US is no longer recognized as a reliable ally and is in the process is undermining long-standing alliances. And, to top it off, he is increasing the country’s debt and undermining the nation’s future.

A war of choice

Bob Sheak, March 5, 2026

Arlene Sheak edited

Iran did not threaten U.S.

The current US war on Iran is not the result of an attack on our country or even a threat of such a war. It is a war waged by Trump and his government by choice and based on questionable assumptions about Iran’s intentions. The war also conflicts with Trump’s view of himself as a peace president.

Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondents for The New York Times, writes on how during his presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2024, Trump promised to focus on “America First” and to avoid foreign wars (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/us/politics/trump-peace-president-war.html). Trump dubbed himself “a peace president.” In the presidential race of 2024, “he boasted of starting ‘no new wars’ in his first presidential term. He asserted that if Kamala Harris won, she would send the “sons and daughters” of Americans “to go fight for a war in a country that you’ve never heard of.”

“Barely a year later,” Baker writes, “Mr. Trump is racing to topple foreign regimes, and is sending American sons and daughters to wage another war in the Middle East. The self-declared president of peace has chosen to become the president of warafter all, unleashing the full power of the U.S. military in Iran with the explicit goal of toppling its government.” The attack is now on its sixth day with no end in sight.

Baker continues, “The bombardment of Iran on Saturday was the ninth time he had ordered the military into action in his second term, even as he has decapitated the government of Venezuela and threatened to overthrow Cuba’s dictator.

“In his middle-of-the-night social media video announcing the opening of this new war, Mr. Trump laid out a bill of particulars against Iran going back nearly half a century, including its pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, its support for terrorist groups that attacked Americans and allies, the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the recent massacre of Iranian protesters. But he never explained why those aggressions required action now rather than earlier, or why his thinking evidently changed.” He also failed to offer a plan on how long he expected the war to last, what the costs will be, how it will wind up, and said Americans in Iran and the region will have to find ways to safety themselves. Given the absence of air flights, many have few options to leave.

Baker points out that Trump did call for regime change, “calling on Iranians to overthrow their leaders. ‘When we are finished, take over your government,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘It will be yours to take.’ He repeated this in a social media post Saturday afternoon announcing that the strike had killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader — ‘one of the most evil people in History,

as the president put it.”

Just how Iranians should go about taking over their country was left unclear. Mr. Trump wrote that police and revolutionary guard forces should “peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves” — a remarkable notion suggesting that Iranian security officials would somehow team up with the same people they were gunning down in the streets just weeks ago.”

“His public posture, however, has veered wildly over the past year,” Baker notes. “One moment, he presents himself as a historic peacemaker, forming a so-called Board of Peace and griping that he has not won the Nobel Peace Prize while claiming, inaccurately, that he has ended eight wars — including one with Iran. The next moment, he threatens to seize Greenland, take back the Panama Canal, strangle Cuba and even go after Colombia’s president as he did Venezuela’s.”

———-

The Idea That Trump Is Antiwar Was Always Delusional

Michelle Goldberg addresses this point

(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/opinion/trump-iran-antiwar.html).

She argues that it is ludicrous to ever think of Trump as a promoter of peace.

She writes that “what Trump has always hated isn’t conflict but sacrifice, the notion that American power should ever be constrained by a veneer of idealism or care for global opinion.” His real view is conveyed by what he said at a 2025 rally:

“I’m really good at war. I love war, in a certain way, but only when we win.” One of his chief complaints about the Iraq war, let’s remember, was that George W. Bush had failed to take Iraq’s oil.”

“Trump’s first term,” Goldberg writes, “was marked by a huge surge in drone strikes: According to the BBC, he ordered 2,243 in his first two years in office, compared with 1,878 in Barack Obama’s eight years. He reversed the longstanding American policy of treating Israel’s settlement building as illegitimate under international law, one of many sops to the American right.

“It’s true,” Goldber writes, “that Trump did not start any new wars, though, in retrospect, that seems like luck as much as design. In 2020, when Trump ordered a drone strike on Iran’s top military commander, Qassim Suleimani, The Washington Post reported that the decision “came as a surprise and a shock to some officials briefed on his decision, given the Pentagon’s longstanding concerns about escalation.” If that assassination didn’t spiral into a wider conflict, it may well have been a result of Iranian restraint, with some reporting suggesting that Iran provided America advance warning of its retaliatory strikes in Iraq.

“The lesson Trump learned from his first term, it seems, is that there’s no real cost to his belligerence, and so he has ratcheted it up. Trump, according to Axios, “authorized more individual airstrikes in 2025 than President Biden did in four years.” Given the lack of meaningful resistance he faced from his base, it’s not surprising that he has become even more reckless. Across many different realms, Trump’s pattern is basically the same: He goes as far as he can until someone stops him.

———-

This Is an Unnecessary, Unauthorized, and Unconstitutional War

John Nichols contends rightly that the Trump’s Iran War “is an unnecessary, unauthorized, and Unconstitutional War,” March 2, 2026

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/iran-war-congress-war-powers-act

Nichols reminds us that Congress, not the president, has “primacy over matters of war and peace” under the War Powers Act.

He reports that on Saturday morning, after President Trump launched an unnecessary, unauthorized, and unconstitutional attack on Iran, US Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie did their jobs as members of Congress.

The California Democrat and the Kentucky Republican had already cosponsored a War Powers Act resolution in hopes of thwarting a rush to war with Iran. Now the war was on. Bombs were dropping, missiles flying, and people dying. So the bipartisan team demanded that Congress step up. Khanna immediately announced, “Trump has launched an illegal regime change war in Iran with American lives at risk. Congress must convene on Monday to vote on US Rep. Thomas Massie[’s] & my [War Powers Resolution] to stop this.”

Seeking to force a congressional debate about the war—as Khanna and Massie are doing in the House, and as Tim Kaine (D-VA) has proposed in the Senate—is a vital first step in pushing back against Trump.

It won’t be easy. Despite a notable level of congressional opposition to Trump’s new war, efforts to establish even the most basic counterbalances to presidential war making will face overwhelming odds. House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Louisiana Republican who serves as Trump’s enforcer in the chamber, will do everything in his power to thwart any meaningful effort to renew the constitutionally mandated role of Congress as the arbiter of matters of war and peace. The same goes for the president.

The issue did belatedly come of a vote, as reported by Reuters (https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/us-senate-backs-trump-iran-014335375.html).

“US Senate Republicans backed President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran on Wednesday, voting to block a bipartisan resolution aiming to stop the air war and require that any hostilities against Iran be authorized by Congress.

“The Senate voted 53 to 47 against advancing the resolution, largely along party lines, with all but one Republican voting against the procedural motion and all but one Democrat supporting it.

Nichols continues. The latest effort by Democrats and a few Republicans to rein in President Donald Trump‘s repeated foreign troop deployments, the war powers resolution was described by sponsors as a bid to take back Congress’s responsibility to declare war, as spelled out in the US Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the US Constitution plainly reads, “The Congress shall have Power…to declare War.”

Senate Republican, in the majority, insisted that Trump’s action was legal and within his right as commander in chief to protect the United States by ordering limited strikes. They accused supporters of the resolution of endangering US forces.

Nichols questions their rationale. “There’s no indication that there’s any sort of circumstance that would give the President the unilateral authority to order military action. It’s true that presidents have some inherent authority to deploy the military as Commander in Chief, but that’s really limited to true emergency circumstances where there is an attack underway that needs to be repelled, or maybe an extremely clear imminent attack. But there’s no suggestion that that’s the case today—that would make the strikes illegal.”

———-

Trump and his Secretary of State offer rationales for why they started this war and will continue it for as long as “it takes.”

Reuters journalists Nandita Bose, Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis report on attempts by Trump and the Secretary of “War” to justify the Iran war (https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-says-he-ordered-iran-strikes-thwart-tehrans-missile-program-2026-03-02) Consider how U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained it.

“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,” Rubio said on Monday.” All of this is unsubstantiated.

Reuters – “We’re already substantially ahead of our time projections. But whatever the time is, it’s okay. Whatever it takes,” Trump said at the White House on Monday, during his first public event since the conflict began. — He made no mention of regime change, saying the fight was needed to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, which Tehran denies seeking, and to thwart its long-range ballistic missile program.”

The regime change rationale came a little later.

———-

Senate votes in support of Trump’s war

Democracy Now (https://www.democracynow.org/2026/3/5/headlines)

The United States Senate rejected a resolution Wednesday that would have directed the removal of U.S. armed forces from hostilities with Iran, as Iran’s government said the death toll from joint U.S.-Israeli attacks passed 1,200. Fifty-two Republicans were joined by Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman on a procedural vote opposing the war powers resolution. This is Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker.

Sen. Roger Wicker: “I’ll vote no on the pending resolution. President Trump decided to attack Iran. That decision was profound, deliberate and correct.”

Forty-four Democrats and two independents voted to advance the war powers resolution, joined by Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul. That fell short of the 51 votes needed to pass.”

———-

Some effects of U.S. bombing

#1 – Many Americans in the region are stranded (https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/us-iran-war-israel-strikes-tehren-lebanon-day-5-al-udeid-targeted).

“The State Department said Wednesday night that a charter flight of American citizens had departed from the Middle East and was headed to the U.S. It did not provide further details, including how many people were on board and where they had been evacuated from, citing ‘operational security purposes.’

“The State Department earlier on Wednesday said it had helped about 6,500 Americans depart the region, after it told U.S. citizens to evacuate 14 countries in the Middle East on Tuesday amid the widening war with Iran.

“The U.S. government has since faced criticism from some Americans trapped abroad for not doing more to facilitate their return.”

#2 – Democracy Now reports, Secretary Hegseth said that the U.S. and Israel are in the process of crushing Iran’s government “without mercy” (www.democracynow.org/2026/3/5/headlines).

“Iran’s Foreign Ministry says U.S. and Israeli attacks have struck 33 civilian sites across Iran, including hospitals, schools, residential areas and historic sites. Earlier today, airstrikes ‘destroyed’ Tehran’s Azadi Stadium, which has hosted international soccer matches. Meanwhile, two Iranian Red Crescent Society paramedics told Middle East Eye last weekend’s bombing of an elementary school in southern Iran was a so-called double-tap airstrike, with the second strike coming after the school’s principal called parents and told them to come and pick up their children. The strikes killed about 175 people, most of them young girls.

#3 – More information from Democracy Now about the

bombed girls’ school ((https://www.democracynow.org/2026/3/4/nilo_tabrizy).

Reporter Nilo Tabrizy is interviewed by host Amy Goodman about this tragedy. Here are excerpts.

AMY GOODMAN: It happened early Saturday morning. One of the first strikes of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran hit a girls’ school in Minab, in southern Iran. The death toll is now at least 175, most of them primary school girls. On Tuesday, thousands of people filled the streets of Minab for a mass funeral. The girls’ ages range from 7 to 12. Iran’s school week runs from Saturday to Thursday. When the missile hit the school on Saturday morning, the girls were in their morning session. After the strike, parents searched for their children among the dead.

NILO TABRIZY: Yeah, absolutely. So, right now we’re not necessarily able to get in touch with eyewitnesses or, you know, friends and families of the young girls who were killed, but we were able to verify the video. So, there was one video that I saw probably around 6:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, and I was able to verify that and know that the video that we saw that showed at least, you know, half of the structure was hit. You know, two stories were torn down. The scene was really graphic. I saw things like a small child’s hand in the rubble, blood-stained backpacks, homework scattered everywhere. And so, when I see scenes like that, it’s important to verify and know that it’s from the current moment, so I was able to do that.

#4 – Nicholas Kusnetz points out that the “War in Iran Could Have ‘Historic’ Disruptions on Energy Markets” (https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02032026/iran-war-oil-energy-markets).

Kusnetz writes, “Oil prices jumped after the United States and Israel attacked Iran. Experts say the effects on oil and gas prices will depend on how long the war lasts and whether Iran damages energy infrastructure.”

“The U.S. and Israeli war against Iran is disrupting energy markets and driving oil and gas prices higher in the United States and globally. While those increases are modest so far, experts say the war has the potential to cause more severe and lasting impacts if Iran damages the region’s energy infrastructure or restricts shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

“Already, the three-day-old bombing campaign has killed hundreds of people in Iran, including the country’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Iran has retaliated by hitting a broad range of targets across the region, including oil and gas sites. On Monday, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy said its Ras Tanura oil refinery sustained ‘limited’ damage after the interception of two drones. QatarEnergy said Monday it was halting production of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, after military attacks on two facilities.”

About one-fifth of global oil and LNG supplies pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea. On Sunday only five oil tankers moved through the strait, according to S&P Global Energy, compared with about 60 per day before the war.

“Analysts say global markets can withstand these types of cuts over the short term—global oil prices were up about 7 percent Monday compared to the day before bombing began. But the conflict also has the potential to cause ‘the largest oil supply disruption in history,’ said Jim Burkhard, vice president and head of crude oil research at S&P Global Energy, in a note.

“If the reduction in tanker traffic continues for a week or so it will be historic,” Burkhard wrote. “Beyond that it would be epochal for the oil market with prices rising to ration scarce supply and impacts in financial markets.”

Any lasting disruptions could prove even more meaningful for global gas markets, said Daniel Sternoff, senior fellow and head of corporate partnership strategy at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. Countries generally have smaller inventories of gas than oil to cushion disruptions, Sternoff said, though the impacts would be most pronounced in Asia and Europe. The United States is the world’s largest gas producer and a net exporter, so he said consumers would be somewhat insulated.

“The biggest question now, Sternoff said, is whether Iran damages oil and gas facilities around the region.

“All of this looks like a deliberate Iranian choice to escalate really quickly against its neighbors and to try to use world energy markets and prices as a pressure point,” Sternoff said, referring to the attacks in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. “We are really quickly into a really dangerous phase here of which there is no precedent.”

“A sustained increase in crude oil prices will push up the price of gasoline, too. And unlike with natural gas, American consumers are not insulated from the global oil market, experts say. Even though the United States is a net exporter of oil, refiners still import large volumes of crude.

“If prices remain elevated for no more than a couple of weeks, there may be little lasting impact, said Alan Krupnick, a senior fellow and director of the industry and fuels program at Resources for the Future, an environmental and energy think tank. But if high prices hang on for months, Krupnick said, that could have ripple effects that cut both ways with respect to climate change and fossil fuel output.

#5 – Effects of the war on financial markets

Jason Karaian reports on how “global markets tumble as Iran War intensifies

(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/world/middleeast/stock-markets-iran.html). Here are excerpts from his article.

“A global market sell-off intensified on Tuesday, as Iran expanded its retaliatory attacks around the Persian Gulf region while American and Israeli officials signaled that strikes on Iran could continue for weeks. Stocks and bonds slipped and oil and gas prices surged. Investors sought havens like the dollar to protect their money from the uncertain and unpredictable effects of the fighting on the world economy.

“In a prolonged conflict, the combination of higher energy costs, disrupted logistics, and a generalized confidence shock would constitute a meaningful drag on global trade volumes at precisely the moment the world economy was still digesting the inflationary and growth consequences of the tariff shock,” noted analysts at ING, a bank. “The mother of all bad timings.”

“Fears of disruption to shipping on the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway on Iran’s southern border through which a large share of the world’s oil and gas passes, upended energy markets. Oil prices continued to surge, with Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, rising more than 6 percent, to $83 a barrel, the highest level since mid-2024.

“Natural gas prices soared. European natural gas futures jumped for a second day; prices have roughly doubled over the past two days. A measure of gas cargoes in Asia rose 45 percent on Tuesday. Qatar, a major exporter of liquefied natural gas to buyers in Asia and Europe, halted L.N.G. production after attacks on its facilities on Monday. On Tuesday, Qatar’s state-owned energy company said it would also pause the production of “some downstream products” like polymers and aluminum.

“U.S. stocks were set to open sharply lower on Tuesday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 1.8 percent. Markets in New York recovered from early declines on Monday to close slightly higher, lifted by software and energy stocks.

“Stock markets in Asia and Europe recorded a second day of steep declines. The main index in South Korea dropped 7 percent on Tuesday, while stocks in Japan fell 3 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 index fell more than 3 percent in early trading, with every market across the continent in the red.

“Bonds around the world sold off, as investors assessed the prospect of a potentially prolonged war worsening inflation and spurring higher interest rates. Rising oil and gas prices could result in increased prices at the pump for consumers and add costs to a wide range of component parts for businesses. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield, which moves inversely to prices, rose by 0.4 percentage points, to 4.1 percent. Yields on government bonds in Britain, Germany and Japan jumped even more.

———-

In starting this war, Trump is gambling his presidency

Tyler Pager addresses this issue (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/us/politics/iran-trump-polls-republicans.html). Here’s some of what he writes.

“Six American service members were killed, and 3 U.S. military jets were shot out of the sky. Investors are bracing for market turmoil, fearing prolonged disruption to oil supplies. President Trump says the military campaign against Iran could extend for weeks, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that ‘the hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military.’”

“With his decision Friday to authorize war against Iran, Mr. Trump is taking the biggest gamble of his presidency, risking the lives of American troops, more deaths and instability in the world’s most volatile region, and his own political standing.

“Mr. Trump, facing declining approval ratings and staring down the possibility that Republicans will lose control of Congress in the midterms, plunged the United States into what is shaping up to be its most expansive military conflict since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“In just over a year since taking office, Mr. Trump has authorized military action in seven nations, even after he repeatedly promised American voters that he would end, not start, wars. During his inaugural address, he said his ‘proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker.’”

“Now it is Mr. Trump who is orchestrating a rapidly expanding military effort in a region whose history and religious and factional politics make it an especially complex battleground.”

“While a handful of prominent voices in his movement have publicly denounced the decision to go to war, Mr. Trump’s base appears to be standing by him, for now.”

“Still, some of the president’s allies privately worry that there is little political upside to the attacks on Iran and huge downsides, particularly the loss of U.S. troops and rising cost of oil.

“Trump sold voters on a ‘pro-peace’ vision of himself as an America First candidate, yet in under 13 months, he has ordered strikes on seven foreign nations and plunged our country into more open-ended conflict using taxpayer dollars,” Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.

“While he’s distracted by foreign conflicts and shiny ballrooms, Trump has failed to deliver on his promise to bring costs down for working families, who are paying more every day because of Trump’s actions.”

“Early polling after the attacks show most voters are not in favor of them. A CNN poll found 59 percent of Americans disapprove of Mr. Trump’s decision to launch strikes against Iran, and Reuters-Ipsos poll found that only 27 percent of Americans approve of the military campaign.”

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Concluding thoughts

The President continues to act as though he can make policy like a King. But not everything is going in his direction. His poll numbers on his presidency are low. Prices remain high. Wages suffer. Employment is barely moving, except in Health Care. There is widespread criticism of ICE. The war is unpopular. And the Epstein issue lingers on. He faces impeachable offenses once he leaves office. Democratic candidates are winning elections.