Trump Declares Iran War Over

But World War III continues

There’s a lot of confusion over whether Donald Trump’s statement that “the war is very complete” signals an end to the war in Iran. The reason why is obvious: the attacks persist, with the U.S. military pinballing between the ever-changing objectives of the day, the hour, the moment.

Defense sources tell me that the military is able to operate so frictionlessly because of technological advances made and experiences gained over the last 25 years. Aircraft, weapons and capabilities in space and cyberspace have evolved, some over decades, to a level of Instacart delivery. As a result, the administration can change missions — destroy the internal security apparatus, eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, regime change, missile and drone defense, destroy the industry behind all of that, sink the navy, unseat the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, kill the next leader — and the military can keep up.

Hitting targets is what they do, and because they have become so good at it, they can do it pretty much anytime and anywhere. Some call that endless war, others perpetual war. I prefer to call it what it is: World War III, a state of modern-day war that doesn’t necessarily involve armies slugging it out on the ground, nor even a finish line. World War III is unbound by time and increasingly even borders, with at least 18 different countries directly involved in the Iran war, by my count.

18!

So when President Trump said yesterday that “the war is very complete,” he is referring to killing Khamenei and the other objectives they’ve so far accomplished. This version of the Iran War as an example of the global World War III does not mean fighting to the last Iranian drone or missile because there is no beginning and no end. Donald Trump’s version of an arbitrarily defined “end” hopes to settle the stock market and stabilize the price of oil and not upset the midterms. The latest objectives can be pursued at the Pentagon’s leisure. The hope is that the media in the US and the West move on to treating Iran like it treats Syria, Yemen, or Somalia, not in paying attention to the blow-by-blow, but in reporting on page 18 that another strike occurred today. Operation Epic Fizzle.

“We could call it a tremendous success right now,” Trump said at his press conference. “Or we could go further, and we’re going to go further.”

Their version of going further is adding more orders to the Instacart: disabling Iran’s propaganda and cyber capabilities, or more visibly, using the Navy to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

“If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far,” Trump said this morning.

“We are delivering twice the airpower of shock and awe [in 2003] and seven times the intensity of Israel’s 12-day war [last year],” Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said on Friday, using the President’s same scorecard mentality, as the military aims for a higher and higher score to please the pinball wizard in chief.

For a winning-obsessed president, the modern military offers a game that never ends, that can be won again and again and again. If you eliminate the ruler of Venezuela, there’s always that cartel leader in Mexico to bump off. And once you’ve done that, there’s always the new leader of Venezuela you can bully. And after that, there’s Iran’s ruler. Then the new ruler…and on and on.

“We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough,” Trump said at his press conference yesterday. “We go forward more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory.”

Win, win, win, like a junky chasing a high. In fairness to the president, World War III in general and the Iran war specifically does provide positive coverage in the news media, which can hardly contain its awe at the technical precision of the operations. Even John Bolton, the former national security advisor whom Trump is trying to send to jail, can’t help but give him kudos.

As we move into the future, the terms like “forever war” seem quaint while at the same time ignoring the real qualities of undertaking such an operation as we see in Iran. This is the rise of everywhere, all the time war. And it didn’t start with Trump. In 2024, under Joe Biden, I reported that the U.S. military had been involved in combat for 226 of 365 days. Not only is that proportion doubtless higher today, it’s spread like a virus to a long list of countries.

Since the killing of Khamenei on February 28, the following 18 countries have become involved in the war:

• Azerbaijan: Iranian Shahed drones struck Razzi (Nakhchivan) International Airport and nearby infrastructure on March 4, injuring 4 civilians.

• Bahrain: Iran/proxies hit a hotel and residential buildings in Manama with drones/missiles; U.S. Naval Support Activity Bahrain hosted forces intercepted some.

• Cyprus: Hezbollah-linked drones struck RAF Akrotiri base on March 1, damaging runways; UK responded, drawing EU/NATO focus.

• Greece: Deployed FDI frigates and F-16s to defend Cyprus post-Akrotiri; hosts U.S. forces at Souda Bay.

• Iran: Central belligerent; struck by U.S./Israeli airstrikes on nuclear sites, IRGC bases, and fuel depots since Feb 28.

• Iraq: Iranian missiles/drones hit U.S. positions and Kurdish areas (e.g., Erbil); Iran-aligned militias attempted to storm U.S. Embassy Green Zone in Baghdad.

• Israel: Central belligerent; launched initial strikes on Iran, faced Hezbollah rocket/missile barrages.

• Jordan: Iranian ballistic missiles/drones struck U.S. radar bases; Jordanian defenses intercepted others.

• Kuwait: Early Iranian drone/missile strikes hit Kuwait International Airport fuel tanks and government facilities (e.g., towers), causing fires; site of first 6 U.S. combat deaths in a drone strike on a port/makeshift base.

• Lebanon: Hezbollah fired rocket/missile/drone salvos at Israel; Israel responded with airstrikes nationwide and renewed southern ground incursion.

• Oman: Iranian missiles/drones targeted a port and shadow tanker in Gulf of Oman; Muscat mediates while denying full involvement; Iran claims false-flag.

• Qatar: Drones struck major LNG facilities halting output; Qatari jets intercepted Iranian aircraft.

• Saudi Arabia: Intercepted Iranian ballistic missiles/drones targeting Riyadh diplomatic quarter.

• Sri Lanka: U.S. submarine torpedoed Iranian navy warship (likely frigate) off coast in Indian Ocean, killing ~87.

• Syria: Israeli airstrikes on IRGC/militia assets (e.g., fuel supplies, logistics to Lebanon).

• Turkey: Blocked airspace for anti-Iran strikes; NATO intercepted Iranian ballistic missiles near/over territory (e.g., March 4 Mediterranean). Condemned Azerbaijan attack, sent 6 F-16s to Northern Cyprus.

• United Arab Emirates: Hit with missiles/drones on Dubai, data centers.

• United States: Central belligerent with 7 troops KIA and around 140 injured.

This isn’t even counting murky cases like the explosion in front of an American Embassy in Norway or the role that Pakistan and Djibouti are playing in hosting US forces and combat search and rescue. So far, the Houthis in Yemen have been silent but they’re probably involved as well, or will be.

There’s every reason to believe that this is just what war looks like these days. Though it’s scarcely been noticed, Iran updated its military doctrine this year to conduct what they call “heterogenous warfare,” that is, targeting the U.S. (and Israel) wherever they operate, even if that is in regional countries. And so we see towers in Dubai ablaze.

Many in the media imagine World War III as a nuclear war or a Second World War-like ground battle. But in our era of drones and airpower, that’s just not what it looks like. And so you have Congress opposing a hypothetical boots-on-the-ground war that hasn’t happened, instead of the war that actually exists. It’s not just generals that make the mistake of fighting the last war, as the saying goes. The political opposition protests bygone eras of warfare, too.

One of the most disturbing aspects of all of this is how casual the media is about what is, again, a new breed of warfare. When Israel and Iran fired ballistic missiles at each other in 2024 — the first such incident between states since Saddam Hussein fired SCUD missiles at Israel in the 90s — comparisons to World War III were commonplace. The media momentarily recognized how not normal it all was. The phrase also appeared when Iran’s nuclear facilities were struck in Operation Midnight Hammer.

But now, reference to World War III has declined. The news media, it seems, have accepted this new reality (not even consciously realizing they have done so).

Yet there’s one party that hasn’t accepted World War III as normal and even rejects it: the public.

A remarkable thing happened here with the Iran war. There was no rally-around-the-flag effect, the tendency of a president’s approval rating to spike during military operations.

This unprecedented public skepticism that I’ve called a quiet revolution has received virtually no attention in the mainstream media despite its role in fomenting the Epstein battle, the anti-ICE protests in major cities like Minneapolis, and the elections of candidates like Zohran Mamdani whom the expert class insisted could never win.

The “impossible” just keeps happening.

Unlike the Iraq War, when broad public opposition did not emerge until caskets of American soldiers started piling up, the current skepticism is already a majority and isn’t coming from fair weather types who just want to be on the winning side. It’s principled. And it is American. Polls of Israelis find overwhelming support—as high as 90 percent among Jewish Israelis—astonishing given that they’re literally facing the consequences in the form of ballistic missiles.

The American opposition can only be principled in nature, given the lack of concrete stakes to them (that is, except for the billions that they are paying for). The Trump administration sees this shift in public opinion and worries about it, in practically every speech debating the semantics of terms like “regime change”—a striking turnabout for a group that normally prides itself on unapologetic bluntness. But tomorrow? Some new objective will appear.

— Edited by William M. Arkin