Trump Is Now at War With Iran
Let's call this what it is
Without the American press even noticing, Donald Trump has started a war with Iran.
On February 28, the U.S. military announced that two B-52 heavy bombers flying from an “undisclosed location” in the Middle East (which I can report is the country of Qatar) dropped bombs on another “undisclosed location” (Iraq). The message wasn’t lost on neighboring Iran, whose state media warned that the B-52s are “nuclear-capable bombers” carrying a message whose recipient “was clear as day; The Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Video of the Feb. 28 B-52 exercise (credit: U.S. CENTCOM)
Clear as day in the Middle East, perhaps, but not in the U.S., where the show of force was barely reported at all. The Pentagon, masters of obscuring controversial things they’re doing behind sleep-inducing jargon, insisted that the B-52 exercises were merely “to assure regional partners,” to “support security and stability in the region,” and so on.
Then on March 9, a second bomber demonstration was made: U.S. B-52s flew alongside Israeli fighter jets on long-range missions, practicing aerial refueling and joint operations. Again the American press missed the story; though not the Israeli press, which correctly reported the real purpose of the operation — “readying the Israeli military for a potential joint strike with the U.S. on Iran.”
The military preparations culminated this weekend in a set of U.S. airstrikes on Houthi leadership in Yemen. On Sunday, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz bragged to ABC that the operation “took out” top Houthi officials, making it very clear that this is all about Iran.
Waltz said in his interview:
"This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out. And the difference here is, one, going after the Houthi leadership, and two, holding Iran responsible."
At that point, I thought the news media would finally get the message. But the coverage instead adhered to the sterile language of the Pentagon, framing the strikes as focused on logistical targets and a mere continuation of the Biden administration’s small-bore strategy of degrading Houthi capabilities.
A representative example appears in the New York Times’ Sunday article on the attack, calling the attack “similar” to those of the Biden administration. Per the article:
Air and naval strikes ordered by President Trump hit radars, air defenses, and missile and drone systems in an effort to open international shipping lanes in the Red Sea that the Houthis have disrupted for months with their own attacks. The Biden administration conducted several similar strikes against the Houthis but largely failed to restore deterrence in the region.
In The New York Times’ telling, there’s nothing to see here; new boss same as the old. But Biden never targeted Houthi leadership elements in his strikes! Trump has entered into uncharted waters. The media, meanwhile, echoes the Pentagon’s framing of the Houthi strikes as intended “to restore freedom of navigation” in the Red Sea, as U.S. Central Command said in its one-sentence long press release on the strike.
Today, Trump went out of his way to advertise that the audience for this operation was Iran. Writing on Truth Social, Trump said, “Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!”
Little noticed amid the torrent of headlines about Elon Musk, DOGE, and the budget fight, Trump’s rhetoric is alarmingly combative. Earlier this month, Trump said he had told Iran in a letter, “I hope you’re going to negotiate, because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing for them.”
“Do whatever the hell you want,” Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said in response, seemingly slamming the door shut on any attempts to pull back from the conflict.
Go in militarily? That seems like something we should debate publicly, but that hasn’t happened. Google searches for “war with Iran” spiked several times last year but have almost flatlined since Trump won the election.
Trump has embraced what he calls a “maximum pressure” policy on Iran but nobody seems much interested in what that means. Now he’s attacking in Yemen, signaling more to come, and preparing for an even larger campaign to fight Iran directly.
To end a war you first have to admit you’re fighting one. The media seems wholly unwilling to do this, instead parroting the Pentagon’s assurances that this is all perfectly normal. Go back to bed, America!
Tomorrow I’ll report on the Pentagon’s Iran war plans.
— Edited by William M. Arkin
Thanks for following this, Ken.
What's happened to the US Constitution? Congress, you remember them? They are the ones supposed to make a Declaration" of war? What about the War Powers Act? What about Trump saying he wanted peace? Where's that America first stuff, I heard about?
We are living in a world so utterly controlled by the depraved, including the legacy media, that we are marching towards that cliff like blinded lemmings, who tbh, has never come close to the levels of stupid that our species is capable of.