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THE OTHER SIDE: War once more
It is, of course, the innocent who suffer most in these wars of choice.
Written by Mickey Friedman
March 8, 2026
Tehran under siege on June 13, 2025. Photo courtesy of Mohammadjavad Alikhani via Wikimedia Commons.
Been there. Done that. Wrote about it. Warned about it. And protested the wars they lied us into. Wars that inevitably moved from a cakewalk into a quagmire. Some of you may remember Iraq. Some of you may remember Afghanistan. Fewer of you may remember Vietnam. Well, I remember those wars. I spent years in front of Great Barrington’s Town Hall with my sign: “Support Our Troops. It’s Time to Come Home.” I have friends who fought those wars and friends who have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) because of that combat. I made a film about Iraq: “World on Fire.” If you’re interested, you can find it with my other films on YouTube.
The thing about those wars is that none of our enemies had the capacity or intent to successfully invade or occupy the United States. They were, in effect, wars of choice. Wars that could and should have been avoided.
Please understand I am glad to see the demise of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And just for the record, I was glad to see the Shah of Iran go. Few people remember what a despicable dictator he was, and yes, he was our dictator, dependent on our support, which is why the Iranians have little reason to trust us. Few Americans remember how we overthrew democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and installed the Shah. Yes, our Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, stole everything from his people and used Savak, his brutal secret police, to terrorize them. So please spare me your hope that Reza Pahlavi, his American-protected son (he calls himself the Crown Prince), will return under our auspices to take over.
The fact of the matter is that I fervently wish for the demise of every tyrant who oppresses his people. Still, we will see many folks trying to use the despicable nature of the Iranian regime to suggest we fall in line with the Trump-Netanyahu decision to bomb Iran in the very midst of the Oman-led nuclear negotiations. Well, allow me to suggest that two seemingly contradictory realities can share the same space. The fact that the Iranians used violence and lawlessness to perpetuate their reign and continually threaten the security of their neighbors does not forgive Donald Trump for violating our Constitution and abrogating our responsibility to respect the United Nations Charter. I mean, some varieties of tyranny and terror seem more acceptable than others. Hasn’t Russia done worse than Iran? All at the increasingly likely risk of region-wide conflagration.
Meanwhile, somewhere along the line, for American administrations of both stripes, it became fashionable to abandon the very democratic principles we once told the rest of the world made us different. But, really, if we mirror their lawlessness, don’t we somehow undermine our higher purpose?
I am sure you will hear all kinds of folks cheering on this war. They always do. And those who precipitously take us to war rely on the same lies. Most often, there is the dire, immediate threat of annihilation.
But for those who still care, there is enough recent history that ought to temper our enthusiasm for this kind of war. How many of you remember this?
General Powell’s case for Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, United Nations, Feb. 5, 2003. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added. The U.N. Archive reminded us a few years ago how American lies led us to war in Iraq:
Twenty-one years ago in February, US Secretary of State Colin Powell held up a tiny blue-capped vial in the UN Security Council, claiming Iraq and President Saddam Hussein were producing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). …
‘Every statement I make today is backed up by solid sources,’ he said. ‘What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions. Clearly, Saddam Hussein and his regime will stop at nothing until something stops him.’
During the hour-long multimedia presentation, the Secretary of State narrated a detailed video and slideshow of satellite images, audio recordings of intercepted phone calls and illustrations showing, among other things, trucks and train cars allegedly serving as mobile production facilities for biological agents in Iraq.
At the heart of the US’s arguments was the claim that Mr. Hussein was determined to keep his WMDs and to make more, including anthrax, a biological agent.
Raising a tiny vial containing a beige powder-like substance, Mr. Powell explained: ‘Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax … about this amount … shut down the United States Senate in the fall of 2001.’
‘Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoonful of this deadly material,’ he went on to say, still dangling the vial with an unknown substance from his fingertips. ‘Iraqis have never accounted for all of the biological weapons they admitted they had. This is evidence, not conjecture.’
NPR added:
Powell used information that intelligence officials assured him was credible. There were reconnaissance photos, elaborate maps and charts, and even taped phone conversations between senior members of Iraq’s military.
‘Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons,’ Powell said. ‘Saddam Hussein has used such weapons. And Saddam Hussein has no compunction about using them again — against his neighbors, and against his own people.’
Powell repeatedly used one phrase during his hour-long speech: ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ He said those words a total of 17 times. It was the phrase the Bush administration kept publicly using to help justify invading Iraq.
A month and a half after the U.N. speech, President Bush ordered air strikes over Baghdad. It marked the beginning of a military operation ‘to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger,’ Bush said in a televised address to the nation.
U.S. forces toppled Hussein’s regime in a matter of weeks, and the search intensified for evidence of Iraq’s so-called ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ But the weapons were nowhere to be found.
[Emphasis added.]
Well, let me ask you: How do you determine whether a war is worth it? Back to NPR:
To this day, the Iraq War is widely viewed as a foreign policy and humanitarian disaster. The conflict dragged on for almost nine years and claimed nearly 4,500 American lives. Over 185,000 Iraqi civilians were killed, according to Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Some 2 million Iraqis had been displaced from their homes by the time U.S. forces pulled out in 2011.
Having destabilized Iraq, we went back in to fight folks worse than Saddam:
Three years later, President Obama ordered troops back to Iraq to help combat the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS — assuring Americans he would not commit to ‘another ground war.’ U.S. forces officially withdrew in December 2021 after almost seven years of fighting.
Powell later called his U.N. speech a ‘great intelligence failure’ and a ‘blot’ on his record, telling NBC News’ Meet the Press in 2004 he trusted the information he’d gotten.
‘But it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases deliberately misleading,’ Powell said. ‘And for that, I am disappointed. And I regret it.’
Looking back, it seems pretty clear to me that the president and his advisors sent Colin Powell out to sell their war because he was the most believable of them all. And Powell paid the price: More people remember his lies than the lies of any of the others. But believe me, like today, there were liars aplenty. Arms Control Today explains:
The Bush administration’s chief rationale for invading Iraq was that it posed a near-term threat to the United States and countries in the Persian Gulf region. Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, the administration claimed, and might have used them or given them to terrorists. Vice President Dick Cheney stated in an August 26 speech that ‘there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction’ and said March 16 that Iraq has ‘reconstituted nuclear weapons.’ In an October speech, President George W. Bush himself asserted that Baghdad ‘possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons,’ and he repeated the claim two days before the invasion began.
UN weapons inspectors have long said that Iraq had never provided an adequate accounting of its prohibited weapons programs or convinced them that its weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed. But Hans Blix, who retired July 1 as executive chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), told Arms Control Today June 16 that he warned government officials not to equate unaccounted-for weapons with existing weapons.
Now, more than three months after coalition forces entered Iraq, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, leading critics to question the administration’s characterization of intelligence reports on Iraqi WMD and the imminence of the threat they posed. Greg Thielmann, who was director of the Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs Office in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research until retiring in September 2002, told Arms Control Today June 26 that senior administration officials made misleading statements about intelligence regarding Iraq. Representative Jane Harman (D-CA), ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said June 25 that ‘administration officials rarely included the caveats and qualifiers attached to the Intelligence Community’s judgments’ in their statements about Iraq’s weapons programs.
Press reports have suggested that intelligence analysts felt pressured by the White House to alter their assessments to conform with the administration’s beliefs about Iraqi WMD. The CIA and the Pentagon, however, have denied these allegations. Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet said in a May 30 statement that ‘the integrity of [the intelligence analysis] was maintained…and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong.’
Just maybe the words of President Bush will resonate with you: “to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger.”
It is, of course, the innocent who suffer most in these wars of choice. Yes, Iraq suffered under the stupidity and tyranny of Saddam Hussein, but the nation suffered unspeakable harm because we went to war. Whatever frail sympathy and mutual understanding that had been built up between the Shia and Sunni communities in Iraq was ripped asunder. No matter the dictator, Iraq was a shining example of learning. Its universities, bookstores, and cafes were known and appreciated throughout the Middle East. But much of civil society was destroyed by relentless war.
The thing about war is that the countless innocents who lose their lives and the soldiers who pay the price for the stupid decisions of their commanders could care less about the much-too-late apologies of men like Colin Powell or President Trump, who seemed more interested in his drapes and soon-to-be ballroom than the sacrifices of those under his command. So, here we go again with more war.
Yes, the people of Iran have suffered mightily under the iron-handed rule of the ayatollahs, but only the deluded can imagine things will get better as American and Israeli jets bombard Iranian towns and cities. Already close to 150 completely innocent schoolgirls amongst the estimated 900 civilians have lost their lives. Meanwhile, in several recent incidents, Donald Trump has shown the world how clueless he is about the true costs of regime change:
The New York Times, Feb. 28, 2026. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added. It is a bit much to tell unarmed, disorganized civilians to take to the streets to oppose a highly organized military force of 610,000 active members with 350,000 reserves. Not to the mention the highly motivated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Much like what happened to the innocents of Iraq, we are likely to see chaos and instability. I don’t know about you, but I fear for those Iranians who now have to rely on the after-action plan developed by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and President Trump:
The New York Times, March 3, 2026. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added. The Times explains what Donald Trump meant when he used the words “worst case scenario”:
While meeting with Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany in the Oval Office on Tuesday morning, President Trump decided to publicly answer reporters’ questions about his war on Iran for the first time.
One of the first questions he got was this: What does he imagine the worst-case scenario in Iran to be?
‘I guess the worst case would be we do this and somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person,’ he said. ‘Right, that could happen? We don’t want that to happen. It would probably be the worst, you go through this, and then in five years you realize you put somebody in who’s no better.’
Right, that could happen.
He was unflinching on Tuesday about the new war he has kicked off in the Middle East. He insisted it was necessary, and he talked about all the people he said have been thanking him ever since it started. But he also acknowledged, in more ways than one, that he’s not so sure how any of this might wind up.
He could give his ‘worst case’ scenario but he didn’t seem able to give his best case scenario. When asked who he would like to rule Iran, Mr. Trump responded bluntly: ‘Most of the people we had in mind are dead.’
Come again?
‘Now we have another group,’ he continued. ‘They may be dead also, based on reports. So I guess you have a third wave coming. Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.’
It was an admission that will do nothing to quell the uproar in Washington that the Trump administration does not have a clear end game in mind.
Mr. Trump said Tuesday that he went to war because Iran was about to attack its neighbors and Israel, and he made the decision to attack so as to pre-empt that action. (Officials with access to U.S. intelligence have said that Mr. Trump has exaggerated the immediacy of any threat Iran posed to the United States.)
‘We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack,’ Mr. Trump claimed. He bristled when asked if his hand had been forced by Israel. ‘If anything,’ Mr. Trump retorted, ‘I might have forced Israel’s hand.’
[Emphasis added.]
It is clear from the ever-changing explanations of the administration that there was a lack of planning:
The New York Times, Feb. 26, 2026. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added. The Times explains:
Key elements of the Trump administration’s arguments this week for another military campaign against Iran do not hold up.
As they made their public case this week for another American military campaign against Iran, President Trump and his aides asserted that Iran has restarted its nuclear program, has enough available nuclear material to build a bomb within days, and is developing long-range missiles that will soon be capable of hitting the United States.
All three of these claims are either false or unproven.
American and European government officials, international weapons monitoring groups and reports from American intelligence agencies give a far different picture of the urgency of the Iran threat than the one the White House has presented in recent days.
Iran has taken steps to dig out the nuclear facilities hit during strikes last June by Israel and the United States, and it has resumed work at some sites long known to American spy agencies. But the officials said that there isn’t evidence that Iran has made active efforts to resume enriching uranium or trying to build a mechanism to detonate a bomb.
The stockpiles of uranium that Iran has already enriched remain buried after last year’s strikes, making it nearly impossible for Iran to build a bomb ‘within days.’
Iran has a large arsenal of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles capable of hitting Israel and American military bases in the Middle East, but American intelligence agencies believe Iran is probably years away from having missiles that can hit the United States.
The Pentagon for weeks has been moving ships, planes and air defense units to the Middle East as part of the largest American military buildup in the region in more than two decades. This escalation, along with Mr. Trump’s threats, has brought criticism that the White House has made no public case to justify a second American military conflict in Iran in less than a year.
Now, top Trump administration officials have begun to make the case, and key elements of their arguments do not hold up under close scrutiny. They have even contradicted each other in their public statements.
Mr. Trump’s statements about the urgency of the threat posed by Iran’s missile and nuclear capabilities in his State of the Union address this week had echoes of 2003, when President George W. Bush used the State of the Union to build a case for war in Iraq. During that speech, he asserted that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa to fuel a nascent nuclear weapons program. That claim, like so many other Bush administration assertions about Iraq’s weapons programs, was later proved to be false.
[Emphasis added.]
Of course it is essential, as George Bush realized, to convince the American people that their very survival and security is at risk. And Donald Trump has doubled down on the threat posed by Iran. It wasn’t just Israel and its Middle Eastern neighbors at risk but the United States as well. The Times continues:
Iran has steadily increased the range of its ballistic missiles, and its most powerful missiles can hit Central and Eastern Europe.
But in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Mr. Trump made a new claim, saying Iran was ‘working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.’
The following day, Mr. Rubio repeated the president’s assertion about Iran’s work on intercontinental ballistic missiles, although he used different language about how quickly Iran could be capable of hitting the United States. While Mr. Trump said it would be ‘soon,’ Mr. Rubio said it would be ‘one day.’
‘You’ve seen them increasing the range of the missiles they have now, and clearly they are headed in the pathway to one day being able to develop weapons that could reach the continental U.S.,’ he told reporters on Wednesday.
Three American officials with access to current intelligence about Iran’s missile programs said that Mr. Trump exaggerated the immediacy of the threat posed to the United States. One official said some intelligence analysts were concerned that top aides have inflated the threats or that intelligence was being selectively presented or distorted as it was sent upward.
[Emphasis added.]
For this new war, it seems the justification and our aims change by the moment. Destruction of Iran’s nuclear program. Change the governing regime. Preventing the ability of Iran’s military to develop long-range missiles able to reach our borders. It hardly seems to matter that the lies just don’t seem to make sense.
For their recent analysis, “How Trump Decided to Go to War,” The New York Times spoke to sources within and without the administration:
The New York Times, March 2, 2026. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added. The Times describes this scenario:
President Trump’s embrace of military action in Iran was spurred by an Israeli leader determined to end diplomatic negotiations. Few of the president’s advisers voiced opposition.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel walked into the Oval Office on the morning of Feb. 11, determined to keep the American president on the path to war.
For weeks, the United States and Israel had been secretly discussing a military offensive against Iran. But Trump administration officials had recently begun negotiating with the Iranians over the future of their nuclear program, and the Israeli leader wanted to make sure that the new diplomatic effort did not undermine the plans.
Over nearly three hours, the two leaders discussed the prospects of war and even possible dates for an attack, as well as the possibility — however unlikely — that President Trump might be able to reach a deal with Iran.
Days later, the U.S. president made clear publicly that he was skeptical of the diplomatic route, dismissing the history of negotiating with Iran as merely years of ‘talking and talking and talking.’
Asked by reporters if he wanted regime change in Iran, Mr. Trump said it ‘seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.’
Two weeks later, the president took the United States to war. He authorized a vast military bombardment in conjunction with Israel that swiftly killed the country’s supreme leader, pummeled Iranian civilian buildings and military nuclear sites, thrust the country into chaos and triggered violence across the region, leading to the deaths so far of six U.S. troops and scores of Iranian civilians. Mr. Trump has said more American casualties are likely as the United States digs in for an assault that could last weeks.
In public, Mr. Trump appeared to take a circuitous path to military action, alternating between saying that he wanted to strike a deal with Iran’s government and that he wanted to topple it. He made little effort to try to convince the American public that a war was necessary now. And the limited case he and his aides made included false claims about the imminence of the threat that Iran posed to the United States.
But behind the scenes, his move toward war grew inexorably, fueled by allies like Mr. Netanyahu who pushed the president to strike a decisive blow against Iran’s theocratic government; and by Mr. Trump’s own confidence after the successful U.S. operation that toppled the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January.
You would think that before risking the lives of your military and, of course, the civilians of Iran, risking the very real chance of escalation, every possibility of pursuing peaceful solutions and avoiding war would be exhausted. But so much about this decision to go to war with Iran seems to contradict what we have recently been told.
Remember, it was Donald Trump himself who went out of his way—actually again and again—to insist that his attack on Iran’s nuclear facility was a great success and that the threat had been dealt with:
BBC News, June 21, 2025. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added. The BBC noted:
President Donald Trump called the bombing of three nuclear facilities in Iran a ‘spectacular military success’.
He called on Iran to quickly bring peace or said the US would go after other targets with ‘speed’ and ‘precision’.
Israel initially attacked Iran earlier this month, while the Americans and the Iranians were in nuclear talks. Trump urged Iran to continue negotiations, but on Saturday he went ahead with strikes.
Appearing alongside Vice-President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump boasted of the mission’s success.
‘Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,’ Trump said. ‘Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.’ …
The bombing marked the first time since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 that the US sent troops into Iran to strike facilities inside the country.
Using ‘bunker buster bombs’, the GBU-57A Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the US struck Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan in the middle of the night local time.
Yes, Trump made sure the world knew that he had destroyed Iran’s nuclear program:
White House. Feb. 25, 2025. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added. Not just damaged or destroyed, but obliterated. Again, the White House went on to insist:
Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated — and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News.
The world is far safer after President Donald J. Trump’s highly successful, decisive precision strikes against the Iranian regime’s key nuclear facilities.
Take it from those who actually know:
President Trump: ‘Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran, as shown by satellite images. Obliteration is an accurate term! The white structure shown is deeply imbedded into the rock, with even its roof well below ground level, and completely shielded from flame. The biggest damage took place far below ground level. Bullseye!!!’
Israel Atomic Energy Commission: ‘The devastating US strike on Fordo destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable. We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years. The achievement can continue indefinitely if Iran does not get access to nuclear material.’
…
Vice President JD Vance: ‘I can say to the American people with great confidence that they are much further away from a nuclear program today than they were 24 hours ago. That was the objective of the mission, to destroy that Fordow nuclear site, and of course, do some damage to the other sites as well, but we feel very confident that the Fordow nuclear site was substantially set back, and that was our goal.’
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth: ‘Based on everything we have seen — and I’ve seen it all — our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons. Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target and worked perfectly. The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran; so anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the President and the successful mission.
Secretary Hegseth: ‘Given the 30,000 pounds of explosions and the capability of those munitions, it was DEVASTATION underneath Fordow … Any assessment that tells you otherwise is speculating with other motives.’
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan ‘Razin’ Caine: ‘Initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction. More than 125 US aircraft participated in this mission, including B2 stealth bombers, multiple flights of fourth and fifth generation fighters, dozens and dozens of air refueling tankers, a guided missile submarine, and a full array of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft, as well as hundreds of maintenance and operational professionals.’
[Emphasis added.]
And yet we are now told that that same obliterated Iranian nuclear program once again magically provided an imminent threat and required an all-out war. Somehow Pete Hegseth’s overwhelming victory needs a do-over:
Times of Israel, March 2, 2026. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added. And this time around—well, this time we don’t really know. Victory could come in two weeks or four weeks or six weeks. Pete Hegseth held a press conference with General Caine on March 2, 2026, to provide an update. In case there was any confusion about who has the power to wage war and whether this operation was indeed waging war, Hegseth made it clear what was happening:
Two days ago, under the direction and direct orders of President Donald J. Trump, the Department of War launched Operation Epic Fury, the most lethal, most complex and most precise aerial operation in history.
For 47 long years, the expansionist and Islamist regime in Tehran has waged a savage, one-sided war against America. They didn’t always declare it openly, except for their constant chants of ‘death to America.’
They did it through the blood of our people. Car bombs in Beirut. Rocket attacks on our ships. Murders at our embassies, roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Funded and armed by Iranian Quds Force and IRGC killers.
My generation of veterans carry the names of brothers who never came home. Brothers butchered by Iranian-backed roadside bombs and well-armed militias. Thousands of our own.
We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. Their war on Americans has become our retribution against their Ayatollah and his death cult. It took the 47th president, a fighter who always puts America first, to finally draw the line after 47 years of Iranian belligerence.
He reminded the world, as he has time and time again, being an American means something unbreakable. If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans anywhere on earth, we will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation, and we will kill you.
President Trump has also been very consistent. Crazy regimes like Iran, hellbent on prophetic Islamist delusions, cannot have nuclear weapons. It’s common sense. Many have said it, but it takes guts to actually enforce it. And our president has guts. Iran’s stubborn and self-evident nuclear pursuits, their targeting of global shipping lanes and their swelling arsenal of ballistic missiles and killer drones, are no longer tolerable risks.
Iran was building powerful missiles and drones to create a conventional shield for their nuclear blackmail ambitions. Let me say that again: A conventional shield for their nuclear blackmail ambitions. Our bases, our people, our allies, all in their crosshairs. Iran had a conventional gun to our head as they tried to lie their way to a nuclear bomb.
It almost worked under Obama and his terrible deal. But not under this president. Turns out the regime who chanted ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel’ was gifted death from America and death from Israel. This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change. And the world is better off for it.
[Emphasis added.]
The terrible irony is that there was a process under way to solve some of these problems. Yes, to neutralize the threat of Iran developing nuclear weapons, to short-circuit the possibility of Iran attacking the United States with nuclear weapons.
The foreign minister of Oman, Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, was in fact serving as mediator in negotiations between the United States and Iran. And, as he stated just hours before Israel and the United States began the air war against Iran, he believed a working solution was within reach:
CBS News, Feb. 27, 2026. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added. Here is some of what Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi had to say:
MARGARET BRENNAN: So President Trump said Friday he’s not happy with the way talks are going, and not happy that they’re “not willing to give us what we have to have.” From your point of view, is diplomacy failing?
MINISTER ALBUSAIDI: I am confident, and in my assessment of the way the talks are going, I think there is, really I can see that the peace deal is within our reach.
MARGARET BRENNAN: A peace deal?
MINISTER ALBUSAIDI: Yes, is within our reach, if we just allow diplomacy the space it needs to get there. Because I don’t think any alternative to diplomacy is going to solve this problem.
MARGARET BRENNAN: When you say space, does that mean you are asking for more time to continue negotiations?
MINISTER ALBUSAIDI: I’m asking to continue this process because we have already achieved quite a substantial progress in the direction of a deal. And the heart of this deal is very important, and I think we have captured that heart.
MARGARET BRENNAN: When you say the heart of the deal, Iran has said this has to be nuclear only. What have you actually agreed upon? Can you give us any sense of why there should be more time?
MINISTER ALBUSAIDI: Because if the ultimate objective is to ensure forever that Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, I think we have cracked that problem through these negotiations by agreeing a very important breakthrough that has never been achieved any time before. And I think if we can capture that and build on it, I think a deal is within our reach.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What has Iran agreed to, to you, that they have never done before? Can you give us any sense?
MINISTER ALBUSAIDI: The single most important achievement, I believe, is the agreement that Iran will never, ever have a nuclear material that will create a bomb. This is, I think, a big achievement. This is something that is not in the old deal that was negotiated during President Obama’s time. This is something completely new. It really makes the enrichment argument less relevant, because now we are talking about zero stockpiling. And that is very, very important, because if you cannot stockpile material that is enriched then there is no way you can actually create a bomb, whether you enrich or don’t enrich. And I think this is really something that has been missed a lot by the media, and I want to clarify that from the standpoint of a mediator.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So explain that. So the enriched material, things that could be used as nuclear fuel for a bomb, you’re saying Iran would not keep on their own soil?
MINISTER ALBUSAIDI: They would give it up.
MARGARET BRENNAN: They would give it up?
MINISTER ALBUSAIDI: They will not be able to actually accumulate that material that will enable them to create a bomb–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –Where would that–
BADR ALBUSAIDI: There is no accumulation, so there would be zero accumulation, zero stockpiling, and full verification. That is also equally important achievement, I think. Full and comprehensive verification by the IAEA, which is the agency in charge of this, this file.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The UN nuclear watchdog. So you’re saying all enriched material would be shipped someplace else, not Russia but–
MINISTER ALBUSAIDI: No, no, the current stockpiles that are- still exist–
MARGARET BRENNAN: The things that are still in Iran–
MINISTER ALBUSAIDI: I think that there is agreement now that this will be down blended to the lowest level possible, to a neutral level, a natural level, which means- and converted into fuel, and that fuel will be irreversible.
[Emphasis added.]
For all its flaws, the Constitution—brought to life by white and wealthy men who supported slavery and eagerly denied those slaves, native Americans, and women the vote—was a critical advance in human history, expanding our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And history has taught us that we must stand vigilant when power-hungry executives try to act like kings.
To this day, to our unending shame, we still don’t properly care for those we sent to fight our previous wars. Today, many vets are homeless, kill themselves in great numbers, and often receive inadequate healthcare in underfunded, under-staffed VA hospitals.
We are going to be inundated by the words of war, told incessantly of victories in the skies over Iran, of buildings leveled, of ships sunk. Those who question what is happening and why it’s happening we will at best be criticized—how many times will we hear misinformation and disinformation and fake news—and at worst reviled.
Minister Albusaidi responded immediately as peace negotiations were replaced by war:
Badr Albusaidi’s Feb. 28, 2026, post on X. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added. Unfortunately, it seems that no one in the administration is ready to heed the lessons of the past. And the last thing JD Vance wants is to be reminded about what he recently wrote for The Wall Street Journal:
JD Vance, The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 31, 2023. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added. Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq have shown us that the reality of war is a million times worse than the war hawks would have us believe. Already Donald Trump has contemplated the worst:
The Washington Post, March 2, 2026. Used under Fair Use provisions of U.S. Copyright Law. Highlighting added. It is pretty obvious, based on everything they have done thus far, that Donald Trump and his appointees don’t give a fig about the Constitution. And, if you have watched what they have done with the Veteran’s Administration, the Department of Education, FEMA, the EPA, and the CDC, they clearly don’t care about competence. From my point of view, we have been treated to a master class in mediocrity.
If this were any other Congress, I would say it is time to invoke Congress’ enumerated powers. To fight for Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution: “War Powers: To declare War, grant Letters of Marqu and Reprisal, and Make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.” Sadly, they lack courage. And I imagine they will fall in line. It is war once more.
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Mar 8