Dead Patriots Society

In the best circumstances, the instigator of a war of choice would be reined in or removed from power by his own people. But given the dysfunction of Congress, it falls on Iran to first impose a high price for Trump’s war.

Awful as the Iranian regime may be, this war may have only delayed the day Iranians themselves insist on a change of regimes.

The whole premise of this war is mistaken. Iran was most likely not pursuing nuclear weapons because the leadership imagined that nuking Israel would be a glorious way to commit suicide. Iran sought nuclear weapons to deter the very thing that just happened

Nuclear powers, including the United States and Israel, do not attack countries with deliverable nuclear weapons. 

        But Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, and  Lindsey Graham want us to think otherwise. Indeed, most of the politicians in Washington talk like it would be a calamity if Iran got the bomb. Clear thinking does not get the votes moral clarity does.

         Rubio asserts: “That entire regime is led by radical clerics who don’t make geopolitical decisions; they make decisions on the basis of theology – their view of theology, which is an apocalyptic one.” (https://www.state.gov/…/secretary-of-state-marco-rubio…/)

        Most unlikely. All rhetoric aside, the very destructiveness of nuclear weapons impose a powerful logic on national leaders, which logic supersedes ideology. Such weapons best function to deter attack by others, and not by inviting massive retaliation in response to a first strike.

         Iran is doing what countries have always done. Preponderant power does not check itself, as we have just seen for the umpteenth time. When threatened by unbalanced power, other countries  balance against it. Rubio is probably right that Iran was producing great numbers of missiles and drones in order to have a shield so it could finish developing nuclear weapons. But the assumption that Iranian leaders are crazy enough to launch an unprovoked nuclear attack on Israel is, in all likelihood, mistaken.

         On March 17, Nate Swanson, Director for Iran at the National Security Council between 2022 and 2025, and who served on the Trump administration’s Iran negotiating team in 2025, wrote in “Foreign Affairs” that in order for this war to end, the United States will need to guarantee that Israel (and we, presumably) will stop attacking Iran.

         In his article titled, “How America’s War on Iran Backfired” (subtitled: Iran Will Now Set the Terms for Peace), Swanson doesn’t even mention the prospect of leaving Iran in full possession of its enriched uranium. Why? Well, Swanson probably assumes that Iran would not launch an unprovoked nuclear attack against any well-endowed nuclear power. (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-americas-war-iran-backfired).

          Every day this war goes on, both the direct costs and the opportunity costs (i.e., how the money could be better spent) grow. We patriots need to show Trump who is boss.