March 1, 2026
Mar. 2nd, 2026 07:30 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
heathercoxrichardson_feedThis morning, U.S. Central Command posted on social media that three service members have been killed in action in Operation Epic Fury and five more are seriously wounded. It continued: “Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions—and are in the process of being returned to duty. Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing.”
Democratic leaders reacted to the news with comments like this one by Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA): “My thoughts are with the families of these servicemembers, and their loved ones. And I continue to pray for the safety of every servicemember and the recovery of those wounded in these operations. May God protect our troops.” Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz—the same man who invited Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to the Signal chat about striking Yemen—suggested the soldiers’ sacrifice for the country was worthwhile, writing: “Freedom is never free.”
In a phone call with Peter Nicholas and Alexandra Marquez of NBC News, Trump said: “We expect casualties with something like this.” He added: “We have three, but we expect casualties, but in the end it’s going to be a great deal for the world.”
Later today, Trump told the American people: “As one nation we grieve for the true American patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation. Even as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives, we pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen. And sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is. Likely be more. But we’ll do everything possible where that won’t be the case. But America will avenge their deaths and deliver the most punishing blow to the terrorists who have waged war against, basically, civilization. They have waged war against civilization itself.”
Trump was hosting a fund raiser at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, as the U.S. offensive began. The New York Times reported last November that tickets for the dinner dance were $1 million apiece. The optics of Trump partying with his rich cronies while American soldiers died is at least partly what is behind the fact that today, “#SendBarron” trended on social media.
Strikes continued today in the Middle East as Israel and the U.S. hit Iran and Iran retaliated against Israel and U.S. bases in the region. Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon joined the fight by sending missiles into Israel. Israel responded with an attack on the suburbs of Beirut. Oil prices jumped sharply as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz at the outlet of the Persian Gulf, through which about 20% of the world’s oil passes, dropped almost to a halt.
After yesterday’s euphoria coming from the administration following the first strikes against Iran, today revealed that the administration had not given much thought to whether the strikes were legitimate or what would happen after them. Administration officials did not appear on the Sunday talk shows, relying instead on congressional surrogates. Brian Stelter and Kit Maher reported that journalists have been working around the White House press office, calling Trump directly, and he has been willing to talk.
Trump told NBC News reporters Nicholas and Marquez that he launched the strikes because “They weren’t willing to stop their nuclear research. They weren’t willing to say they will not have a nuclear weapon.” When asked if he would stop the strikes and negotiate, he said: “I don’t know,” but said he would consider it “if they can satisfy us,” adding that “they haven’t been able to.”
Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen, and Jennifer Hansler of CNN reported this evening that briefers from the Pentagon today told congressional staff that Iran had not been planning to attack U.S. forces or bases in the Middle East unless Israel attacked first. Trump administration officials said on Saturday that Iran was planning to strike the U.S. preemptively and thus posed an imminent threat. The briefers said there was no intelligence to support that claim.
Trump seems unclear about the end game of the conflict he has started.
When NBC News reporters Nicholas and Marquez asked him what he hoped to accomplish through the military operation, he said: “There are many outcomes that are good. Number one is decapitating them, getting rid of their whole group of killers and thugs. And there are many, many outcomes. We could do the short version or the longer version.”
He told Michael Scherer of The Atlantic that Iran’s new leadership wants to talk with him and that he will do so, suggesting that he was not, in fact, interested in regime change. “They should have done it sooner, Michael. They could have made a deal. They should’ve done it sooner. They played too cute,” Trump said. But then Trump told Scherer he had confidence that the Iranian people would launch an uprising against the Iranian government.
Kristen Welker of Meet the Press this morning quoted Trump’s statement of yesterday saying “Hopefully, [Iranian troops] and Police will peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves.”
Then Welker asked her guest, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), “Is ‘hope’ the plan for the future of Iran?” Graham said: “No, the future of Iran is going to be determined by the Iranian people. The new Iran, whatever it is…our goal is to make sure it cannot become again the largest state sponsor of terrorism.” Welker responded: “But is there a plan to make sure that happens…does the president have a plan to guarantee that that happens?” Graham responded with some heat: “No. It’s not his job or my job to do this.”
Apparently, U.S. officials simply hoped the Iranian people would seize the government if their leaders were killed in airstrikes. But there was a line of succession, and the country’s police state remains in place. Erin Banco of Reuters reported yesterday that before the attacks, analysts for the Central Intelligence Agency assessed that if Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were killed, younger hard-line men could replace him.
Trump told Zolan Kanno-Youngs, David E. Sanger, and Tyler Pager of the New York Times that he intends to keep bombing Iran for “four to five weeks” if necessary. He spoke repeatedly of an outcome like that of Venezuela, in which the U.S. removed the top leader but left the rest of the government intact. Trump told the reporters he hoped Iran’s military forces would turn over their weapons to the Iranian people. “They would really surrender to the people, if you think about it,” he said.
The New York Times reporters note that the security forces he says should surrender to the people were the ones that killed thousands of protesters in January. Trump refused to say that the administration would defend the Iranian people if they did rise up.
ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl spoke to Trump tonight and posted: “Pres Trump told me tonight the US had identified possible candidates to take over Iran, but they were killed in the initial attack. ‘The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,’ Trump told me. ‘It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.’”
In the midst of today’s military operation and all his calls with reporters, Trump took to social media to repost more than 40 social media posts with over-the-top praise for his State of the Union address. The posts appeared to be curated, suggesting that someone is feeding him praise.
National security scholar Tom Nichols posted on social media: “People predicting disaster: The odds are in your favor, but you cannot be sure, and you should not hope to be right. People celebrating: Maybe wanna wait a bit. The odds, historically, are definitely not on your side. Anyone certain they know what happens next is making it up.”
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Notes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/us/politics/trump-super-pac-fundraisers.html
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/global-markets-global-markets-2026-03-01/
https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/03/trump-iran-attack-negotiations/686201/
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/03/01/iran-uprising-trump-khamenei-regime-change-00806179
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/01/media/trump-iran-media-sunday-shows-white-house
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/01/us/politics/trump-iran-war-interview.html
X:
ZcohenCNN/status/2028271724991545502
saraecook/status/2027887506646065252
jonkarl/status/2028299468223676673
Bluesky:
schiff.senate.gov/post/3mfzbsnaz2s2d
meidastouch.com/post/3mfzb24wsic2v
atrupar.com/post/3mfzootkwyk2t
meidastouch.com/post/3mfz4hmk2ks2a
thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3mfzr2iug7s2b
dmsilverman.bsky.social/post/3mfxazkbzkc2u
phillipspobrien.bsky.social/post/3mfzj62rdjc2d
ronfilipkowski.bsky.social/post/3mfzf25kkz22g
onestpress.onestnetwork.com/post/3mfzmgbngkk2s
maxkennerly.bsky.social/post/3mfzefkggrc2e
gtconway.bsky.social/post/3mfyvvhxbys24
debbienorthway.bsky.social/post/3mfzxek4qy22m
How to Help a Friend Re-Evaluate Their Choices
Mar. 2nd, 2026 08:00 ambasicinstructions_feed
As always, thanks for considering joining my Patreon, where you can get early access to comics and exclusive commentaries; and for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada). As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
askamanager_feedIt’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Is it OK to compliment coworkers’ nails or haircuts?
I believe that comments on people’s bodies are totally inappropriate at work, and in life in general. But if someone has changed their hair or has some cute nails (I myself do not do these cute things but notice them), is commenting on them in the same category as body stuff? Technically it is part of their body, but it doesn’t seem as bad to be “oh the magenta highlights are cool” or whatever. Should I stop commenting on haircuts and nail design?
One school of thought is that it’s fine to comment on things that are obviously a deliberate choice — like a shirt or a haircut or nail design — but not things that are an inherent part of the person’s appearance, like their weight or their eyes. It’s not a bad rule, although in reality someone creepy can make comments on nail color sound creepy too.
I think a better litmus test can be whether you’d say it to a gender you weren’t attracted to — so like if you’re a straight man thinking about complimenting a female coworker’s haircut, are you going to say it in the exact same way you’d say it to a man with a new haircut? If so, it’s likely fine. If not, you should skip it.
2. Should I tell interviewers I’m leaving my job because of its overly rigid culture?
I am currently at a desk job that’s mostly fine, but very rigid. There’s absolutely no work from home under any circumstances, no deviation from hours allowed even when it doesn’t affect job performance or coworkers’ workload, and not a lot of sick or PTO time to make up for it. It’s very “this is the way things have always been done and we are never going to change.” But I know that other companies tend to allow people in my position to have flexibility and some work from home. In my understanding, this rigidity is abnormal in the Year of our Lord 2026.
If I were to look for another job, how do I explain why I’m looking to switch without sounding like an entitled millennial brat? If they ask why I’m looking for a new job, is it okay to say the rigid corporate culture and I don’t vibe, or that I’m looking for more flexibility? Will it sound like I’m looking to shirk responsibilities at a new job?
When I took this job, I was in dire straits to get out of a toxic nonprofit. I’ve been here over three years already, toughing out five days a week in office while my peers in other companies get at least three days in, two days WFH. I know I could keep going, the pay is good, the work is easy, the people are generally nice, but the boomer work mentality is insane and unfair.
There are still a lot of companies that operate the way yours does. If it’s not for you, there’s nothing wrong with disliking it, but they’re not necessarily as out of step with other companies as you’re painting them as! They might be — if the PTO is really low, that would sway me — but the rest of it isn’t especially outrageous and you’ll find it in a lot of places. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t change jobs over it — you definitely can! — but it’s helpful to calibrate your sense of how abnormal it is so that you make sure to confirm the next place will be different. (Although even that isn’t foolproof — lots of people who had work-from-home jobs are being told to return to the office five days a week.)
As for interviewing: in general your answer about why you’re applying to a new job should focus on the appeal of the new job to you, far more than what you don’t like about the old job. In your case, you’ve been there for three years; it’s beyond reasonable to just be looking to take on something new, and then you can talk in specifics about what appeals to you about the job you’re applying for. You should still use the interview process to dig into what their culture is like and how much flexibility they have, but it shouldn’t be the focus of this particular question.
Related:
do I need to give interviewers a great reason for why I’m looking to leave my current job?
can you say you’re looking for a new job because you want “a new challenge”?
3. My job won’t implement any of my ideas, but won’t give me a clear no
I’ve been teaching in this school for several years now, and I have a problem. Every time I ask to do something fairly typical for a school, I hear, “That’s a great idea,” only to be told a week later that it’s not feasible this year. Again, these are typical things in schools: for example, adding a new class (one that is technically required by the state, no less) that I am the only person at the school qualified to teach, starting a club with several students expressing interest, or taking on a class that I have taught before here.
I know partly why I am in this position. My sister died four years ago, and for the entire year after that, I was an atrocious teacher. I probably should have been fired, but there was a massive teacher shortage at the time. And then the year after that, I did better, but I was also pregnant for most of the year. I’m doing great now by most measures, and they keep adding things to my plate … but never the things I ask for. I ask at the very beginning of the year and get told, “I’ll get you the paperwork.” I send out reminders, and it never comes. Then, once they’ve put me off, I get told, “Not this year. Try next year.”
I’m guessing they mean no, even though they’re saying to try later, but I honestly wish they would either just tell me no and give me any kind of reason why, or tell me how I can change things.
Can you change schools? Fairly or not, sometimes it’s just very hard to get people to see you differently after they’ve fallen into seeing you a certain way. And even if you’re wrong about what’s going on, it seems clear that — for whatever reason — this is just how it’s going to go at this school. It might be very different if you can make a fresh start somewhere else.
4. My boss keeps asking about progress on a personal project I’m not doing
I’m a new grad a few semesters out of college and landed a full-time role in my dream industry with a probationary period. It is a very small company and I report directly to the founder. Two weeks in, she told me she was not satisfied with my work, heavily implying I would be let go after the probationary period (at the end of May).
She then suggested I make a specific project that would aid in my job hunting, framing it as trying to help me join a company I was truly passionate about. I nodded along with no real intent to go through with the project, thinking that would be the end of it.
Since then, she’s asked me every single week how said project is going. I’ve dodged it for the most part, saying I’ve been brainstorming and planning, but not sure how long I can keep it up. I have no intention of making this project as I’m working on other projects for said upcoming job hunt, but my boss is insisting that this will be the key to my dream job and is very dismissive if I suggest otherwise, I simply nod along because I am a fresh grad and she is in the industry.
I’m also very non-confrontational and I need to keep this contract until it ends to support myself; I’m not sure how to deal with this weekly nag about a project when it is my fault for even letting it go on for a few weeks. Proper HR does not exist at this company.
Can you just tell her that you’ve spent some time playing around with it but you’ve decided not to pursue it for now because of ___? What you fill in the blank with will depend on the specifics, but it could be anything from time commitments outside of work to deciding you’d rather focus on some other aspect of the work. You could add that you really appreciate her making the suggestion.
If you think that will just cause more issues, you could go with something vague like, “Yes, still sketching out ideas” or “still at the thinking and exploring stage” or similar … but you’re probably better off just more clearly telling her it’s not something you’re pursuing.
5. Applying for multiple jobs at the same company with only slightly different cover letters
I was laid off recently, and one employer I’m focusing on applying to is a very large healthcare organization. Its application tracking system has you upload only one resume (per candidate profile) and only answer most of the applicant questions once, but then has a section at the end to upload up to 10 different cover letters (you’re supposed to put the job ID number in the cover letter document title when you upload). When I look at my candidate profile, I see my resume at the top and then multiple cover letters beneath. (I’m applying for a lot of very similar administrative openings, so it’s not like I’m just scattershot applying for random things. But I do really want to work for them.)
From the HR/hiring manager’s side, how much does it matter if there’s some repeated phrasing in multiple of the cover letters? I do write a new cover letter for each one, and try to keep it warm and pertinent, but I do have some sentences I reuse in the opening/conclusion of each letter — otherwise it would take forever to apply for these very similar roles, if I’ve already used up the points I’m making about myself. Will HR care/compare them, or is it not worth worrying about?
You’re fine. Ideally the letters shouldn’t all be identical, but they’re not; you’ve switched up some of your phrasing to make them each a bit different. They’re unlikely to bother comparing them, but even if they did, you’re fine.
The post is it OK to compliment coworkers’ nails or haircuts, saying I’m leaving my job due to its rigid culture, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.
Toy Battle, Civolution, Zenith, and Mooki Island Win France’s As d’Or Awards
Mar. 2nd, 2026 01:52 amopinionatedgamers_feedThe winners of the As d’Or–France’s Game of the Year awards–were announced last week. Taking the main award is Toy Battle, a 2-player affair in which tiles representing toys do battle on a small territorial map. It was designed by … Continue reading
jwz_org_feed
The articles, produced in collaboration with the investigative collective WAV, detailed a years-long, multi-ministry charm offensive by Palantir to sell its software to Swiss federal authorities. The campaign was, by all accounts, a comprehensive failure. Swiss agencies rejected Palantir at least nine times, with concerns ranging from data sovereignty to reputational risk to the simple fact that nobody needed the product. [...]
So how does a sophisticated data intelligence company respond to well-sourced investigative journalism based on official government documents?
By suing the journalists, of course.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
“A day some have predicted and many have feared”
Mar. 1st, 2026 08:30 pmunsung_feedAs a former ISP employee I occasionally like dipping my toes into some networking stuff, and this 25-minute video from The Serial Port is a good retelling of the day in 2014 when one of internet’s important routing tables crossed a threshold of 512K, which caused all sorts of trouble:
What I appreciate about The Serial Port is that they always seem to actually test the vintage hardware or rebuild the old software they’re commenting on, and this time was no exception: they grabbed a classic unsung hero of ISPs, a Cisco Catalyst 6500-series router, and then recreated “The 512K Day” in their studio.
This was a nice comment under the video:
Have absolutely no knowledge about networking, but watched this video as if a thriller movie. Thanks for opening my world of tech to networking.
Yeah, the video is kind of nerdy and intense, but maybe you’ll enjoy it; even a classic aging piece of hardware with an arbitrary ticking-bomb limit deserves some respect.
Also, the funniest comment:
I had a 2.4k day a couple days ago when I realized Farm Sim 22 only allows a max of 2400 bales. Couldn’t load into my saved game. Had to go into items.xml and temp remove a hundred bales.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Friend
Mar. 1st, 2026 11:20 amsmbc_comics_feed
Click here to go see the bonus panel!
Hovertext:
Clearly R2D2 is the real catch, so going for 3PO proves you're loyal to the cause.
Today's News:
Sentry
Mar. 1st, 2026 03:44 pmdaringfireball_feedMy thanks to Sentry for sponsoring last week at DF. Sentry is running a hands-on workshop: “Crash Reporting, Tracing, and Logs for iOS in Sentry”. You can watch it on demand. You’ll learn how to connect the dots between slowdowns, crashes, and the user experience in your iOS app. It’ll show you how to:
- Set up Sentry to surface high-priority mobile issues without alert fatigue.
- Use Logs and Breadcrumbs to reconstruct what happened with a crash.
- Find what’s behind a performance bottleneck using Tracing.
- Monitor and reduce the size of your iOS app using Size Analysis.
I know so many developers using Sentry. It’s a terrific product. If you’re a developer and haven’t checked them out, you should.
The Talk Show: ‘Bad Dates’
Mar. 1st, 2026 03:43 pmdaringfireball_feedJason Snell returns to the show to discuss the 2025 Six Colors Apple Report Card, MacOS 26 Tahoe, Apple Creator Studio, along with what we expect/hope for in next week’s Apple product announcements.
Sponsored by:
- Notion: The AI workspace where teams and AI agents get more done together.
- Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code talkshow.
- Sentry: A real-time error monitoring and tracing platform. Use code TALKSHOW for $80 in free credits.
Alison Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2026 (Part 10)
Mar. 1st, 2026 11:14 amopinionatedgamers_feed New-to-me games played recently include … 6 NIMMT! BARON OXX (2025): Rank 6848, Rating 7.1 – Kiesling / Kramer The latest 6 Nimmt variant, where the number now only determines play order and you can play in any … Continue reading
Episode 2746: The Park Fire Will Not Avail You
Mar. 1st, 2026 09:15 amdarths_and_droids_feed
Random tables of things are great for adding some interest and a touch of chaos into games. Historically, they started small, but in recent years the d100 table has evolved. You make a list of 100 different possible things and roll percentile dice to choose one of them. How do you come up with a hundred different things? You get creative! Or you solicit help, from a place like the subreddit r/d100.
d100 tables can be used for all sorts of things.
- Trinkets you might find in someone's pockets: Knucklebones. A corn cob pipe. A lucky coin worn smooth.
- Things at a village fair: Jugglers. A stall selling animal pelts. A pickpocket.
- Events in the wider world: The king has died. Dragons have razed a city. An earthquake.
- Magical effects on doors: A mouth opens and tries to bite anyone touching the door. The door is invisible, so people might walk right into it. Three knocks activates a fireball trap.
- Where does that hole go: A pool of acid. A leprechaun's pot of gold. To another world.
- Mysterious sounds: A whoosh of wind that extinguishes torches but is not felt. Rattling of chains around the corner. A thump, then a tinkle of broken glass.
aurilee writes:
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
Hah. That is definitely the worst of the worst for parking spots. Seriously, has anyone checked if some of the writers were Darths & Droids fans? This is an amazing recurring problem over the three sequel Episodes, and I can't think of any other running gags that have been there for the other blocks of three. Okay, some of the parking spots weren't actually problems in the movie, but I still really like just how well this one little character flaw fits with so many things.
Comic set-up aside, is this an intentional fire? Star Wars spaceships tend to be made of explodium unless there's a main character inside. They're still mostly metals though if I remember right, so there shouldn't be that much to burn. Rey doesn't look that badly hurt here, so it wasn't a bad crash if it was an accident. Unless that Force Healing thing also works on herself. Hmmm. Maybe it was an accident, but Rey thought "screw it, that was Kylo's ship anyway" and let the fire get this bad? Though she still found a hood somewhere, so perhaps there's been a largish time skip since Phanastacoria. Or perhaps she got the hood from the fish people here and when she got back to the ship, it was burning up like this? Hard to tell at this point.
Transcript
February 28, 2026
Mar. 1st, 2026 08:32 amheathercoxrichardson_feedEarly this morning, the U.S. and Israel launched a major military assault on Iran. Early reports suggested that Israel targeted senior officials in Iran’s government while the U.S. attacked military targets. The U.S. government named the assault “Operation Epic Fury.” Iran state media reported the strikes killed at least 200 people, including 118 students from a girls’ school, and wounded more than 700.
Iran retaliated with strikes against Israel, where one person was killed and 121 others injured, and with strikes on U.S. bases in Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. U.S. Central Command said there are no U.S. casualties and there has been little damage to U.S. facilities.
Shortly after the strikes, President Donald J. Trump, who was in Florida at Mar-a-Lago, posted an 8-minute video on social media announcing “major combat operations in Iran.” He warned: “The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war. But we’re doing this not for now. We’re doing this for the future. And it is a noble mission.”
Trump referred to that mission vaguely, rehearsing a litany of complaints over the tensions and sometimes combat between the U.S. and Iran since 1979, but indicated the U.S. and Israel were attacking to prevent the country’s murderous regime from becoming “a nuclear-armed Iran.”
In June 2025, the Trump administration struck Iran’s nuclear laboratories at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, after which Trump insisted the U.S. had “completely obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities. In his message, Trump said the U.S. in negotiations afterward warned Iran “never to resume their malicious pursuit of nuclear weapons, and we sought repeatedly to make a deal. We tried. They wanted to do it. They didn’t want to do it. Again they wanted to do it. They didn’t want to do it. They didn’t know what was happening. They just wanted to practice evil. But Iran refused, just as it has for decades and decades.”
Trump did not mention the landmark 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated by Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, that limited Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Trump withdrew the U.S. from that accord in 2018, and within a year, Iran was ignoring the limits the JCPOA imposed.
But, hours after his team posted his video, Trump told Natalie Allison and Tara Copp of the Washington Post that his real goal is regime change for Iran. “All I want is freedom for the people,” he told the reporters in a phone call shortly after 4 A.M. Eastern Time. In his video address, Trump told Iran’s armed forces and police they “must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity. Or in the alternative, face certain death.” He told the Iranian people that “the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
Michael Birnbaum, John Hudson, Karen DeYoung, Natalie Allison, and Souad Mekhennet reported this evening in the Washington Post that U.S. intelligence officers assessed that a threat from Iran was not “imminent,” saying it was unlikely that Iran would pose a threat to the U.S. mainland for at least ten years. The International Atomic Energy Agency says there is no evidence Iran has an active plan for creating nuclear weapons, and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessed that if Iran tries to build an intercontinental ballistic missile, it will take them at least a decade.
This afternoon, Trump posted on social media that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a cleric who has ruled Iran as supreme leader since 1989, was killed in the strikes, a fact later confirmed by Iran. After celebrating Khamenei’s death, Trump posted: “This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country.” He claimed without offering evidence that many of Iran’s soldiers and police “no longer want to fight, and are looking for Immunity from us,” and expressed hope that those forces “will peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves.”
Notably, he did not suggest how one would get “immunity,” or from whom, or what the process of taking back the country would look like just months after the regime killed tens of thousands of protesters. He also appears unconcerned that the coordinated response to the attack from Iran’s leadership even after the death of Khamenei suggests regime change will not be a question of knocking out the leader.
In his triumphant post, Trump concluded with an Orwellian “war is peace” statement, writing that the process of rebuilding should start soon because in just a day the bombing had “very much destroyed and, even, obliterated” so much of the country. “The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”
Trump’s objectives for going to war sound vague because they are. The event that triggered his attack is also vague—so far, there is no evidence of an imminent threat that required the attack. His prescription for what his war is trying to accomplish is also vague.
It’s a given that this sort of vaguely justified attack on another country usually reflects that the leaders in the attacking country are worried about losing power and are launching a war to try to get disaffected people to rally around the flag.
Indeed, social media users are already referring to the attack as “Operation Epstein Fury,” suggesting it is an attempt to distract from the frequent appearance of the president’s name in the Epstein files as well as the recent story that the Department of Justice illegally withheld an allegation that Trump raped a thirteen-year-old.
Before his State of the Union address, Trump’s approval rating had fallen to an abysmal 37%, while 59% of Americans disapproved. His speech did little to convince Americans that he is trying to address their concerns about the economy: G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers reported that after the speech, only 30% of Americans think Trump is focused on the things that matter to them, while 57% think he is focused on other things.
The January inflation report, out yesterday, showed prices rising faster than expected, inspiring Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to suggest Americans should buy cheaper food. “Most of the cheap cuts of meat are very inexpensive,” he said. “You can buy liver or the cheaper cuts of steak.”
Scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder noted in Thinking About… that Trump’s personal corruption is another interpretive framework for thinking about his decision to go to war. Trump’s sudden foray into regime change after years of attacking other presidents who tried it raises the question of whether he is acting for other countries in the Middle East he considers his allies.
“Given the stupefyingly overt corruption of the Trump administration,” Snyder wrote, “one must ask whether the United States armed forces are now being used on a per-hire basis.” Snyder noted that Gulf Arab states eager to curb Iran’s power “have generated extremely generous packages of compensation for companies associated with Trump personally and with members of his family.”
Last week, Hugo Lowell of The Guardian reported that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, both of whom have deep financial ties to the Middle East, would guide the decision of whether to strike Iran. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been lobbying for U.S. strikes on Iran for a long time, and hours after Snyder wrote, Washington Post journalists Birnbaum, Hudson, DeYoung, Allison, and Mekhennet reported that Trump decided to attack Iran after Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman made “multiple private phone calls to Trump over the past month advocating a U.S. attack” while at the same time publicly calling for a diplomatic solution.
At Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall pointed out that as his power diminishes, Trump “is leaning heavily into the presidential prerogative powers where his power is most untrammeled, where the loss of political power doesn’t really matter. Almost no presidential power is more clearly in that character [than] the president’s control over the military.”
And that is the crux of the matter. For all the vagueness of Trump’s justifications and goals in attacking Iran, he has launched a war—his word—on his own, assuming the powers of a dictator.
The Constitution gives to Congress, not to the president, the power to declare war. After fighting for their independence against a king they considered a tyrant, the men of the constitutional convention were not about to hand the power of raising an army to a single man. One delegate commented that he “never expected to hear in a republic a motion to empower the Executive alone to declare war.”
Trump’s attack on Iran also violates the charter of the United Nations, under which members promise not to attack other states. This particular attack raises the specter of a larger war. In an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council today, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “[e]verything must be done to prevent a further escalation” in the Middle East.
Trump launched his attack while lawmakers were not scheduled to be in Washington, D.C., for a week, but Democrats are demanding Congress return immediately to vote on whether to continue military action against Iran. Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) said in an interview: “This is one of the most dangerous efforts that Trump is undertaking in the second term: trying to normalize war without Congress, trying to normalize the idea that a president can just do whatever they want when it comes to foreign policy.” Huge though this is, there is a larger issue behind it: Since taking office again, Trump has gone out of his way to define tariffs, deportations, and so on as part of national security policy.
The president is supposed to get Congress’s buy-in to go to war in part because that requirement forces an executive to convince the American people that a contemplated military action is worth their tax dollars and their lives. But Trump made little effort to explain his Iran attack to the American people, and they oppose it. Morris notes that support for attacking Iran has held fairly steady for months and remained so after the strikes, with 34% in favor of them and 44% opposed. This is “incredibly low” support for a foreign war, Morris writes, and support for military action tends to be highest at the start of a war.
Trump’s attack on Iran scorns the will of the people and their constitutional right to decide whether they want to pay for a war with their money and their lives. That disdain for democratic government reveals that Trump’s military adventure against Iran is also fundamentally an attack on the United States of America.
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Notes:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/28/middleeast/israel-attack-iran-intl-hnk
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/read-trumps-full-statement-on-iran-attack
https://abcnews.com/US/months-after-operation-midnight-hammer-us-strikes-iran/story?id=130599531
https://www.cfr.org/articles/trumps-iran-attack-was-impressive-airpower-has-its-limits
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/what-iran-nuclear-deal
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/02/28/trump-iran-war-regime-change-freedom/
?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/28/trump-iran-decision-saudi-arabia-israel/
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/27/ppi-january-2026-.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/23/trump-iran-airstrikes-nuclear-deal
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/prerogative-powers-and-presidential-self-care
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#1-8
https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/news/war-powers-resolution-1973
Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911), p. 318, at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433031857729&seq=334&q1=%22make+war%22
https://press.un.org/en/sc_live
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/28/war-powers-congress-trump-iran/
Bluesky:
mistakotta.bsky.social/post/3mfxaa3dmr222
