The People Behind Trump’s Shameful War Of Choice

This essay appeared in the March 19, 2026 edition of UNFTR’s premium newsletter. Become a UNFTR member to receive our bonus newsletter each week and for other perks.

Trump’s incomprehensible, unexplainable and widening war of choice against Iran has emerged as the most glaringly stupid decision in modern times.

Iraq will always stand out as the most maddening, particularly because the American people were deceived by a lying George W. Bush administration and a gullibly war-hungry Fourth Estate.

That Trump is forcing us to decide if his offensive is dumber than Iraq, which was built on lies, is saying something. In W’s case, they at least took time to architect a justification and sell it to the masses—Team Trump committed no such effort, and instead figured (we can only surmise) that it’d build its case as the war goes on.

By any measure, the war has been a historic failure, underscored by the murder of more than 160 children inside an Iranian school on the first day of the war. Since then, hundreds more have been killed by the United States and Israel in Iran and Lebanon, the latter of which is starting to resemble the Gaza annihilation strategy.

The news is moving so fast that it’s difficult for us to document every misstep, war crime and false claim here weekly. Instead, we thought it just as beneficial to call out those complicit in this epic disaster. These names, we know, won’t come as a surprise, but it’s nonetheless critical that we continue to name the perpetrators of chaos and destruction. After all, it’s these people who are most responsible for the loss of innocent lives, the deaths of U.S. service members, the crumbling of the economy and the moral stain this will forever leave on the country.

Donald Trump

While it’s been established that an impending Israeli strike on Iran was the motivating factor for the United States going to war with Iran (thanks, Rubio), there does seem to be an effort by war detractors on the right to shift the blame away from the president’s feet—blaming both Israel and the sycophants inside Trump’s administration for leading him astray. The fact is Trump, as he’d tell you himself, has agency and doesn’t do anything if his heart isn’t completely in it. In this case, Trump is invested 100 percent in this war, even if it was ultimately Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who led us down this path (he’s openly called for this for four decades!).

At no point since this war started has Trump or anyone in his administration offered a logical justification for this fight (besides, accidentally, Rubio), the extent and escalatory nature of which has seemingly caught the administration flat-footed and grossly unprepared. As we and others have mentioned previously, it’s apparent that Trump thought he could “Venezuela” the Iranian regime, which was never realistic. And now that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has confirmed that the buck stops with Trump, as he’s now assumed the unofficial title of intelligence chief, everything that’s happened since the war started and all the tumult, slayings and crises that will follow all fall at his feet.

And while it’s hard not to find comedy in Trump’s foibles, the fact that he appears to be in a free-fall is particularly apparent after Israel’s strike on Iran’s South Pars gas field, which triggered a retaliatory bombing by Iran of the world’s largest LNG export plant in Qatar. In response, Trump claimed Israel was acting unilaterally despite already-published reports that the U.S. had full knowledge of Israel’s plans. Among those was this piece in Axios, which said: “The Israeli officials said the strike was coordinated with and approved by the Trump administration. A U.S. Defense official confirmed that.”

Pete Hegseth

Given Trump didn’t address the country at the outset of the war, which would’ve provided him an opportunity to go on the offensive and at least appear in control, he’s mostly been forced to react to various crises that have arisen since he and Netanyahu started this conflagration.

By comparison, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has seemingly relished overseeing a war the MAGA cult told us would never happen under Dear Leader. Scroll through the many clips of Hegseth at the podium and you’d be forgiven if you thought he was some C-list actor cast as a cartoon warmonger in a cringe big-screen adaptation of a beloved superhero comic. But no, this is who we have—someone who tongue-lashes the media for asking about U.S. service members killed in the war, refuses to acknowledge the obvious U.S. culpability in the strike that killed more than 160 girls in an Iranian school, engages in jingoistic rants about U.S. military prowess and wishes for the day that his preferred oligarch captures yet another media institution.

He also doesn’t appear to be on the same page as his boss, who contradicted him by telling reporters the war is “very complete,” one day after Hegseth told the state news agency, CBS, “This is only just the beginning.” Hegseth also opened the United States to future claims of committing war crimes when he told reporters, “We will keep pressing. We will keep pushing, keep advancing. No quarter, no mercy for our enemies.” Giving “no quarter,” as any war secretary would know, violates international law.

Marco Rubio

A few weeks ago, we wrote about Rubio’s imperialist speech at the Munich conference, which fired up European officials. Replete with references to a shared “civilization”—you know, the white kind—the speech was an unapologetic colonial call to arms, which concluded with a rousing standing ovation for Rubio, who serves as both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, making him one of the most consequential cabinet officials since Henry Kissinger. This is the same Rubio who was confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate, his former chamber, and who received a glowing endorsement from the supposed leader of the opposition party, Sen. Chuck Schumer, who said last year: “Senator Rubio is an example of a qualified nominee we think should be confirmed quickly.”

Rubio stands as the unchallenged heir apparent to the neocon throne. That he effectively cozied up to Trump and the rest of MAGA world suggests the ridiculing and waving away of that expansive ideology was always fake, especially in the context of Trump’s massive consolidation of power, a gift from Cheney. From Venezuela (his white whale) to Cuba and now Iran, Rubio seeks nothing more than U.S. hegemonic growth. “This war needed to happen,” Rubio told reporters, which appears to stem from the false premise architected by the White House that negotiations with Iran weren’t effective.

Rubio also accidentally told the truth, telling reporters: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.” Despite the direct admission from a Trump official, Israeli hyper-loyalists have labeled anyone making the claim that Israel dragged the U.S. into this war as “anti-semitic,” continuing the same strategy of delegitimizing critics who charged Israel was—and still is—committing a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Lindsey Graham

I mean, you all know and loathe him. What is there to say? The U.S. senator from South Carolina looks to be reborn amid the news of more people dying in the Middle East, U.S. service members being put in harm’s way be damned. And apparently he’ll do anything for Israel, such as meet with its intelligence agency, which tells him things “our own government won’t tell me” (I wonder why?). Graham is so committed to Israel that he actually “coached” Netanyahu on how to convince Trump to attack Iran—literally doing work for another country. Here’s a mashup of some of his other comments amid the war, which are increasingly bizarre:

“I will be with Israel to our dying day.”

“To our Arab friends, I’ve tried to help you construct a Middle East. I can’t go to South Carolina and say we’re fighting, and you won’t publicly fight. I go back to South Carolina, I’m asking them to send their sons and daughters over to the Middle East.”

“I’m willing to do a mutual defense agreement with your country—if you’re attacked by Iran, we would go to war for you.”

“God bless Israel—we should move all our stuff to Israel.”

Tulsi Gabbard

No one has lost more credibility on the issues of war, peace and civil liberties than Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of national intelligence. Gabbard, who previously was an opponent of war with Iran and condemned past presidents for prosecuting wars without congressional approval, plays (in theory) a critical role in America’s national security. Gabbard was reportedly sidelined by Trump last year amid his first strikes on Iran, which he claimed “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program. While she’s been virtually silent, in recent days she said Trump, as president, is the sole arbiter of what constitutes an “imminent threat”—her craven way of effectively acknowledging Iran posed no threat to the United States without saying so. One of Gabbard’s top lieutenants resigned this week, writing: “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

On Wednesday, Gabbard delivered the intelligence community’s Annual Threat Assessment before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. According to her written remarks, she confirmed that Iran wasn’t on a path toward acquiring nuclear weapons. “As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated,” her statement reads. “There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability. The entrances to the underground facilities that were bombed have been buried and shuttered with cement. We continue to monitor for any early indicators on what position the current or any new leadership in Iran will take with regard to authorizing a nuclear weapons program.” The Annual Threat Assessment itself holds no smoking gun about the threat Iran purportedly poses to the United States—a curious omission considering we just started a war with the country amid ever-shifting justifications.

And Finally…

Rubio said it. Kent said it. Netanyahu himself said it. We are at this war largely because of Netanyahu’s crusade over the last three-plus decades. He has spent his political career warning of Iran’s alleged imminent nuclear capabilities—claims that never came to be.

“This coalition of forces allows us to do what I have yearned to do for 40 years,” he said, prefacing his comments by referencing Trump himself. Netanyahu, the leader of Israel’s ultra-far-right government, has been a mainstay in U.S. politics and media, often using those occasions to warn about the apparent existential threat of Iran.

Here was Netanyahu in 1992: “Within three to five years, we can assume that Iran will become autonomous in its ability to develop and produce a nuclear bomb.” A decade later, he came to Congress and warned about the threat posed by Iraq and Iran. “There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking, is working, and is advancing toward the development of nuclear weapons. No question whatsoever.” Those WMD claims were a lie. And as Al Jazeera noted in its compilation of Netanyahu’s Iran-nuke claims, a WikiLeaks cable captured comments Netanyahu made to members of Congress about the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran. With the genocide in Gaza, backed by the United States, and the war in Iran, Netanyahu’s legacy is coming into full focus—as is our shame.

Image Source

• DHSgov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Changes were made.