Iran War 2026

More complex and nuanced than we understand

Image by ThePixelman from Pixabay

I have spent the last three days with my parents. My mom has dementia, and she has taken a severe turn for the worse. She can no longer speak, she doesn’t understand anything but very basic phrases, and her blood pressure was so high on Friday, she lost consciousness.

It is against this background that I watched the news feeds on my phone explode with the news that the United States and Israel attacked Iran and took out some of its nastiest leaders - those involved in horrifying human rights violations, those actively involved in funding and supporting terrorist proxy groups such as HAMAS, Hizballah, the Huthis, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and those plotting assassinations abroad.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, is dead.

The head of the Iranian National Defense Council, Ali Shamkhani, Defense Minister Aziz Naziradeh, the Chief of Staff of Iran’s armed forces, Sayyid Abdolrahim Mousavi, and other military leaders have been eliminated as well.

I’m not shedding tears for these scumbags, especially after they murdered thousands of Iranians protesting their regime and kidnapped and arrested their own people, and even children!

Evidence examined by Human Rights Watch shows that senior officials, Iran’s security and intelligence agencies including the police, known as FARAJA, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) and its intelligence organization, the Ministry of Intelligence, and prosecutorial and judicial officials have orchestrated a coordinated, brutal mass clampdown to quash further dissent and conceal their atrocities. In addition to mass arrests, they have held detainees in incommunicado detention including in unofficial facilities, broadcast hundreds of coerced “confessions,” including by children, and carried out large-scale enforced disappearances while imposing severe restrictions resembling martial law in many cities.

Let’s not pretend these are good people.

As I wrote on my husband’s social media page this morning, Iran has been calling for death to America for decades.

They fund terrorist groups worldwide.

Their aggression causes volatility in the energy markets, since they threaten some of the world’s most critical pathways for energy delivery, and their terrorist pals target the global oil supply.

In the human rights sphere, they’re some of the most egregious savages, save for their buddy Russia.

Iran has been attacking our allies, including Israel, plotting operations abroad, AND Trump is right in that along with Russia and China, Iran HAS been working to mess around in our elections. The fact that he’s taken no action against Russia on this doesn’t mean that it’s not happening.

• The United States in December 2024 sanctioned a subordinate organization of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and a Moscow-based affiliate organization of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) and its director pursuant to Executive Order (EO) 13848, the US election interference authority. This wasn’t under Trump. This was under Biden.

• Iran absolutely has a history of election interference in the United States. NBC documented much of it, including a significant hack in which three Iranian men apparently stole and leaked files from President Trump’s 2024 campaign, the largest “hack and leak” election influence operation since Russia’s breach of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Democratic organizations in 2016.

• In February 2024, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a threat assessment stating: “Beijing is expanding its global covert influence posture to better support the CCP’s goals. The PRC aims to sow doubts about U.S. leadership, undermine democracy, and extend Beijing’s influence.” This campaign, known as “spamouflage,” caused Facebook to remove thousands of fake accounts operating in China.

But my joy at finally seeing Iran held accountable is tempered.

No, these aren’t nice people, and they’ve wreaked malicious havoc all over the globe for decades.

That said…

Ismail Qaani, the chief of the IRGC-QF who replaced Qasem Soleimani, whom the United States turned into road pizza in Baghdad in 2020, is still around and hiding like a rat (at least I haven’t seen any reports that he was eliminated). He almost certainly has relationships with numerous terrorist groups, much like his predecessor, so chances are we will see increased terrorist attacks on our interests worldwide.

Also, apparently Iran had agreed to zero stockpiling of enriched uranium on Friday as part of a deal with the United States. If diplomacy was working, why attack?

At the same time, if Iran was perilously close to developing nuclear weapons, did the administration lie last year when it claimed that Iran’s nuclear program was “obliterated”? Which is it - did we obliterate Iran’s nuclear program, or were they close to developing nuclear weapons and had to be neutralized?

I am 100 percent concerned that the executive branch continues to wage wars without congressional approval. But although some members of Congress are demanding a return to constitutional principles, it appears that ship has sailed. Yes, the executive has the authority to conduct certain strategic military operations on its own, but Congress has the constitutional power to wage war.

George W. Bush at least tried to secure authorization from Congress before starting the Iraq War in 2003. The Trump administration didn’t even bother.

Also, as you know, nature abhors a vacuum. And by taking out Khamenei without a plan to stabilize Iran, we’re either going to have more of the same or complete chaos which will benefit Russia.

No way Tehran holds free elections right away just because we took out the supreme leader. The country today formed a council to assume leadership duties, made up of Iran’s sitting president, the head of the country’s judiciary, and a member of the Guardian Council chosen by Iran’s Expediency Council.

Ayatollah Alireza Arafi has been appointed to fill the seat as the designated Guardian Council jurist. He’s apparently a hardliner, but at the same time, he is a highly educated, a polyglot who is fluent in both Arabic and English and is pro-tech, including advocating for the use of AI.

Great. Just what we need. A technologically savvy hardliner.

It’s not like Iran has a shortage of ayatollahs.

And if chaos ensues, Vladimir Putin is going to be doing a bit of a happy dance in Russia.

Moscow has had a historically lengthy and friendly relationship with Tehran and Hizballah. If a vacuum occurs in Iran, Russia will have a bigger, more open doorway to install a puppet regime there and the resources from oil to be even MORE aggressive.

If we want to ensure that the region is stable after the regime change, we’re going to have to spend a LOT of money and be prepared for a VERY lengthy military operation. Reports indicated that after the brief war with Israel last year, rebuilding Iran would cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

Oil prices are going to skyrocket, unless there’s an immediate escalation, and that will benefit Russia as well.

Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, according to a Reuters report from yesterday, and oil supply is in danger.

“If it carries on for days with Iran and its proxies retaliating to the fullest extent, we are looking at the worst-case scenarios for oil, including a major disruption of oil flows through the Middle East,” Hari told CNBC. This is unless the U.S. is able to pre-emptively disarm the Iranian navy and military, as well as ensure tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz continues to flow normally.

“The President of Peace”

Donald Trump built his political movement on his promise to avoid foreign conflicts. He proclaimed he would be the President of Peace and called Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney warmongers.

In his election night victory speech in November 2024, Trump told his supporters: “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.” Two months later, in his inaugural address, he went even further in trying to establish himself as a global peacemaker. “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into,” he said.

Trump’s best foreign policy, wrote JD Vance in an opinion column for the Wall Street Journal in 2023, obsequiously telling Trump that he has his support in 2024 in an obvious bid for the vice presidency, will be not starting any wars.

But here we are.

Trump last year struck numerous countries, including Venezuela, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. And now we’re about to get involved in what could be a protracted war in Iran, apparently without a plan for stability for the future.

Three US servicemembers have already been killed, and five are seriously wounded. Trump says he will “avenge” their deaths. Huge 180 from the guy who insulted NATO allies in Afghanistan and reportedly called Americans who fought and died in World War I “suckers” and “losers,” according to his former Chief of Staff John Kelly.

So am I happy that Khamenei and other Iranian slime are currently meeting their maker? Yes. Absolutely!

Am I concerned about the possible outcomes and the continued constitutional abuses? Also yes. Absolutely!