Tag: iran

No Mandate, No Peace: America’s War of Choice Against Iran

Early Saturday, the United States joined Israel in launching a major strike on Iran, with President Donald Trump announcing that “major combat operations” were underway. The first thing Americans should notice is not the fireworks on cable news, but the emptiness where a legal and democratic mandate ought to be. This attack was not authorized by the United Nations Security Council, and it was not authorized by Congress. It was sold to the public after the fact, as bombs were already falling.

In his analysis for The Guardian, Julian Borger reported that Trump’s own words point to something far bigger than a limited punitive strike. The president warned Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to surrender or be killed, vowed to smash Iran’s armed forces, and openly invited Iran’s ethnic minorities to rise up and bring the government down. That is not a narrow mission. That is regime change, declared in prime time.

Regime change is not self-defense. Under the United Nations Charter, the use of force is broadly prohibited, and the main exception is the inherent right of self-defense “if an armed attack occurs,” as spelled out in Article 51. If Washington wants to claim that exception, it has to show an actual armed attack or a truly imminent one. “Iran is bad” is not a legal argument; it is a bumper sticker. Yet the public case from the White House has leaned heavily on sweeping characterizations and contested claims about Iran’s capabilities rather than a concrete, imminent threat, as even Reuters noted in its review of Trump’s assertions.

The domestic legal picture is just as bleak. The Constitution gives Congress – not the president—the power “to declare War.” You can read that authority in Article I, Section 8. Modern presidents have tried to stretch their commander-in-chief role into a blank check, but the point of the system was to make war hard to start. After Vietnam, Congress tried to claw back some of that authority through the War Powers Resolution, which requires consultation “in every possible instance” and rapid reporting once hostilities begin. Whatever one thinks of the War Powers Resolution’s enforcement, the spirit is clear: the president is not supposed to take the country into war first and explain later.

What makes this moment even more alarming is the timing. According to Borger, the strikes were launched while diplomatic efforts were still underway to limit Iran’s uranium enrichment, with talks continuing just days before the bombs. That pattern – negotiations on one track, military escalation on the other – turns diplomacy into theater. It suggests the “deal” was never meant to be a deal at all, but an ultimatum backed by a “beautiful armada” assembled in the region.

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Fourth US Service Member Killed in Action in Iran as Combat Operations Continue

A fourth US service member has died during Operation Epic Fury in Iran as US combat operations continue, US Central Command said on Monday. 

As The Gateway Pundit reported on Sunday, Central Command announced that three service members were killed, and five were “seriously wounded” in retaliatory missile strikes by Iran after US strikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday.

“Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions — and are in the process of being returned to duty,” Central Command said.

On Monday, Central Command confirmed an updated death toll, announcing that a fourth troop, “who was seriously wounded during Iran’s initial attacks,” has passed.

“Major combat operations continue, and our response effort is ongoing,” CENTCOM said, noting that the identity of the fallen will be withheld until the family is notified.

TAMPA, Fla. – As of 7:30 am ET, March 2, four U.S. service members have been killed in action. The fourth service member, who was seriously wounded during Iran’s initial attacks, eventually succumbed to their injuries.

Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing.

The identities of the fallen are being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification.

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Trump’s Contrasting Regime-Change Strategies in Iran and Venezuela

President Donald Trump has made it clear that the new U.S.-Israeli air war against Iran is aimed at nothing less than the overthrow of the country’s clerical regime. Such an ambitious objective should not come as a surprise. Both the powerful Israel lobby and most of the conservative movement in the United States have endorsed the goal of forcible regime change in Tehran since the Islamic revolution overthrew the Shah in 1979. Even a sizable percentage of anti-war liberals have tended to make an exception with respect to policy toward Iran.

The ostensible goal embraced by nearly all of Tehran’s critics has always been to oust the mullahs and bring a secular democratic government to power. In December 2025, prominent conservative organizations, media outlets, and individuals in the United States and Europe voiced emphatic support for anti-regime protests that had erupted in Iranian cities. On January 15, 2026, Trump himself openly threatened to intervene militarily if Iranian security personnel continued to crack down on demonstrators.

Tehran’s adversaries in the United States and other Western countries insist that they want to see a secular, fully democratic government emerge in Iran. Trump’s rhetoric during the initial phases of his new war is consistent with that objective. The administration’s supposed embrace of an ambitious regime-change agenda for democracy in Iran, though, stands in dramatic contrast to Washington’s much more pragmatic conduct in Venezuela. Such a substantive difference raises justifiable uncertainty about the nature and extent of U.S. regime-change goals in Iran, even if the current war proves to be successful militarily.

Although the Trump administration ousted Venezuela’s left-wing dictator Nicolas Maduro in early January 2026, Trump allowed Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, and most other members of the regime to remain in power. That restraint infuriated libertarians and many conservatives in the United States. Most of them wanted to see Washington install in office opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and an outspoken advocate of free markets. Indeed, Machado is the darling of prominent libertarian organizations, especially the Cato Institute.

However, Trump and his policy team seemed perfectly content with continuing an authoritarian socialist regime in Caracas, as long as the leaders were willing to do Washington’s bidding. Policy concessions from Rodriguez’s government with respect to the treatment of the U.S. oil industry and a willingness to display less receptivity to China’s economic penetration of South America came quickly, and the White House appeared to be placated.

The cynical pragmatism of U.S. policy in Venezuela should make U.S. crusaders for Iranian democracy wonder about the sincerity of the Trump administration’s commitment to that value in Iran. There also are major elements in the internal movement opposing the clerical regime who appear to be more than a little unsavory and might be willing to play a role similar to Delcy Rodriguez’s adopted role in her country.

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SCATHING: CBS Contributor and Target of an Iranian Assassination Plot Masih Alinejad SHREDS Radical Rep. Ilhan Omar for Sympathizing with Terrorist Regime

Masih Alinejad, the courageous Iranian-American journalist and current CBS News contributor who has survived multiple Tehran-backed assassination plots, took to X to expose the staggering hypocrisy of “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

Alinejad, who recently faced her would-be assassins in a New York federal court, did not hold back.

She issued a “letter from an Iranian woman wounded by the regime,” accusing Omar of maintaining a cozy ambiguity toward the Islamic Republic while the regime systematically slaughters its own people.

The heart of Alinejad’s message centered on the tragic story of Sara Saeidi, a 39-year-old mother of two who was executed by the regime while peacefully protesting.

At the time of her death, she was reportedly wearing a sweatshirt that said “MANHATTAN” with an American flag, which some activists claim symbolized her desire for freedom.

Following her death, Iranian authorities allegedly falsified her death certificate, listing the cause of death as a “collision with agricultural machinery” to mask the shooting.

Alinejad’s critique highlights a growing frustration among Iranian dissidents who see far-left U.S. lawmakers as “anti-war” only when it benefits the mullahs in Tehran. She slammed Omar’s “No War With Iran” campaigns as a shield for the regime’s internal massacre of over 30,000 civilians.

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HEROIC: CBS Austin Reporter Caught on Hot Mic Allegedly DEFYING Direct Orders from Higher-Ups to Censor Pro-Trump, Pro-Israel Crowds Following Iran Strikes

A local news reporter in Austin, Texas, was caught on a hot mic allegedly refusing to follow orders from his corporate overlords to bury the truth.

As the world reacts to the decisive joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran, the fake news media apparatus is working overtime to suppress the massive wave of public support for President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu.

But at CBS Austin, the narrative hit a major roadblock in the form of reporter Vinny Martorano.

During the live feed staging, Martorano was seen being handed a phone by a crew member, who appeared to relay a directive from higher-ups regarding how to frame the unfolding demonstration at the Texas Capitol last weekend.

CREW MEMBER: [Hands Martorano a phone, likely showing a directive from the newsroom]

VINNY MARTORANO: What does that mean?

CREW MEMBER: It means they don’t want us to focus on this.

MARTORANO: All right. Well, I am.

Despite the clear orders from his “higher-ups” to deemphasize the pro-American, pro-Israel sentiment, Martorano refused to be a puppet for the radical left’s agenda.

Martorano then delivered a balanced report that acknowledged the reality on the ground.

Martorano told the viewers (presumably in the live shot):

All right. There are a lot of mixed opinions across Austin about the joint attack between the United States and Israel against Iran that happened earlier this morning. Some people like this group behind me are thanking Trump and the United States government for following through with this attack against Iran.

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Bloody Scene Unfolds as Security Forces Fire on Armed Militants as They Try to Storm US Consulate in Pakistan

Benghazi 2.0 averted.

As TGP reported earlier, nearly two dozen militants were killed as they tried to storm the US Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, on Sunday.

The militants tried to storm the consulate after the US and Israel killed Iran’s Supreme Leader and 40 other senior Iranian Regime officials.

Security forces fired on hundreds of militants as they set fires and tried to breach the consulate.

A bloody scene unfolded as the Shiite Muslims in Pakistan scattered amid gunfire.

Graphic video posted to social media shows several bloodied militants running for their lives as (US Marines?) unloaded on them.

The Pakistani militants shouted for help as they carried dead bodies away from the barrier of the consulate.

Fox News reported:

At least nine people are dead and more than two dozen injured after violent clashes outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan.

Hundreds of protesters stormed the diplomatic compound in a sharp escalation of anti-American demonstrations.

The unrest followed reports that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a joint U.S.-Israeli strike, sparking anger among Shiite Muslims in Pakistan.

Witnesses told The Associated Press that many of the protesters were Shiite Muslims who expressed outrage over Khamenei’s reported death and alleged U.S. involvement. Protesters chanted anti-American and anti-Israel slogans, and attempted to breach the consulate’s perimeter.

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US-Israel war on Iran ‘decided ⁠weeks ago’ under cover of nuclear talks: Report

The unprovoked US-Israeli war against Iran launched on 28 February had “been planned for months, and the ⁠launch date ⁠decided ⁠weeks ago,” even as the US and Iran carried out indirect nuclear negotiations, an Israeli defense official told Reuters.

Washington and Tel Aviv renewed negotiations in February over Iran’s nuclear program. President Trump was under pressure from Israel force Iran to give up uranium enrichment, as well as its ballistic missile program and support for regional resistance forces.

Amid the negotiations, Trump sent an “armada” of US naval ships and warplanes to the region, threatening to launch an attack if officials in Tehran refused to make a deal.

After the latest round of talks on Thursday, a senior US official told Axios the talks were “positive.”

Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who mediated the talks, said the talks had shown “significant progress.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also expressed optimism, saying both sides had shown a “clear seriousness” about getting a deal.

However, the US and Israel launched large-scale attacks against Iranian targets early Saturday, suggesting the negotiations had never been serious.

In the wake of the attacks, Omani Foreign Minister Albusaidi said that the negotiations he mediated had been “deliberately undermined.”

Mehran Kamrava, director of the Iranian studies unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, stated that Israel “appears to have launched an attack designed to derail the negotiations.”

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Iran says it has ‘one word only’ for America in tense standoff between representatives at emergency UN Security Council meeting

Iran‘s representative told an emergency United Nations meeting that they have ‘one word only’ for the United States following the deadly airstrikes on Iran earlier today. 

Iran’s Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani told America to be ‘polite’ at the emergency meeting following Operation Epic Fury, which saw airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. 

‘I have one word only,’ Iravani said, at the meeting in New York City on Saturday. ‘I advise to the representative of the United States to be polite.’

‘It will be better for yourself and the country you represented, thank you.’

US Ambassador Mike Waltz hit back at Iravani and said: ‘Frankly, I’m not going to dignify this with another response.’

‘Especially, as this representative sits here, in this body, representing a regime that has killed tens of thousands of its own people and imprisoned many more simply for wanting freedom from your tyranny,’ he concluded. 

The tense meeting saw Iravani describe the war against Iran as one against international law and international legal order under the United Nations Charter. 

‘This morning, the United States regime – jointly and in coordination with the Israeli regime – initiated an unprovoked and premeditated aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran for the second time in recent months,’ Iran’s ambassador said. 

‘This is not only an act of aggression; it is a war crime and a crime against humanity,’ Iravani continued. 

‘The invocation to “preemptive attack”, claims of imminent threat, or other unsubstantiated political claims, are unfounded legally, morally and politically.’ 

The UN Security Council, charged with ensuring international peace and security is maintained, is comprised of 15 members, including five permanent members; China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States. 

Other current members include Bahrain, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Greece, Latvia, Liberia, Pakistan, Panama and Somalia.

At around 1.15am on Saturday, the US and Israel began hitting Iranian targets to ‘dismantle the Iranian regime’s security apparatus.’ According to the United Nations News, the strikes do not meet the criteria of lawful self-defense and ‘constitute a violation of Article Two’.

In response, Iran said it will invoke, ‘without hesitation,’ the Charter’s Article 51 for its ‘inherent and lawful’ right to self-defense. 

But, Israel’s Ambassador Dany Danon said the attacks were an ‘act of necessity’ to put an end to an ‘existential threat,’ UN News reported. 

‘This is not the anger of a radical fringe,’ Danon said. ‘It is State-sanctioned hatred.’ 

Waltz equally defended the operation, and said: ‘This is a moment in history that requires moral clarity.’

Waltz claimed that the operation had ‘specific and strategic’ objectives in efforts to reduce missile capabilities that threaten allies, target naval assets used in international waters and disrupt machinery that provides militant weaponry. 

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Israeli strike on Iranian school kills over 100 children – media

Over 100 students have been killed and dozens injured in an Israeli airstrike on a girls’ primary school in the city of Minab, in southern Iran, according to the country’s news agency Tasnim. The attack comes amid ongoing airstrikes on the Islamic Republic by Israel and the US.

Israel launched what it described as a pre-emptive operation against Iranian military and nuclear-related targets on Saturday, saying the strikes were aimed at neutralizing threats posed by Iran. US President Donald Trump later said Washington was joining the operation, citing the failure of nuclear diplomacy as a direct trigger for the renewed bombing.

One of the strikes reportedly targeted an elementary school in the city of Minab, killing at least 148 students and leaving 95 others injured, according to local officials.

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U.S. Strikes Iran in Unconstitutional Attack, Breaking Major Trump Campaign Promise of No More Foreign Wars

President Trump broke a key campaign vow today by ordering an attack on Iran.

American war planes hit targets across the nation, including the capital Tehran, because negotiations to stop Iran from developing atomic weapons were unsuccessful and, Trump said in short speech, to protect American “national security.”

Iran retaliated, striking the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, and poured missiles into Israel. Iran also hit targets across the Middle East.

Top Republicans rightly called the U.S. air raid unconstitutional.

The Attack

“In the initial wave, the U.S. carried out dozens of strikes with attack planes launched from bases around the Middle East and from one or more aircraft carriers, a U.S. official said, The New York Times reported:

The warplanes are part of the largest U.S. military buildup since the Iraq War in 2003, and the deployment includes two aircraft carriers, a number of naval destroyers and more than 50 fighter planes.

The focus of the American strikes for the moment is military targets in Iran, a U.S. official said. Besides its nuclear facilities, Iran is believed to have more than 2,000 missiles, primarily short- and medium-range ballistic missiles that threaten Israel and American forces across the region. Those missiles are scattered at launch sites across Iran and were among the first targets, U.S. military officials said.

Announcing “major combat operations” in an eight-minute speech, Trump called the Iranian regime “a vicious group of very hard, terrible people” whose “activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world.”

Trump said that the regime has chanted “Death to America” for almost 50 years and “waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops and the innocent people in many, many countries.”

He also noted the attack on the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979; the taking of American hostages, who were held for 444 days; and the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983.

“From Lebanon to Yemen and Syria to Iraq, the regime has armed, trained and funded terrorist militias that have soaked the earth with blood and guts,” Trump said:

And it was Iran’s proxy, Hamas, that launched the monstrous Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, slaughtering more than 1,000 innocent people, including 46 Americans, while taking 12 of our citizens hostage. It was brutal, something like the world has never seen before.

Iran is the world’s number one state sponsor of terror, and just recently killed tens of thousands of its own citizens on the street as they protested. It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon. I’ll say it again, they can never have a nuclear weapon. That is why in Operation Midnight Hammer last June, we obliterated the regime’s nuclear program at Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan. After that attack, we warned them 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 said the regime has “rejected every opportunity” to end their “nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore.” 

“This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States Armed Forces,” Trump said:

I built and rebuilt our military in my first administration and there is no military on earth even close to its power, strength or sophistication. My administration is taking every possible step to minimize the risk to U.S. personnel in the region. Even so, and I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill. 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.

“Take Over Your Government”

Trump also urged Iran’s army, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, to lay down their weapons or “face certain death,” and urged Iranians to overthrow their government.

“Your hour of freedom is at hand,” he said. And “when we are finished, take over your government,” he said:

It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.

In his state of the union speech, Trump promised to attack Iran because of its supposed intransigence on nuclear weapons.

The IRG comprises about 200,000 members, the Times reported:

Iran has a fleet of hundreds of fast boats that specialize in swarm attacks in the Persian Gulf. It has a massive arsenal of 3,000 to 6,000 naval mines that can enable it to temporarily close off the Strait of Hormuz.

Aside from striking Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and sending missiles at Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates, Iran closed the Straight of Hormuz, a vital seaway for the world’s oil supplies. One estimate said the price for a barrel could rocket to $250.

“We have closed the Strait of Hormuz until further notice,” the Iran Military Monitor wrote on X:

“Let the Orange Pig open it if he can!”

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