{"id":4627,"date":"2026-03-07T20:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T20:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=4627"},"modified":"2026-03-07T20:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T20:43:11","slug":"trumps-war-to-nowhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=4627","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s War to Nowhere"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>    <!-- BLOCK(acast)[0](%7B%22componentName%22%3A%22ACAST%22%2C%22entityType%22%3A%22SHORTCODE%22%2C%22optional%22%3Afalse%7D)(%7B%22id%22%3A%22trumps-war-to-nowhere%22%2C%22podcast%22%3A%22intercept-presents%22%2C%22subscribe%22%3Atrue%7D) --><\/p>\n<p>\n  <iframe src=\"https:\/\/embed.acast.com\/intercept-presents\/trumps-war-to-nowhere?accentColor=111111&amp;bgColor=f5f6f7&amp;logo=false\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"acast-player__embed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p><!-- END-BLOCK(acast)[0] --><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"has-underline\">The Israel\u2013U.S. military<\/span> campaign in Iran has killed more than 1,000 people since the assault began on February 28. A <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/04\/iran-war-powers-gottheimer-fetterman\/\">war powers resolution<\/a> in the Senate to curb President Donald Trump\u2019s ability to drag the U.S. into the war failed on Wednesday. Similarly, a measure in the House failed on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis war is just a few days old and it\u2019s escalating really quickly,\u201d says Ali Gharib, senior editor at The Intercept. \u201cIt\u2019s becoming a regional conflict,\u201d as Iran retaliates and targets <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/3\/5\/drone-targets-us-base-in-iraq-as-iran-attacks-hit-region-amid-us-israel-war\">U.S. bases<\/a> as well as Israel and Gulf energy sites. This week on The Intercept Briefing, Gharib discusses the human and political toll of the Israel\u2013U.S. war on Iran with co-host Jordan Uhl and journalist <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/seamus-malekafzali\/\">S\u00e9amus Malekafzali<\/a>, who has been based in Paris and Beirut.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrump has repeatedly failed to articulate anything even resembling coherent about why the U.S. got into this war,\u201d says Gharib. He adds, \u201cMarco Rubio even \u2014 who, again, not the sharpest tool in the shed, but usually has his shit pretty together \u2014 but in this case, he\u2019s like changing his tune every two days because he has to keep up with Trump\u2019s inanity about what the reasons for the war were.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The end game for Israel here, says Malekafzali, is they want \u201ca state that is incapable of defending itself, a state that is no longer sovereign.\u201d He adds, \u201cIf you are bombarding police stations, if you are bombarding hospitals and schools, border guards, when you are attacking the very fabric of any society as your main target, CENTCOM and the IDF together, that means that you are going toward state collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese are hard-won lessons over and over again for the United States \u2014 war after war, fallout, blowback. It just happens again and again. And yet we always seem to get leaders who are willing to run willy-nilly into these things,\u201d says Gharib.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-intercept-briefing\/id1195206601\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/2js8lwDRiK1TB4rUgiYb24?si=e3ce772344ee4170\">Spotify<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLW0Gy9pTgVnvgbvfd63A9uVpks3-uwudj\">YouTube<\/a>, or wherever you listen.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-transcript\"><strong>Transcript<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Jordan Uhl:<\/strong> Welcome to the Interceptive Briefing, I\u2019m Jordan Uhl.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ali Gharib<\/strong>: And I\u2019m Ali Gharib. I\u2019m a senior editor at The Intercept.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JU:<\/strong> Today we\u2019re going to talk about the growing war in the Middle East, specifically Iran. Last Saturday, Israel and the United States launched unprovoked attacks on Iran, and assassinated Supreme Leader <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/01\/ayatollah-ali-khamenei-obituary\">Ali Khamenei<\/a> as well as several senior military officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Israel\u2013U.S. strikes have continued on Iran, bringing the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/3\/4\/death-toll-in-iran-surpasses-1000-as-israel-us-strikes-continue\">death toll<\/a> to more than 1,000 people since the assault began. On Thursday, the World Health Organization verified <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/who-says-has-it-has-verified-13-health-attacks-iran-2026-03-05\/\">13 attacks on health infrastructure<\/a> that killed four health care workers. Ali, it feels like we\u2019ve seen this playbook run before, but this time, it seems like they\u2019re trying to distinguish what is and what isn\u2019t a war.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG<\/strong>: This is like the sort of last redoubt of the idiot, when it comes to national security policy, is that you don\u2019t need congressional approval. There\u2019s no real stakes because this isn\u2019t a war. This is part of a long history. It\u2019s bipartisan. We\u2019ve seen Democrats in office. We\u2019ve seen Republicans in office. People are constantly starting these wars. They say they\u2019re going to be limited strikes. Well, you know what? When you\u2019re dropping bombs on another country and that country is attacking your military personnel in the area, that\u2019s a textbook war.<\/p>\n<p>In the so-called <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/collections\/the-911-wars\/\">global war on terror<\/a>, they could bullshit this and say, \u201cOh, we\u2019re not going after armies. We\u2019re going after these non-state actors and terrorist groups,\u201d or whatever. But in this case, it\u2019s like you\u2019re literally attacking the leadership of another country and another country\u2019s military.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s just no way to bullshit this. This is war. It\u2019s what it is. There\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/how-many-people-have-been-killed-us-israel-war-iran-2026-03-03\/\">civilians dying<\/a>. It\u2019s the whole thing. It\u2019s maybe the most egregious example since Vietnam of this phenomenon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JU<\/strong>: Now there are efforts in Congress to rein in the Trump administration\u2019s attacks on Iran. We will look to see how those votes develop, but I think there\u2019s a general sense of pessimism around the outcome.<\/p>\n<p>Another way of looking at it is just getting people on the record. Do you think that\u2019ll be something that is an anchor around people\u2019s necks going into the midterms?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG<\/strong>: It looks increasingly like this is going to be a midterm issue. We\u2019re seeing these breaks. In the Senate, it was pretty clean.<\/p>\n<p>There was a war powers vote this week that failed and we saw [Sen. John] Fetterman, D-Pa., was the only Democrat to peel off, which isn\u2019t that surprising. He voted last summer <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/06\/28\/fetterman-iran-trump-war-powers\/\">against a war powers resolution to block another Iran attack<\/a>, which would\u2019ve given Congress the power to stop exactly this calamity that we\u2019re seeing right now. But it failed on basically party lines, with Fetterman defecting.<\/p>\n<p>Then in the House there\u2019s a version where we see some pro-Israel Democrats peeled off and tried to introduce their own version, which would <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/04\/iran-war-powers-gottheimer-fetterman\/\">allow Trump 30 extra days<\/a> to continue the war before a congressional block gets imposed. We wrote about it this week on The Intercept. Our great D.C. reporter, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/matt-sledge\/\">Matt Sledge<\/a>, wrote about it.<\/p>\n<p>Because this is becoming a <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/04\/iran-israel-us-war-republican-democrat-midterms\/\">midterm issue<\/a>, and these guys have to try and thread the needle here between satisfying their pro-Israel donors, satisfying the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/trump-administration\/poll-majority-voters-disapproves-trump-handled-iran-rcna261564\">American voters<\/a> who are not happy with this war, all told. And we\u2019ve seen in some cases, some pro-Israel Democrats who were getting primaried from the left came out preemptively and said, I oppose this. And they\u2019re still getting hit by their insurgent primary opponents for not having come out soon enough and hard enough.<\/p>\n<p>This is something that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WCkcPcMTYuQ\">Jon Stewart <\/a>made a joke about this week, is that it seems like every time a president starts a war, Congress wants to come in next Thursday and do a vote about whether it\u2019s authorized or not.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s logic to what these insurgent Democrats are saying is that we\u2019ve known what\u2019s going to happen here for a long time, and Democrats on Capitol Hill could not get their act together. And yeah, I think that some of these progressive insurgents that we\u2019re seeing are going to make hay of that on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JU:<\/strong> So there are many troubling things coming from this administration. The general sense is that they don\u2019t have a clear objective or plan. We\u2019ve seen people forward concerns in Congress, and especially in the anti-war camps. But then how the White House has been messaging on this \u2014 even down to their social media posts \u2014 has people deeply troubled.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a video, for instance, from the <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/WhiteHouse\/status\/2029307088808055083\">official White House account<\/a> that was posted on Wednesday that spliced together footage from \u201cCall of Duty\u201d \u2014 I would argue a military propaganda video game \u2014 with footage of actual strikes in Iran. This is that blurring of lines that critics of intervention and those games have been worried about for years because it sanitizes the act of killing.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re already distancing ourselves from direct combat through this unseen aerial warfare, and that is pushed to young people through these games. And now the White House specifically is pushing that. So I\u2019m curious if you could touch on both of those things: the sanitization of war and the meaning of war, and also this lack of a plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG<\/strong>: Honestly, I think those things go hand in hand that these guys \u2014 Trump, especially, you would think maybe Hegseth\u2019s little military experience would be different, but I think maybe he\u2019s a little too dull to really get what\u2019s going on here \u2014 they just seem to not get the stakes that these are the most severe decisions that a government can make and that the stakes are really life and death, and not only just in the immediate dropping bombs, but long-term ramifications.<\/p>\n<p>These are hard-won lessons over and over again for the United States \u2014 war after war, fallout, blowback. It just happens again and again. And yet we always seem to get leaders who are willing to run willy-nilly into these things.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On the one hand, they don\u2019t take it seriously. It\u2019s a political ploy. They think it\u2019s a joke. They\u2019re just like meme lords running around trying to goose up their base to get all hot and bothered about bombing some Muslims over there. Then on the other hand, they\u2019re not taking it seriously in the actual war planning either. It\u2019s not just the propaganda.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Watching Trump\u2019s statements has been really incredible. To watch Marco Rubio even \u2014 who, again, not the sharpest tool in the shed, but usually has his shit pretty together \u2014 but in this case, he\u2019s like changing his tune every two days because he has to keep up with Trump\u2019s inanity about what the reasons for the war were.<\/p>\n<p>Rubio came out and said the other day that he thinks their <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RapidResponse47\/status\/2028576202420535469\">imminent threat was that Israel was going to attack <\/a>and there was going to be blowback on U.S. assets in the region. That\u2019s a maybe true but slightly embarrassing justification for war. <\/p>\n<p>And then you had Trump who came back after he was asked about Rubio\u2019s comments and said <a href=\"https:\/\/rollcall.com\/factbase\/trump\/transcript\/donald-trump-remarks-bilat-friedrich-merz-germany-march-3-2026\/#3\">no, no, this happened because of me<\/a>. We were negotiating with the Iranians over their nuclear program \u2014 which by the way, as the details have come out, it turns out they were, and there was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/news\/exclusive-diplomats-claim-witkoff-undermined-iran-talks\">huge progress being made<\/a>. And then the U.S. bombed the shit out of Iran.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But Trump said these talks were going on and the talks weren\u2019t going anywhere and were collapsing. (Again, bullshit.) And that he was worried that that would spur the Iranians to attack \u2014 for which there is no evidence. Something Iran has never done in the history of the Islamic Republic is lash out after a diplomatic exercise like that has failed. I\u2019ve covered this for my whole career: There\u2019s been a lot of diplomacy that\u2019s failed, and Iran is never so much as hinted that they\u2019re going to then lash out afterward. That became Trump\u2019s excuse. It\u2019s these constantly shifting goalposts.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cSomething Iran has never done in the history of the Islamic Republic is lash out after a diplomatic exercise like that has failed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Not only is there no clear justification, there\u2019s no clear end game here. This is something I\u2019ve talked about a lot, and I spoke with <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Seamus_Malek\">S\u00e9amus Malekafzali<\/a> today on the podcast about it. He\u2019s a journalist who writes about the Middle East, with a strong focus on Iran, and he\u2019s been based in Paris and Beirut. We went through some of this stuff about the U.S. haplessly walking its way through this war, and the Israelis just don\u2019t care what happens. And for them, a failed state is great. We\u2019ve seen comments to this effect from Israeli analysts that are close to the military\u2013industrial complex there. They just seem to have dragged Trump into this thing that Trump has haplessly, just buffooning his way through.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JU<\/strong>: Let\u2019s hear that conversation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG<\/strong>: Hey S\u00e9amus, welcome to the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>S\u00e9amus Malekafzali:<\/strong> Happy to be here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG: <\/strong>The pleasure is all ours, S\u00e9amus. So today we\u2019re going to be talking about the biggest story in the world right now: Israel and the U.S. launched an unprovoked attack against Iran last Saturday. It\u2019s still going on. Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/3\/3\/inside-the-us-israel-plan-to-assassinate-irans-khamenei\">assassinated<\/a>, so were a bunch of top regime figures \u2014 people from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, other military leaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been a pretty violent conflict so far. Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia group that\u2019s closely aligned with Iran, lobbed a few missiles into Israel. Israel, in retaliation, began seizing territory in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/03\/world\/middleeast\/israeli-forces-in-lebanon.html\">southern Lebanon<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2026\/03\/04\/nx-s1-5734543\/new-strikes-tehran\">new wave of strikes on Iran<\/a>, and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that we\u2019re \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/live-updates\/us-iran-war-israel-strikes-tehran-lebanon-day-5-al-udeid-targeted\/\">just getting started<\/a>.\u201d This war is just a few days old, and it\u2019s escalating really quickly. It\u2019s spiraling out of control. It\u2019s becoming a regional conflict. Does that sound about right to you, S\u00e9amus? Is this moving into a much more dangerous situation really, really fast?<\/p>\n<p><strong>SM:<\/strong> I would agree with that estimation, yes. Trump had said that he was surprised by this, but Iran had threatened to bring all these different Gulf Arab countries that are hosting American bases into the war, and they did that immediately once Israel and America launched their strikes.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, they had even struck Oman and potentially even oil fields in Saudi Arabia against the advice of the civilian Iranian government. Apparently, there has even been an attempt to strike at a base inside <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/livecoverage\/iran-us-israel-conflict-2026\/card\/key-turkish-base-hosting-u-s-troops-was-target-of-iranian-missile-cxjktTjKrsE9KaI8wpuH?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqd5WEjn3Sle-46BZzkJapIIiNT3Zo5vzUGieLqPUEoHhF1GnvWonCJ_jVajHRA%3D&amp;gaa_ts=69aa2479&amp;gaa_sig=UYKtgX-9nKuERgUKzMOOQVOS77QWGBTahu3mz24kZnDaExOB6lxQGQZEz7BP_-8V-nciNuCRK-V3ZCppmn-56w%3D%3D\">Turkey<\/a> that had been hosting American forces. I\u2019m unsure of what the Iranian government has said about that matter, but I imagine they are not keen on Turkey being one of those targets. But because of the decentralized nature of the Iranian military, they had been given instructions to expand this without individual authorizations by the Iranian leadership.<\/p>\n<p>Israel, however, is not a decentralized state; it is very much intentional in what it is doing. All of the strikes that are currently happening on Iran and inside Lebanon are the Israeli military leadership\u2019s clear and specific directives. So as it currently is going on the path of completely expelling the population of southern Lebanon or carpet-bombing Tehran, that is not an unintentional part of this. That is a fully intentional aim to expand this and deepen this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG:<\/strong> You mentioned the expansion of the war. I think that that\u2019s a really salient point about the decentralized leadership and in fact that\u2019s become an essential directive for the Iranians because they\u2019re just being so closely surveilled and any communications they have could potentially give away locations and they\u2019re running tremendous risks.<\/p>\n<p>It seems like the Israeli intelligence, to your point, is extremely good on these targets that it\u2019s hitting. So it\u2019s hard to imagine that when the targets get so broad or say, a girls\u2019 elementary school gets hit in southern Iran, that these sorts of things are just terrible mistakes. Like, no, this is the nature of having a wide-scale conflict and I think we should be skeptical of claims of just that things go errant.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There was this <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/maziarbahari\/status\/2027702814621794579\">attack on Mir-Hossein Mousavi\u2019s residence<\/a> early on in the war, I think, on the first day of strikes. We\u2019re talking about an opposition leader here who\u2019s been under house arrest. A lot of apologists will claim that was an accident, but it\u2019s not clear that it was. And then we see Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/05\/trump-iran-war-plan-cia\/\">complaining <\/a>about there being nobody to take the place of the Iranian leadership. It stretches credulity when you put together all the statements.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SM:<\/strong> When Pete Hegseth says that they are investigating the s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/05\/world\/middleeast\/iran-school-us-strikes-naval-base.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Q1A.iDYk.Q91DlPE9JfKc&amp;smid=url-share\">trike on that elementary school <\/a>for girls in Minab, and then they throw up on the screen a map of all these different strikes that CENTCOM has done \u2014 and Minab is right there, that school. They obviously know what they did. They\u2019re covering that up, that fact.<\/p>\n<p>On the Mousavi front, I\u2019m unsure of the nature of that strike. I know that Mousavi\u2019s apartment was near Pasteur, where all these different Iran government ministries are located. But [former President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad was apparently someone who at least a strike happened in his area. He appears to be alive still. There were reports of his death but he apparently communicated to Patrick Bet-David, an American Iranian podcaster, that he was still alive. But nevertheless, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Seamus_Malek\/status\/2028533693954863554\">Itamar Ben-Gvir<\/a> went out and said that Ahmadinejad was a righteous victim of the Israeli military<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG:<\/strong> Just for context, Ahmadinejad was the president of Iran, obviously, in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but also a figure who in recent years has fallen deeply out of favor with the Iranian government. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d go so far as to call him an opposition leader. But certainly not somebody who has a hand in anything the government is doing these days.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SM:<\/strong> No, no, no. He is very much on the Supreme Leader\u2019s shit list. They are not keen on leaving any sort of leadership of any kind, I think, if the strike near Ahmadinejad is intentional, which I still have doubts about.<\/p>\n<p>Trump had seemed to be confused about the nature of the temporary leadership council that took power after Khamenei was killed, that apparently there were second or third choices that may have been also killed, but also those three he might\u2019ve had something to gain from them.<\/p>\n<p>Then the reports that they wanted the IRGC, some aspect of them that could take over, be friendly to the United States. No, there\u2019s no actual plan for any of this. In the same way that when <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/05\/trump-venezuela-war\/\">Maduro was abducted<\/a> and taken here to New York City that Delcy Rodriguez was the person who they were going to threaten and then have take power.<\/p>\n<p>There is no parallel figure within the Iranian government, which means that they are pushing things towards state collapse, rather than trying to position an America-friendly, Israel-friendly Iranian government in power.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG:<\/strong> Or even just in the Venezuela case, an alternative who might be compliant.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SM:<\/strong> Exactly.<\/p>\n<p><!-- BLOCK(newsletter)[0](%7B%22componentName%22%3A%22NEWSLETTER%22%2C%22entityType%22%3A%22SHORTCODE%22%2C%22optional%22%3Atrue%7D)(%7B%7D) --><\/p>\n<div class=\"newsletter-embed flex-col items-center print:hidden\" id=\"third-party--article-mid\" data-module=\"InlineNewsletter\" data-module-source=\"web_intercept_20241230_Inline_Signup_Replacement\">\n<div class=\"-mx-5 sm:-mx-10 p-5 sm:px-10 xl:-ml-5 lg:mr-0 xl:px-5 bg-accentLight hidden\" data-name=\"subscribed\">\n<h2 class=\"font-sans font-light uppercase text-[30px] leading-8 text-white tracking-[0.01em] mb-0\">\n      We\u2019re independent of corporate interests \u2014 and powered by members. 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There\u2019s been enough talk, at least, about Israel having pushed Trump into the war that Trump got asked about it and gave a pretty defensive answer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Donald Trump:<\/strong> No, I might have forced their hand. We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack if we didn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG:<\/strong> Israel has just become a rogue actor in the region. It\u2019s constantly unleashing these military assaults. The lesson learned from Gaza was that there\u2019s not going to be any accountability for anything that the Israeli government does.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThe lesson learned from Gaza was that there\u2019s not going to be any accountability for anything that the Israeli government does.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Obviously, more than <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/30\/israel-gaza-death-toll-accurate-denial\/\">70,000 people killed<\/a> in the genocide there. Since the so-called ceasefire, Israel has killed 600 more people in Gaza. There\u2019s been allegedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2026\/3\/2\/iran_war_israel\">thousands of violations<\/a> of the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel before this latest war with Iran started. And those are documented by the U.N. peacekeeping forces. These aren\u2019t like Hezbollah numbers or anything.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Now after the attack on Iran, we see the war expanding in Lebanon. You lived in Beirut, obviously, you know this terrain very well. Do you have any sense of what the mood is like there?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>SM:<\/strong> There is definitely been a difference in tone from this intervention than the intervention that happened after the war broke out against Gaza in 2023. Having a war for Palestine, regardless of the sympathies that a lot of Lebanese had for Palestinians, they never largely wanted to get involved in a war on Lebanese soil for Palestine.<\/p>\n<p>There isn\u2019t polling on such an immediate thing. Even if Hezbollah is responding to 15 months of <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2024\/09\/19\/israel-pager-walkie-talkie-attack-lebanon-war-crimes\/\">unchecked Israeli aggression<\/a> against <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2024\/09\/23\/israel-bombs-lebanon-us-weapons\/\">Lebanese territory<\/a> which they did phrase in their statement \u2014 and also the fact that they were apparently, according to Israeli reporting, even preempting an Israeli preemptive strike on Lebanon \u2014 the optics of doing this in retaliation for Khamenei\u2019s death, that being the express logic that was said in their statement that has presented problems that Hezbollah is not \u2014 They\u2019re in a very difficult situation, an impossible situation, an unenviable situation. But this has not gone the direction that it had after 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Lebanese government has begun arresting members of Hezbollah and also some Palestinians who have been traveling down to the south. Amal [Movement], their closest ally in politics, has begun splitting in some regards. I have heard reports that Amal locals on the ground are participating in the offensive, but the party leadership is now more at odds with Hezbollah than it had been in the past.<\/p>\n<p>The Lebanese government is not in the position in which it can allow this to happen. It is happening on their own volition. They\u2019re making that decision expressly. But the impunity that Hezbollah had to act unilaterally without the permission of the Lebanese government \u2014 that still exists, in that they have military capabilities outside of the military, but the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/features\/2026\/3\/3\/lebanons-ban-on-hezbollah-activities-bold-but-difficult-to-implement\">Lebanese government is clearly acting to stop Hezbollah\u2019s retaliation<\/a> from going on in a way that they were not after October 7th.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG:<\/strong> And this is another example of the fracturing politics of the region over the past couple years, and especially in the past few days here in the Middle East. You mentioned earlier, the Gulf Arab neighbors of Iran and what this war has meant for them. We\u2019ve seen reports repeatedly of energy infrastructure being hit. Some of that maybe is debris starting fires that are from intercepted missiles. It\u2019s very unclear what\u2019s being targeted, what\u2019s being hit.<\/p>\n<p>We know that in some examples there have been instances of civilian infrastructure. A luxury hotel in Bahrain got hit by Iranian missiles or maybe a drone and got severely damaged. There was an Iranian official who actually told <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DropSiteNews\/status\/2028564793871716725\">Drop Site News<\/a> that they had gotten intelligence that there were American war department officials in there.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/2026\/03\/02\/hegseth-iran-ground-troops\/\">Washington Post<\/a> got a hold of a State Department cable back that said yeah, two Pentagon officials were injured in that strike on the Bahrain hotel. So it does seem that the Iranians are going after some legitimate targets when they\u2019re buried. Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister, has said that the Americans, when their bases started to get hit, dispersed their assets and people moved into civilian areas and that\u2019s what they\u2019ve been going after. For us, a lot of that stuff is extremely difficult to check.<\/p>\n<p>The Emirates have clamped down on information coming out because, again, this is the image of the region getting fractured. Abu Dhabi and Dubai as the safe havens for doing business that are safe and pleasant and easy to live in \u2014 that image is going up in flames with every Iranian missile that comes overhead. The airports are shut down, people can\u2019t leave, and life on the ground there \u2014 I have some family that\u2019s stuck in Dubai \u2014 life on the ground there is pretty normal, except this image is being completely shattered. I just saw a report in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/23e04747-a1fc-4137-8ea2-235981e013d8\">FT that it cost $250,000 to get extracted <\/a>from Bahrain right now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SM:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG:<\/strong> This war is really remaking the Gulf Arab countries\u2019 images as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SM:<\/strong> Yeah, and I don\u2019t think they\u2019re prepared for it at all. There was an Iranian parliamentarian, I think the head of the Parliament\u2019s National Security Committee, that had said that the purpose of these strikes is to have these countries evict the Americans. The Gulf countries \u2014 I assume, I can only assume \u2014 they hosted these bases because of an assumption of American protection or American support if Iran were to launch this kind of attack against them. And there has been absolutely no American protection or real support, in the few ways that it has manifested. When American [F-15] fighter jets were taking off from Kuwait, three of them <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/kuwait-intercepts-hostile-drones-third-day-iran-retaliatory-strikes-2026-03-02\/\">apparently got shot down<\/a> by a single Kuwaiti jet that obviously was not anticipating being involved in this kind of conflict.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There was a perception that these were places that were somehow outside of politics, despite being inside the Middle East next to Iran and very much close to Israel. I think it\u2019s going to take many years for that to be repaired \u2014 if it will ever be repaired \u2014 because these countries have never suffered this kind of conflict.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia has suffered through this. Iraq has suffered through this. Kuwait has suffered through this. But Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE. Like, even singular ballistic missile launches from the Houthis, or that drone that hit Abu Dhabi airport some years ago. Those were things that had to be covered up and rapidly ignored in order to maintain that image. It can no longer be ignored in this. It\u2019s far too wide-ranging.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThere was a perception that these were places that were somehow outside of politics, despite being inside the Middle East. \u2026 I think it\u2019s going to take many years for that to be repaired.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>AG:<\/strong> And the reverberations aren\u2019t just limited to that. Can you talk a little bit about what this is doing to energy markets \u2014 Iran\u2019s strategy closing down the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/03\/iran-has-largely-halted-oil-and-gas-exports-through-strait-of-hormuz\">Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, and this \u201cbringing a cost to this conflict for others\u201d strategy that Iran\u2019s using, with regards to energy moving out of the Gulf?<\/p>\n<p><strong>SM:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/03\/02\/iran-oil-gas-prices-strait-hormuz.html#:~:text=European%20natural%20gas%20futures%20soared,barrel%2C%20the%20JPMorgan%20analyst%20said.\">Qatar supplies 20 percent <\/a>of the global output of energy, and they have shut down most of their production.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG:<\/strong> LNG specifically, I think is their 20 percent, liquid natural gas.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>SM: <\/strong>Clearly a massive shock is on its way. Iran had hit an oil platform in Fujairah. Aramco had come under attack in some capacity by the Iranian military, a field in Saudi Arabia. Strait of Hormuz \u2014 I had seen some bizarre graph from somebody on Twitter where they showed all of the traffic in the Strait of Hormuz absolutely tanking, and then they created some sort of projection line where it all went back up after five days. I do not think that it\u2019s going to happen.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/energy\/oil-rises-over-1-iran-crisis-disrupts-middle-east-supply-2026-03-04\/\">Oil prices<\/a> are already starting to shoot up, not overwhelmingly so, but they\u2019re starting to shoot up. There were predictions made that by next month, gas prices could be up more than a 100 percent, perhaps even near 130, 140, 150 percent in Europe. For Americans, I imagine would be in a similar boat, gas prices that are higher than they were during the financial crisis \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/03\/02\/iran-oil-gas-prices-strait-hormuz.html#:~:text=European%20natural%20gas%20futures%20soared,barrel%2C%20the%20JPMorgan%20analyst%20said.\">$5 a gallon, even higher than that<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That is the lever that Iran is rapidly trying to pull up and down because it knows that it is the only one that truly affects the decision making in the West. Any sort of anti-war sentiment that exists in these places, it is not going to be able to move any of these officials. What is going to move them is if people are feeling this in their checkbooks at the pump, when it becomes so costly to continue executing this that they have to pull back or else it becomes prohibitively expensive.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>Oil \u201cis the lever that Iran is rapidly trying to pull up and down because it knows that it is the only one that truly affects the decision-making in the West.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>AG:<\/strong> And I should note that the Aramco thing also remains a mystery because the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ndtv.com\/world-news\/iran-israel-war-tehran-not-involved-in-attack-on-saudi-aramco-iranian-sources-ayatollah-ali-khamenei-death-donald-trump-us-strikes-11171595\">Iranians did explicitly deny that<\/a>. I thought that was curious. They said that, no, we\u2019re not targeting Aramco, which I thought was interesting. It\u2019s not necessarily true, but just that they haven\u2019t been shy about some of the stuff they\u2019ve been targeting, but that one they did deny.<\/p>\n<p>So working the levers that these foreign governments will listen to and the way to put pressure on them that is broader than just an anti-war movement \u2014 do you have any thoughts on what this pressure means in the U.S. and the kind of fractures that we\u2019re seeing? Is Trump susceptible even to these kinds of things? Or is he just in his own world enough where so far it seems like he\u2019s committed to keeping going and just living in his own fantasies?<\/p>\n<p><strong>SM:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think Trump is susceptible to public opinion. He cares about it to a certain extent, but he really just wants to be seen more than anything as a deals man. A deals man does not allow this kind of thing to go for months, if not years. He wants the perception that he can do that for as long as he wants, but this cannot follow him forever. He wants to focus on other things. He wants to be seen as somebody who is making peace, somebody who is getting things done quickly. And if that image is not true in a severely obvious way, that is something that he does not want to be associated with \u2014 either in government or by the public.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG:<\/strong> His partner in all this, of course, who, again, maybe has dragged him along into some of it, was Benjamin Netanyahu. In a way Trump has repeatedly failed to articulate anything even resembling coherent about why the U.S. got into this war. But <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=V0dxVdejtWc\">Netanyahu<\/a> has been forced on American TV on Sean Hannity\u2019s show to make the case for going to war in Iran. And let\u2019s listen to a clip of that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Benjamin Netanyahu:<\/strong> After we hit their nuclear sites and their ballistic missiles program, you\u2019d think they learned a lesson, but they didn\u2019t because they\u2019re unreformable. They\u2019re totally fanatic about this, about the goal of destroying America.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So they started building new sites, new places, underground bunkers that would make their ballistic missile program and their atomic bomb programs immune within months. If no action was taken now, no action could be taken in the future. And then they could target America. They could blackmail America.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG:<\/strong> All right, S\u00e9amus, you and I know that this is a lot of the same bullshit we\u2019ve been getting for a while and there\u2019s a lot to unpack here. But the thing I\u2019d like you to talk about, if possible, is some of these claims that we\u2019ve been seeing that, within months, Iran would be immune and have the bomb for 20 years now.<\/p>\n<p>Then also this war coming right in the middle of negotiations over exactly these issues between the U.S. \u2014 in direct negotiations, I should say \u2014 over exactly these issues between the U.S. and Iran that were being led by <a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/home\/post\/p-189601327\">Trump\u2019s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner<\/a>. If you could talk about the context of Israel starting this war at this very moment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SM:<\/strong> Jared Kushner and Steve Wikoff, I believe that these are diplomats, but they\u2019re not actually diplomats. I mean, in a real sense, they are diplomats in that they\u2019re real estate moguls \u2014 one a little bit more successful <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2017\/07\/10\/jared-kushner-tried-and-failed-to-get-a-half-billion-dollar-bailout-from-qatar\/\">than the other<\/a>. But these are not people who have any sort of diplomatic skill.<\/p>\n<p>They are there to enforce an ideological line and extract concessions without any sort of expectation of concessions on their own part. This is why I think they were so favored by the Israeli government because there was no actual negotiating going on. It was deception. Explicitly, it was deception by these two people.<\/p>\n<p>When America is sending negotiators to your country and demanding not only the cessation of your nuclear program, the taking of all of your enriched uranium and sending it directly through the U.S. who promises we\u2019re going to send you nuclear fuel for your own civilian plants, but we get to control everything. But also apparently, according to Witkoff on Hannity, a few days ago, he had said that they even <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RapidResponse47\/status\/2028669975288828228\">asked for Iran to eliminate its own navy<\/a> so that America would have eternal freedom of operation in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They are effectively Israeli agents in this regard in that they are supporting a maximalist Israeli-led position, and they are very much supported by the Israeli government in this regard.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG:<\/strong> What is Netanyahu\u2019s end game here? What is the Israeli objective? Is this what you were talking about with state collapse being the direction we\u2019re going? Is that the actual end game or is that just where we\u2019re going?<\/p>\n<p><strong>SM:<\/strong> I think that is the actual end game. Look, Trump, I\u2019m sure there will be discussion soon about resource extraction or getting something from the Iranians or wanting a friendlier government. That\u2019s something that Netanyahu has said as well. But the things that are being demanded of Iran \u2014 that being no ballistic missiles at all, no navy \u2014 the basic thing that you would have as a country. <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2021\/05\/14\/palestine-israel-hamas-netanyahu-biden\/\">What they want is a state that is incapable of defending itself, a state that is no longer sovereign<\/a>, and a state that cannot exercise these abilities is a state that does not exist, fundamentally.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If you are bombarding police stations, if you are bombarding hospitals and schools, border guards, when you are attacking the very fabric of any society as your main target, CENTCOM and the IDF together, that means that you are going towards state collapse. And that even if you are supporting in the future some group that may come up \u2014 or maybe [Reza] Pahlavi or this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/03\/05\/iran-war-us-israel-kurds-cia-mossad\">Kurdish<\/a> [group], anything, doesn\u2019t matter \u2014 the state that will eventually emerge is a state that has been stripped of its ability to do anything resembling a state. It will be a subdued state, either as severe as Gaza, even if Israel is not going to settle or depopulate Iran, or a state that is subdued like Lebanon, in <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/09\/05\/trump-lebanon-hezbollah-disarm-sovereignty\/\">which it has to listen to the directives<\/a> of Israel and America for it to continue functioning in any capacity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG:<\/strong> I suspect that, without having a direct line into Netanyahu\u2019s thinking, I suspect that you\u2019re completely right, that is his goal there. Again, with the total lack of accountability in Gaza, I don\u2019t see why he doesn\u2019t think that he can do whatever he wants.<\/p>\n<p>Then in the regional picture, these weakened and failed states have been pretty good for Israel in terms of eliminating threats. You said that you think Trump envisioned some kind of deal or maybe some sort of future benefit, and he\u2019s going to start talking about that stuff. Do you think he quite understands what\u2019s going on here?<\/p>\n<p><strong>SM:<\/strong> No. I\u2019ll speak very plainly, no. The way in which Iran has been spoken about in Republican circles for a very long time is that Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, is a personality figurehead, and the entire government is based around his power, and when he falls, the entire Islam Republic will fall. If you take him out, then all the dominoes start falling immediately.<\/p>\n<p>This was false. It has been false. <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2019\/11\/20\/ghosts-of-mossadegh-the-iran-cables-u-s-empire-and-the-arc-of-history\/\">Khomeini<\/a> died, and Khamenei was elected to the deposition by the assembly of experts and the government did not collapse even though Khomenei took a much larger position within the Iranian political world, within Iranian society. <\/p>\n<p>[Trump] does not seem to have any understanding of the different institutions that have influence within the country. He listens to what his advisers tell him about what people might be friendly to him or might want to deal, and he internalizes some of it. But he does not have an actual understanding of how the country works, how any sort of cultural forces might be working, anti-imperialism how that might inform other people\u2019s decisions; how these people might feel like they have their backs against the wall, and that might inform their thinking that maybe they don\u2019t want to be killed or made into a puppet. He fundamentally does not understand the country, not in a political sense in that Iran is some sort of brave and unsubdued power that is capable of anything, but that it is a country that does not function like Venezuela \u2014 even <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/02\/20\/podcast-trump-cuba\/\">Cuba, as he envisions it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AG:<\/strong> That\u2019s pretty sound analysis given what we know about him. S\u00e9amus, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. It\u2019s a pleasure to catch up with you and get your thoughts on what\u2019s going on. You\u2019re an experienced reporter who spent some time in the region, and I greatly appreciate your perspective.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SM:<\/strong> Thank you. Anytime.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JU: <\/strong>That was Ali Gharib, The Intercept\u2019s senior editor and S\u00e9amus Malekafzali, a journalist and writer covering the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>That does it for this episode.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This episode was produced by Laura Flynn. Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief. Maia Hibbett is our Managing Editor. Chelsey B. Coombs is our social and video producer. Desiree Adib is our booking producer. Fei Liu is our product and design manager. Nara Shin is our copy editor. Will Stanton mixed our show. Legal review by David Bralow.<\/p>\n<p>Slip Stream provided our theme music.<\/p>\n<p>This show and our reporting at The Intercept doesn\u2019t exist without you. Your donation, no matter the amount, makes a real difference. Keep our investigations free and fearless at <a href=\"http:\/\/theintercept.com\/join\">theintercept.com\/join<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And if you haven\u2019t already, please subscribe to The Intercept Briefing wherever you listen to podcasts. Do leave us a rating or a review, it helps other listeners to find us.<\/p>\n<p>Let us know what you think of this episode, or If you want to send us a general message, email us at <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/06\/podcast-trump-iran-israel-war\/mailto:podcasts@theintercept.com\">podcasts@theintercept.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Until next time, I\u2019m Jordan Uhl.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/06\/podcast-trump-iran-israel-war\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Israel\u2013U.S. military campaign in Iran has killed more than 1,000 people since the assault began on February 28. A war powers resolution in the Senate to curb President Donald Trump\u2019s ability to drag the U.S. into the war failed on Wednesday. Similarly, a measure in the House failed on Thursday.\u00a0 \u201cThis war is just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}