{"id":4651,"date":"2026-03-12T09:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T09:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=4651"},"modified":"2026-03-12T09:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T09:14:15","slug":"trumps-ai-powered-world-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=4651","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s AI-Powered World Wars"},"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-ai-powered-world-wars%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-ai-powered-world-wars?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\">In the last<\/span> few days, President Donald Trump has said that the U.S-Israel war on Iran will end soon, after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/03\/08\/stock-market-today-live-updates.html\">oil prices jumped<\/a> and the growing regional conflict <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/economy\/2026\/3\/11\/oil-prices-swing-wildly-amid-mixed-messages-over-iran-war\">continued<\/a> to shake <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/world\/war-with-iran-delivers-high-oil-prices-and-another-shock-to-the-global-economy\">markets<\/a>. After a wave of heavy bombardments throughout Iran, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth <a href=\"https:\/\/www.war.gov\/News\/News-Stories\/Article\/Article\/4429836\/hegseth-says-us-attacks-intensify-under-epic-fury-while-iranian-responses-slow\/\">promised<\/a> another round, \u201cThe most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHegseth has, yes, said that it\u2019s going to be basically death and destruction from the air, and they\u2019re delivering that,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/hooman-majd\/\">Hooman Majd<\/a>, an Iranian American writer and journalist, tells The Intercept Briefing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKilling civilians is a hallmark of American air war. This particular campaign Operation Epic Fury is set apart by the relentlessness of the attacks,\u201d adds <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/nickturse\/\">Nick Turse<\/a>, senior reporter for The Intercept. \u201cThe two militaries \u2014 U.S. and Israel \u2014 combined were striking a conservative estimate of 1,000 targets per day in the first days of the conflict. Around 4,000 targets were hit in the first 100 hours of the campaign. For another point of comparison, Israeli attacks in the recent Gaza war were also relentless, but this far outpaces the Israeli campaign by more than double the number of strikes.\u201d On Wednesday, Trump told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/03\/11\/trump-iran-war-end-withdrawal\">Axios<\/a> the war would end soon because there\u2019s \u201cpractically nothing left to target.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This week on the The Intercept Briefing, host Akela Lacy talked to Majd and Turse about the latest developments in the U.S. and Israel war on Iran and the growing number of conflicts the U.S. is engaged in. Senior technology reporter <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/sambiddle\/\">Sam Biddle<\/a> also joined to discuss how artificial intelligence is being used in various U.S. conflicts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAirstrikes, air war generally is already so prone to killing innocent people even when you take your time. But whenever you try to hurry for the sake of hurrying \u2014 and AI is great at enabling that \u2014 you just increase over and over again the chance of killing someone that you didn\u2019t intend to or didn\u2019t care enough to avoid killing,\u201d says Biddle. \u201cSo I think that is an immense risk of just accelerating the metabolism of killing from the air by drone, by airplane \u2014 with the stamp of \u2018intelligence\u2019 that these AI companies are really pushing.\u201d<\/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\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-transcript-nbsp\"><strong>Transcript\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Akela Lacy: <\/strong>Welcome to The Intercept Briefing, I\u2019m Akela Lacy, senior politics reporter at The Intercept.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sam Biddle: <\/strong>And I\u2019m Sam Biddle, senior technology reporter at The Intercept.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL: <\/strong>Sam, this is your first time on The Intercept Briefing, correct?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> It is. I\u2019ve been at the Intercept for 10 years. I finally got the call. I\u2019m excited.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Akela Lacy:<\/strong> Welcome, we\u2019re very glad to have you.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB: <\/strong>Thank you so much.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL: <\/strong>On a serious note, as we speak, the U.S. is engaged in war and acts of aggression on multiple fronts from the Middle East to the Caribbean and Central America. You have been doing some really important reporting on how the Pentagon is using artificial intelligence in wars and surveillance around the world.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/politics\/national-security\/pentagon-used-anthropics-claude-in-maduro-venezuela-raid-583aff17?gaa_\">Wall Street Journal <\/a>reported that Claude, an AI tool from the company Anthropic, was used to capture now former Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, which set off a dispute between the company and the U.S. government, and opened the door for Anthropic\u2019s rival to swoop in. The Wall Street Journal also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/livecoverage\/iran-strikes-2026\/card\/u-s-strikes-in-middle-east-use-anthropic-hours-after-trump-ban-ozNO0iClZpfpL7K7ElJ2?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqchSCpgfqBZvboVFzn4Z_HTgBBCG1yFaBjMs-DrwRcF51Fmuav_Dqw_o3DdmeQ%3D&amp;gaa_ts=69b028ee&amp;gaa_sig=96NPuKWq80iSXzCJMlcxZ8FZUCi8k6gcbZ1LByp9BBIClLJxqZv1v6n49ZvaleKrt73ti4FAsOSnKnhRcrhFaA%3D%3D\">reported<\/a> that Trump has used those same tools in strikes on Iran. Tell us more.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> So what\u2019s been reported is that the Pentagon has made use of a system it has called the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2019\/03\/09\/anduril-industries-project-maven-palmer-luckey\/\">Maven<\/a> Smart System, which is operated by Palantir, the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/02\/15\/palantir-contract-new-york-city-health-hospitals\/\">semi-infamous<\/a> data <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/09\/12\/palantir-spy-nsa-snowden-surveillance\/\">mining firm<\/a>. We know based on multiple reports at this point that they\u2019re using the Maven system to essentially accelerate the selection and subsequent destruction of targets on the ground.<\/p>\n<p>This is a way of executing airstrikes at a greater speed potentially, not necessarily more intelligently or with greater accuracy, but I think just faster. And I think people at the Pentagon would probably say, more effectively, more efficiently finding things to destroy and people to kill.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cTarget selection is a labor-intensive task.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Target selection is a labor-intensive task. If you can have an LLM like Anthropic\u2019s Claude system \u2014 we\u2019ve all seen how quickly they can generate a huge wall of text, of questionable accuracy \u2014 can bring that same hyper-speed to creating lists of buildings to destroy and people to kill. I think that is proven to be the biggest value \u2014 not just to our military, but to militaries abroad as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL: <\/strong>Sam, what do we know about how the Pentagon is using AI tools in the Trump administration\u2019s various wars?<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> Under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, there has been a huge, very aggressive push to integrate AI really wherever and whenever possible.<\/p>\n<p>I think that you\u2019re seeing the Pentagon under Hegseth mimic a lot of <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/02\/empire-ai-sam-altman-colonialism\/\">tech industry rhetoric<\/a>, which is \u201cwe don\u2019t totally understand this technology. We don\u2019t totally know where it\u2019s got to be useful, but we need to use it as much as possible anyway.\u201d I think that you\u2019ve seen DOD under Hegseth be extremely aggressive in the cadence of airstrikes.<\/p>\n<p>This is a Pentagon that believes in killing people. I think, at times, it seems to sort of give itself things to tweet about. This is a political movement and an ideology guiding the Pentagon that I think relishes violence. These AI systems, when you want to blow things up and kill people, these tools can provide a very rapid, turnkey means of having a list of people and places to destroy.<\/p>\n<p>So what we know based on a recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2026\/03\/04\/anthropic-ai-iran-campaign\/\">Washington Post report<\/a> that was discussing the use of Anthropic\u2019s Claude system in Iran, was that it was not just used for target selection, but also target prioritization: Here are the most important targets to attack. Also, something that the Post described as sort of simulating battlefield outcomes. It\u2019s a little unclear what exactly that means. One can imagine just asking a chatbot to basically create a story about how an airstrike could play out. That\u2019s essentially what an LLM does, is generate text that\u2019s plausible based on the inputs. How exactly these simulations are playing out of what value they are, how accurate they are in terms of what might actually happen subsequently in real life is unknown.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThis is a Pentagon that believes in killing people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>To me and for the public, the most concerning aspect of what\u2019s been reported about the ongoing use of these LLMs by the Pentagon is the focus on speed. Airstrikes, air war generally is already so prone to killing innocent people even when you take your time. But whenever you try to hurry for the sake of hurrying, and AI is great at enabling that, you just increase over and over and over again the chance of killing someone that you didn\u2019t intend to or didn\u2019t care enough to avoid killing.<\/p>\n<p>So I think that is an immense risk of just accelerating the metabolism of killing from the air by drone, by airplane \u2014 with the stamp of \u201cintelligence\u201d that these AI companies are really pushing. If you blow up a school because Claude told you that it was actually an IED factory or whatever, you could say, \u201cOh, well, the super-smart computer told me to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL: <\/strong>It was the robot. It wasn\u2019t me. <\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> Exactly. We\u2019ve spent the past several years having the tech industry tell us how ultra-smart, ultra-intelligent these systems are. That\u2019s worrying enough when we\u2019re asking them to write our emails for us and do our homework for us. But again, this is the business of killing people. Mistakes are not just mistakes. I think that is now just the way wars are going to be fought, and that is a very troubling new reality.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThis is the business of killing people. Mistakes are not just mistakes. I think that is now just the way wars are going to be fought, and that is a very troubling new reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> Backing up a little bit. There is a fight right now between these companies and the government over how, if at all, their tools should be used. We know that they are being used. <\/p>\n<p>But can you tell us a little bit about what is in dispute here? It also sounds like there\u2019s some talk about guardrails being put in place, but we know that means very little in this context. Can you walk us through that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB: <\/strong>So the original controversy here was Anthropic, a leading rival of OpenAI. Some would say they have a better product at this point. They got into a dispute with the Pentagon over selling access to Claude, which is their AI chatbot system, akin to ChatGPT.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> But it has a human name.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> It does have a human name. Don\u2019t you love that? <\/p>\n<p>The company says that they did not want to permit the Department of Defense to use Claude for domestic surveillance of Americans and for killing people without human oversight. The Pentagon says this is woke nonsense, you\u2019re now banned from doing work with the government \u2014and then OpenAI enters.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> I will also note in 2024, The Intercept <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2024\/11\/22\/openai-intercept-lawsuit\/\">sued<\/a> OpenAI in federal court over the company\u2019s use of copyrighted articles to train its chatbot ChatGPT. The case is ongoing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SB:<\/strong> And this is where it gets very strange because OpenAI claims to have the same red lines as Anthropic, but somehow was able to seal a deal with the Pentagon.<\/p>\n<p>Both are very muddled when it comes to what they actually refuse to do. They seem to both want to say that, look, we\u2019re not going to do anything illegal and we\u2019re also not going to engage in these acts \u2014 autonomous killing and domestic surveillance \u2014 which are largely considered legal.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIt ultimately comes down to what they, what their lawyers decide is legal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Appealing to the law is no protection against these acts that the companies are saying that they will not facilitate. I wrote in a piece a few days ago, I think, ultimately, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/08\/openai-anthropic-military-contract-ethics-surveillance\/\">without being able to review the actual contract language for ourselves<\/a> and to have lawyers go through it carefully, it all just comes down to whether or not you trust the corporate leadership of OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as Pete Hegseth and the White House. It ultimately comes down to what they, what their lawyers decide is legal. We\u2019ve seen White House lawyers say a lot of things are legal: NSA spying, torture, et cetera. So that appeal to the law by these companies is not as reassuring as they want the public to believe it is.<\/p>\n<p>Just one note though: Even though Anthropic\u2019s deal with the Pentagon fell apart, the DOD is still able to use their technology through \u2014 it gets a little complicated here \u2014 Palantir\u2019s Maven Smart System software, which has Claude in it as a feature, rather than getting it straight from Anthropic.<\/p>\n<p>When you see headlines about Anthropic being banned or being rejected by the military, DOD can still use their software. It\u2019s a pretty nice loophole. So they are still very much in use.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ll also mention that the U.S.\u2013Israel war on Iran is also the first example of countries attacking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/data-centers-iran-strikes-uae-bahrain-tech-military-target-war-2026-3\">data centers<\/a> as an act of war, which Sam, you have some reporting coming out on in the future, so everyone look out for that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So to recap, the Trump administration appears to be at war with the world. The self-proclaimed \u201cpresident of peace\u201d has sent U.S. forces jumping from conflict to conflict from <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/09\/trump-venezuela-maduro-greg-grandin\/\">Venezuela<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/06\/podcast-trump-iran-israel-war\/\">Iran<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/04\/us-military-ecuador-trump\/\">Ecuador <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/02\/19\/more-u-s-troops-are-headed-to-nigeria\/\">more<\/a>. As our colleague Nick Turse, senior reporter for The Intercept, tells me on the podcast today, the U.S. has launched attacks in eight countries and killed civilians in two bodies of water \u2014 and made threats against five other nations. We also speak with Hooman Majd, an Iranian American journalist and contributor to NBC News, about the latest developments in the U.S. and Israel\u2019s war on Iran, which is ricocheting around the globe. This is our conversation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nick and Hooman, welcome to The Intercept Briefing\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hooman Majd: <\/strong>Thank you.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick Turse:<\/strong> Thanks for having me on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL: <\/strong>Hooman, the Israel\u2013U.S. war on Iran is stretching into another week. A new round of air bombardments hit throughout the country, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/liveblog\/2026\/3\/9\/iran-war-live-mojtaba-khamenei-named-supreme-leader-israel-bombs-tehran\">Al Jazeera<\/a> reported Monday evening, \u201cWe can say this is by far one of the most heavily intense nights in Tehran in terms of air bombardment.\u201d Secretary of War Pete Hegseth <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2026\/03\/10\/world\/iran-war-trump-us-israel\">promised<\/a>, \u201cThe most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes.\u201d Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped the Iranian people would oust the regime. The civilian death toll in Iran has reached about 1,300 people. To start, what are the latest developments, particularly over the last few days?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>HM:<\/strong> Last few days, I mean, it\u2019s heavy bombardment. That\u2019s what it is.<\/p>\n<p>Hegseth has, yes, said that it\u2019s going to be basically death and destruction from the air, and they\u2019re delivering that. Bombing \u2014 whether it was Israel or the United States, I don\u2019t know \u2014 but earlier this week, they <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/08\/dark-like-our-future-iranians-describe-scenes-of-catastrophe-after-tehrans-oil-depots-bombed\">bombed oil depots <\/a>in and around Tehran. There was black soot, oily rain falling on people\u2019s heads basically in Tehran.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve got Netanyahu telling people to rise up. Rise up how? Exactly how are they supposed to take control of a government that is so secure right now that it can go through the constitutional process of setting up its three-person council that rules Iran in the absence of a supreme leader, then elects a supreme leader by a majority of ayatollahs in person? Because the actual vote has to be in person and they were not blown up. So they obviously had a secure location to do this. How are the Iranian people supposed to do this? You\u2019ve got the Revolutionary Guards who are very powerful. They haven\u2019t shown any real fracture in their ranks. There\u2019s not been a split. The top leadership is there. The second tier of the leadership is there. The third tier of the leadership is there. How are people supposed to get out and go and take over the government?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s insane for someone like the prime minister of another country to say, \u201cWe\u2019re bombing the hell out of you, now please rise up and go take over your government.\u201d It defies logic.<\/p>\n<p>But to answer your question, what\u2019s been happening? It\u2019s just been war. It\u2019s an all-out war. They can call it a special operation. They can call it whatever they want. The Iranians recognize it as war. The death toll is rising among Iranians, but also among the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/03\/08\/politics\/us-service-member-killed-iran-war\">American servicemen and women<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The cost of this war is going up daily for everyone. It\u2019s turning into this kind of \u2014 oh, I won\u2019t call it a world war, that would be hyperbole \u2014 but way more countries are involved in this other than the U.S., Israel, and Iran.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> One of the first acts of aggression in this war was this strikes on this elementary school for girls in the southern Iranian town of Minab, which killed 175 people, mostly children, according to Iranian health offices. Trump blamed Iran for the bombing. But Nick, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/09\/iran-trump-hegseth-bomb-girls-school\/\">your reporting<\/a>, and reporting from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/05\/world\/middleeast\/iran-school-us-strikes-naval-base.html\">New York Times<\/a> and others, and new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bellingcat.com\/news\/2026\/03\/08\/video-shows-us-tomahawk-missile-strike-next-to-girls-school-in-iran\/\">video evidence<\/a> all suggest that the U.S. struck the school. What did your sources tell you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> Even before footage of a Tomahawk missile landing near the school emerged, I was talking to sources that were refuting claims by President Trump about this being an errant Iranian strike. He apparently seized on talking points that emerged in Iranian monarchy circles. They were spread on social media that this attack on the elementary school was an errant Iranian rocket. Or he just made it up. This is standard Trump behavior.<\/p>\n<p>But my sources \u2014 current government official, two former Pentagon officials who were experts in civilian harm, who worked on these issues for the Pentagon for years \u2014 said that the satellite imagery showed that <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/09\/iran-trump-hegseth-bomb-girls-school\/\">these weren\u2019t errant strikes, but they were precision attacks<\/a>. The angle of the weapon, the precise nature of the strike, the fact that the munitions came straight down from above, the fact that all the strikes in the general area looked the same, including those that hit buildings on the nearby Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps base \u2014 all this made it crystal clear that this was a U.S. or an Israeli attack.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that it was known that the U.S. carried out strikes in the specific area offered more evidence that America was behind this. And then this video emerged a couple days ago showing a Tomahawk missile landing in the area. <\/p>\n<p>Now, only the U.S., Britain, Australia, and the Netherlands use Tomahawks. Israel doesn\u2019t have them.\u00a0Despite mis- or disinformation that President Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/09\/us\/politics\/trump-iran-missile-school.html\">peddled<\/a> during a news conference on Monday, Iran does not have Tomahawks. Any country the U.S. sold Tomahawks to would have to obtain authorization from the State Department before transferring these sophisticated weapons to a third party. The U.K. is not going to sell Iran Tomahawk missiles.<\/p>\n<p>If Iran was somehow able to obtain a black-market Tomahawk \u2014 and let me emphasize, there\u2019s no such thing as black-market Tomahawk. There\u2019s no market for these. Iran lacks the technical equipment and the capabilities that are used to program the flight paths of these missiles and to upload the data necessary to the missiles onboard computer. They also need a specialized launcher to fire a Tomahawk. <\/p>\n<p>So Trump\u2019s assertion on Monday that the Tomahawk is some sort of generic munition and that Iran has some Tomahawks \u2014 it\u2019s absurd.\u00a0 The only party to this conflict that\u2019s firing off Tomahawks is the United States.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s also notable about this, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was standing right next to Trump when the president claimed that it was Iran that hit the school, and Hegseth would not endorse those comments.<\/p>\n<p>He said there was an ongoing investigation, and he issued a classic non-denial, denial taking Iran to task for targeting civilians. But the fact that he wouldn\u2019t back up his boss who was standing right next to him, I thought was very telling.<\/p>\n<p>Then I spoke to U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, oversees this war in Iran. They told me that to comment on any of this was getting ahead of an ongoing military investigation \u2014 which is precisely what President Trump did. They said it was just <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/09\/iran-trump-hegseth-bomb-girls-school\/\">inappropriate to do<\/a>. You don\u2019t often have a military spokesperson say that what the commander-in-chief has just done was inappropriate, but they did so in this case.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HM:<\/strong> Yeah, I mean it\u2019s really interesting, Nick. For Iranians, it reminds them of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2020\/01\/10\/middleeast\/iran-air-flight-655-us-military-intl-hnk\">USS Vincennes <\/a>shooting down an Iran air jet killing all passengers \u2014 civilian jet \u2014 in the Persian Gulf under George Bush Sr. at the time. And denials, denials, denials that it was us. And then, \u201cWell, it looked like an enemy aircraft, so we fired a missile.\u201d George Bush refused to apologize, but the U.S. did finally admit that it was an accidental shooting down of the passenger plane. And did actually end up paying reparations to Iran for that act.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It just adds to the litany of complaints or accusations that Iran throws at the United States for how the United States is the aggressor against Iran and not the other way around. There is a point to their claims that the U.S. will start aggression against Iran unprovoked.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In this particular case, there\u2019s very little evidence, if any at all, that Iran, as <a href=\"https:\/\/rollcall.com\/factbase\/trump\/transcript\/donald-trump-remarks-bilat-friedrich-merz-germany-march-3-2026\/#3\">President Trump has just said<\/a>, was about to attack the United States and therefore we had to attack them. There\u2019s literally no evidence. And if they do have the evidence, they really should provide it because the American people at this point are not particularly keen on this war and the approval will probably go down from what it is now, the <a href=\"https:\/\/poll.qu.edu\/poll-release?releaseid=3952\">approval ratings for being at war<\/a>, as we see more and more damage, as we see gas prices go up further, as we see American servicemen and women potentially lose their lives or be injured. And of course, our allies be continually attacked.<\/p>\n<p>Which by the way, I should add, I don\u2019t know why it\u2019s a surprise to anybody. Iran said this after the last Twelve Day War in June. They said, \u201cNext time, no more Mr. Nice Guy; we had restraint this time.\u201d It\u2019s that old joke, no more Mr. Nice Guy. They actually said it out loud, no one\u2019s going to be safe if we are attacked again by U.S., Israel, or both. They said it to the Persian Gulf States. They said it to Saudi Arabia, which is probably the reason those countries were so adamant in trying to get President Trump to not attack Iran because they knew that the blowback would be against them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> A couple of things I want to just pick up on here. Going to your point on provocation and the idea that the U.S. was somehow provoked to attack Iran. They\u2019ve already shown their hand on this. A couple days after the first strikes you had <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RapidResponse47\/status\/2028576202420535469\">Marco Rubio<\/a> blaming Israel for dragging the U.S. into the war. Then <a href=\"https:\/\/rollcall.com\/factbase\/trump\/transcript\/donald-trump-remarks-bilat-friedrich-merz-germany-march-3-2026\/#3\">Trump is walking that back <\/a>a couple days later. I think anyone who\u2019s paying attention \u2014 obviously, there are a lot of questions about what the communication was here, how much the U.S. was actually goaded into this over Israel. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a surprise that the neocons in the various administrations have been foaming at the mouth to go to war with Iran for a very long time. So I just want to make that point.<\/p>\n<p>You mentioned this regime change thing. I mean we\u2019ve talked about this <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/23\/podcast-iran-protests-greenland\/\">when you were last on the show<\/a>, Hooman. There\u2019s been additional reporting in the last few days, hammering home this idea that that is not on the table right now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HM:<\/strong> There\u2019s been a million different reasons or rationale given by the U.S. administration for starting this war \u2014\u00a0bounces back and forth from one thing to another. Just this week, Trump now is saying that Kushner and Witkoff and Rubio, and these guys were telling him we have to go to war otherwise \u2014 two real estate people were telling you to go to war? Really? Would any president of the United States say that? <\/p>\n<p>Jared Kushner doesn\u2019t have a job. Has no title whatsoever. Steve Witkoff has never talked about Iran his entire professional life and has no knowledge. I\u2019m not dissing him; I\u2019m just saying he has no knowledge of the nuclear issue. None whatsoever. Probably got a briefing from the State Department, one-hour briefing \u2014 this is what enrichment means, this is how they can do this, how they can do that \u2014 and gets thrown into negotiations while he\u2019s running back and forth from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/02\/26\/iran-nuclear-talks-geneva\">one negotiation to the Ukraine negotiations in Geneva<\/a> and taking Jared with him. It\u2019s an insane way to negotiate, but they did it. And so they, and this is what Donald Trump said this week, they \u2014 along with Marco Rubio and obviously Lindsey Graham, we know that \u2014 were pressing very hard for an attack on Iran, \u201cIran is the weakest that it\u2019s ever been.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According, again, to Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff told him that Iran could build a bomb in two weeks. How Steve Witkoff could even think that when there is no access right now to the nuclear material, let alone bomb making ability of Iran? It\u2019s just beyond belief. So it\u2019s insane.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The regime changed idea was clearly something that was in Donald Trump\u2019s mind. We go in \u2014 I\u2019m sure Lindsey Graham, Bibi Netanyahu, various people were telling him: Look, you did it in Venezuela. It\u2019s not that hard. Look at all the protests in January. These people want to overthrow the government. This is what they want to do. They\u2019re shouting \u201cDown with the regime.\u201d And they were brutally murdered. So all you have to do is just take out the supreme leader and bang, people will rise up.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Well, they took out the supreme leader, and people didn\u2019t rise up because bombs were falling on their heads. If that\u2019s all they had done, maybe some people would\u2019ve been coming out on the streets celebrating. There were some celebrations, but they stopped pretty quickly because you keep bombing people. They\u2019re going to care about their own lives, especially since there\u2019s no leader to take over to help overthrow the regime. Trump has already ruled out the former Crown Prince of Iran, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/13\/iran-reza-pahlavi-protests-israel\/\">Reza Pahlavi<\/a>. He himself has ruled himself out. He has no operations on the ground in Iran. His name is shouted by people when they protest a little bit because that\u2019s the only name they know. It doesn\u2019t mean that they want the monarchy to return.<\/p>\n<p>Then the MEK, as we know, are absolutely <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2020\/03\/22\/mek-mojahedin-e-khalq-iran\/\">despised<\/a> by 99 percent of the Iranian people. They have some ground operations in Iran, but again, not enough to overthrow the regime. They\u2019ve <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2023\/02\/11\/iran-protests-mek-congress-maryam-rajavi\/\">been trying<\/a> for 47 years, and they haven\u2019t been successful.<\/p>\n<p>So talking about regime change is meaningless. Most Iranians understand that. Iranians want the regime changed. That doesn\u2019t mean they want it overthrown, but they want it changed. No question about that. I would argue that there\u2019s a majority, but there\u2019s a minority \u2014 quite a strong minority, as we saw even from the images a couple of days ago, of crowds gathering to mourn the supreme leader\u2019s death. So if there\u2019s 10 percent, 20 percent of the population that are diehard supporters of the Islamic Republic, that\u2019s a significant number of people, significant enough \u2014 and they tend to be the people with the guns.<\/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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Trump also recently launched attacks on Ecuador. What can you tell us about the various countries the U.S. has attacked since Trump came into office this term and other conflicts that U.S. forces are involved in?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> Yeah, this is a president who ran for office promising to keep the United States out of wars, who claims to be a \u201cpeacemaker,\u201d who has campaigned for the Nobel Peace Prize and founded a <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/02\/trump-board-peace-human-right-abuses\/\">so-called Board of Peace<\/a> but President Trump is conducting wars across the globe at a furious clip. Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SenWarren\/status\/2029272280782512592\">Elizabeth Warren<\/a> said Trump has conducted more strikes in more countries than any modern president. I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s actually true. It really depends on what you call a strike, what you\u2019re counting. But during his second term, Trump has already launched attacks on Ecuador, two wars in <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/06\/23\/trump-iran-nuclear-strikes\/\">Iran<\/a>, attacks in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.centcom.mil\/MEDIA\/PRESS-RELEASES\/Press-Release-View\/Article\/4121311\/centcom-forces-kill-isis-chief-of-global-operations-who-also-served-as-isis-2\/\">Iraq<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/12\/25\/trump-nigeria-isis-attacks-airstrikes\/\">Nigeria<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/02\/04\/trump-airstrike-somalia\/\">Somalia<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.centcom.mil\/MEDIA\/PRESS-RELEASES\/Press-Release-View\/Article\/4074572\/centcom-forces-kill-an-al-qaeda-affiliate-hurras-al-din-leader-in-northwest-syr\/\">Syria<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/03\/venzuela-war-nicolas-maduro-airstrikes-caracas-trump\/\">Venezuela<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/03\/26\/signal-chat-yemen-strike\/\">Yemen<\/a>. He\u2019s attacked <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/collections\/license-to-kill\/\">civilians in boats<\/a> in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration also claims to be at war with at least 24 drug cartels and criminal gangs, who, I should add, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/11\/07\/trump-dto-list-venezuela-boat-strikes\/\">it won\u2019t name<\/a>. It\u2019s also threatened <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cwygjvkvpgro\">Colombia<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/02\/25\/cuba-florida-speedboat-attack\/\">Cuba<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/14\/trump-greenland-denmark-nato\/\">Greenland<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/21\/trump-davos-iceland-greenland\/\">Iceland<\/a> \u2014 I think, inadvertently, caught flack from Greenland \u2014 and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/02\/23\/trump-el-mencho-mexico-cartel\/\">Mexico<\/a>. The Trump administration is threatening some sort of takeover of <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/02\/20\/podcast-trump-cuba\/\">Cuba<\/a> at this very moment.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIt seems to me that U.S. involvement in raids against so-called narco-terrorist targets was more than just passing along intel.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>There have been at least two attacks inside Ecuador, both of them since the second Iran war started. It\u2019s unclear as to the extent of U.S. involvement in this. A lot of outlets initially reported that the U.S. simply provided intelligence to Ecuadorian forces. I specifically did not. A lot is unclear, but it seems to me that U.S. involvement in raids against so-called narco-terrorist targets was more than just passing along intel.<\/p>\n<p>I believe this even more following a very strange war powers report that the Trump administration sent to Congress on Monday regarding the recent partnered U.S. operations in Ecuador. It says specifically, although present for this partnered operation, the United States ground forces did not come in contact with hostile forces. Mere mention of U.S. ground forces in connection with this operation raises red flags for me. And the fact that the administration actually filed this war powers report with Congress suggests to me that U.S. forces themselves took kinetic action, that it wasn\u2019t just Ecuadorian forces. So I think there may have been U.S. forces on the ground and that the U.S. possibly conducted lethal strikes there, much like the boat strikes in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean that have killed close to 160 civilians since September.<\/p>\n<p>My sources say that these strikes in Ecuador are the opening salvo of a larger campaign in that country and also elsewhere in Latin America. So I\u2019d stay tuned on that.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThe fact that the administration actually filed this war powers report with Congress suggests to me that U.S. forces themselves took kinetic action, that it wasn\u2019t just Ecuadorian forces.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> I\u2019m just got to list these out for people. You mentioned Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, civilians boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, the 24 unnamed cartels and criminal gangs and threats, to Columbia, Cuba, Greenland, Iceland, and Mexico.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HM:<\/strong> What about Canada?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> We haven\u2019t even talked about Canada.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> Yes, our 51st state in the making.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HM:<\/strong> Yeah, by force if necessary.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> If necessary, yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> Going back to Iran, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.war.gov\/News\/Transcripts\/Transcript\/Article\/4418959\/secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-and-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-of-staff-gen-dan\/\">said<\/a> \u201cAmerica, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history.\u201d Can you tell us more about how the U.S. is conducting this war on Iran? What does that actually mean? What does that look like?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> Lethal is certainly right, lethal to the Iranian security forces, but also to innocence \u2014 men, women, and children. The U.S. has been <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2024\/05\/13\/pentagon-civilian-deaths-drone-strike\/\">killing civilians from aircraft<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2023\/11\/12\/america-wars-bombing-killing-civilians\/\">more than 100 years<\/a>, and lying about it, covering up, trying to explain it away, so that part is par for the course. Killing civilians is a hallmark of American air war. <\/p>\n<p>This particular campaign \u2014 \u201cOperation Epic Fury\u201d \u2014 is set apart by the relentlessness of the attacks. There was a new investigation by <a href=\"https:\/\/airwars.org\/record-pace-of-strikes-in-iran-bombing-campaign-analysis\/\">Air Wars<\/a>, which is a U.K.-based airstrike monitoring group. And it found that the first days of this Iran war saw far more sites targeted than any recent U.S. or Israeli military campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The moniker \u201cOperation Epic Fury\u201d is ridiculous and bellicose. But there\u2019s some perverse truth to this name because in the first 100 hours of this war the U.S. and Israel said that they struck more targets in Iran than in the first six months of the U.S. led coalition\u2019s bombing campaign of the so-called Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, which was a formidable campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The two militaries \u2014 U.S. and Israel \u2014 combined were striking a conservative estimate of 1,000 targets per day in the first days of the conflict. Around 4,000 targets were hit in the first 100 hours of the campaign. For another point of comparison, Israeli attacks in the recent Gaza war were also relentless, but this far outpaces the Israeli campaign by more than double the number of strikes. It\u2019s going to be a while, I think before the full civilian toll of this war is clear, if we ever really find out. Official Iranian sources say it\u2019s creeping up on 1,500 or more killed, but it may actually be higher.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While the true rate of civilian harm can\u2019t solely be predicted by the number of targets that are hit, the initial indication suggests it\u2019s been high, and I should add that U.S. targets have been correlated with heavily populated areas. So we have to assume that we\u2019ll come to find out that large number of civilians have been killed and will continue to be killed before this war is over.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HM:<\/strong> The kind of war that is being waged on Iran, generally speaking, the Iranian Red Cross, or Red Crescent in Iran\u2019s case, has been pretty accurate in terms of what they\u2019ve reported. As Nick pointed out, it\u2019s probably under-reporting right now. We do know there\u2019s rubble in parts of the city of Tehran. Tehran, a city of more than 9 million, probably closer to 10 or 11 million people, densely populated, very densely populated.<\/p>\n<p>For anybody who\u2019s been there or even looked at a satellite image, they\u2019ll see you cannot strike a building in Tehran and not kill someone who is unintended, an unintended target. Iran is not making this stuff up. They\u2019re busy trying to protect themselves, trying to fire as many missiles as possible to try to bring an end to this war in a way by causing pain for not just America, but for American allies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A lot of people complain and say Iran is breaking international law by attacking countries that have nothing to do with this war. That\u2019s probably true. It is probably against international law what Iran is doing, but so is the war that the United States and Israel started on Iran. That\u2019s also against international law. So it\u2019s a complete break of the so-called international order.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> I just want to add some context for our listeners. You\u2019re mentioning these attacks by Iran on U.S. allies. Since the war began, Iran <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/01\/world\/middleeast\/iran-strikes-us-military-facilities.html\">retaliated<\/a> against the U.S.-Israel attacks by targeting U.S. military bases in Bahrain, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and three sites in Kuwait. Israel has also been attacking southern Lebanon where it says it\u2019s targeting Hezbollah and seizing land, displacing at least <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/3\/4\/israeli-attacks-threats-fuel-mass-displacement-crisis-in-southern-lebanon\">80,000 people<\/a> so far. Lebanon\u2019s government has now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cd9g5p3ppxlo\">asked Israel to talk<\/a> and blamed Hezbollah for attacks [on Israel].\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Iran\u2019s strategy appears to be also targeting Israel and Gulf energy sites. Iran blocked oil and gas exports through 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 attacked several oil tankers. Energy sites in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Oman have also reported damage from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/3\/4\/which-oil-and-gas-facilities-in-the-gulf-have-been-attacked\">Iranian drones<\/a>. Last week, U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, reported that the <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CENTCOM\/status\/2028983418801803741\">U.S. had destroyed Iran\u2019s navy<\/a>, and that there are no Iranian ships underway in the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman, and the Arabian Gulf. But fighting has continued to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2026\/03\/10\/world\/iran-war-trump-us-israel\">slow ship traffic <\/a>through the Strait of Hormuz.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Last week, President Donald Trump said the war could last weeks. On <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/liveblog\/2026\/3\/9\/iran-war-live-mojtaba-khamenei-named-supreme-leader-israel-bombs-tehran\">Monday<\/a>, Trump now says the war could end very soon after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/03\/08\/stock-market-today-live-updates.html\">oil prices jumped<\/a> significantly and this conflict spooked the markets. For both of you, do you think that impact on the markets will actually motivate Trump to end U.S. involvement in the war?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT:<\/strong> It\u2019s always difficult to gauge where this administration is at and you know what the president is thinking. This is a wildly unpopular war, and I think the longer it goes on, the more we\u2019ll see whatever bare minimum of public support exists continue to drop. So if Americans continue to feel pain at the pump, I think there is a chance that it could hasten an end to this conflict.<\/p>\n<p>The trouble is it\u2019s really difficult to gauge what the goals of this conflict were. I\u2019m also not sure what impact public sentiment has on Trump at this point. It may take billionaire friends of his calling him, telling them that they\u2019re starting to feel pain for him to decide to wrap up this conflict.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, we heard that the conflict was almost over while the stock market was in session, and then afterward we heard that the war might go on for a week more, or maybe as long as it takes \u2014 unclear what that means. It does, at some points, appear the president\u2019s trying to manipulate the markets with his statements.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIt does, at some points, appear the president\u2019s trying to manipulate the markets with his statements.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>HM:<\/strong> I would agree with that, Nick. I also would say some of his friends in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and places like that. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jan\/22\/boeing-jet-trump-qatari-royal-family-delivery\">Qatar just gave him <\/a>a <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/10\/11\/qatar-trump-gaza-ceasefire\/\">$400 million plane<\/a>, and they\u2019re not particularly interested in this war going on.<\/p>\n<p>But what I want to add to this is that Trump may be looking for an off-ramp right now. Obviously, the war\u2019s not going the way he expected. So looking for an off-ramp means the Iranians have to be willing to offer one. They\u2019re very adamant in every interview the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/show\/irans-araghchi-calls-u-s-strikes-a-failure-and-vows-to-fight-as-long-as-it-takes\">foreign minister<\/a> has given, every X post that one of the other leaders \u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/features\/2026\/3\/3\/who-is-ali-larijani-the-iranian-official-promising-a-lesson-to-the-us\">\u00a0Larijani<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/international\/5776816-iran-israel-infrastructure-war\/\">Ghalibaf<\/a> \u2014 make is: We\u2019re not interested even talking to you and let alone a ceasefire. We\u2019re not interested in a ceasefire.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThis one is really existential.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>If you look at that carefully, and if you know the Iranians, you understand where they\u2019re coming from since the Twelve Day War back in June, is that this one is really existential. That one wasn\u2019t existential. That one they could show some restraint and then maybe talk to Trump and figure out how to make this nuclear deal. As we know they did, they started talking about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Now it\u2019s like, this is going to happen every six months, if we stop the war. If we go to a ceasefire, six months from now it\u2019s going to be the same thing. Our new supreme leader will be assassinated, and then we have to start all over again. So this time, we\u2019re not going to give him that opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>What it appears they are doing is bringing as much pain as possible so that when Trump, without begging, looks for an off ramp, Iran then says, sure, but I want these sanctions removed. I\u2019ll give you that off ramp, but you\u2019ve got to give me a non-aggression pact, and you\u2019ve got to give me some of these sanctions because I need to fix my country, and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2023\/06\/12\/iran-sanctions-medicine\/\">I can\u2019t do it with the sanctions you\u2019ve got<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Then it\u2019s a question of whether the U.S. and how Israel factors into this. Trump we know is fine with dictators. He\u2019s totally fine with it. He\u2019ll be totally fine with Mojtaba Khamenei as the new supreme leader. The question is really what will Trump do at a point where it appears that the U.S. wants to get out of this war he wants to get out, even if Hegseth doesn\u2019t, and Lindsey Graham doesn\u2019t, but he wants out? Gas is at $6 a gallon in California at that point, $7 a gallon in some places. And people are crying saying, wait a sec, this is not what we counted on. Then Iran is in the driver\u2019s seat at that point. Did he ever think that could ever happen?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not trying to advocate for Iran\u2019s position. I\u2019m saying they\u2019re playing it well, if you think about it, they are playing it well. It\u2019s like yeah, we\u2019re just got to keep going. It\u2019s fine. We can handle it. Foreign Minister of Iran on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/world\/iran\/irans-foreign-minister-rejects-calls-ceasefire-continue-fighting-rcna262291\">NBC News<\/a>, on \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LLDRo7n10fI\">Meet the Press<\/a>\u201d: Ground troops, bring \u2019em on. We\u2019re ready. We\u2019re ready for them. They probably are prepared for ground troops.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey doesn\u2019t want this war right on their border. Iraq doesn\u2019t want this war right on their border. Kuwait doesn\u2019t want it, we know. And all the other Persian Gulf countries don\u2019t want it. And I think they\u2019re, all the Persian Gulf countries, in all the other countries are very worried that this is not regime change. And the regime will be in power, and the regime can threaten them again. Everyone will, in my mind, will want an end to this war that includes a strong sense that this won\u2019t happen every six months. And then the question really becomes, what are the Israelis going to do? What\u2019s Netanyahu \u2014 how is he gonna sell the end to the war?<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cEveryone will, in my mind, will want an end to this war that includes a strong sense that this won\u2019t happen every six months.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> We know that on the question of ground troops, Trump has sent conflicting messages saying he hasn\u2019t ruled out sending <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/defense\/5775954-trump-pentagon-conflict-us-iran\/\">ground troops <\/a>into Iran. We also know that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/03\/08\/politics\/us-service-member-killed-iran-war\">seven U.S. soldiers<\/a> have already been killed in the war, and as we\u2019re recording, news broke that about <a href=\"http:\/\/v\">140 U.S. troops have been wounded<\/a> in the war, including eight severely, according to the Pentagon.<\/p>\n<p>Hooman, to your earlier point on the Trump administration\u2019s expectations, as you mentioned over the weekend in Iran, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba, was named his successor. Trump told reporters at a press conference he was disappointed. Briefly, what can you tell us about the new supreme leader?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>HM:<\/strong> He was the second oldest son of the supreme leader who had a few other sons and daughters. Very little is known about him personally because he\u2019s been behind the scenes, but known to be very close to the supreme leader, his closest adviser actually, and very close to the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who are the most powerful military force in Iran; and the Basij, who are the paramilitaries force under the IRGC. He is known among Iranians to have basically created that very close connection between the supreme leader\u2019s office and the revolutionary guards.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>One thing we have to remember is that when Ayatollah Khamenei, his father, took over, he was considered a weak supreme leader. He didn\u2019t have the same authority either \u2014 political or religious authority \u2014 that [Ruhollah] Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic had.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also good to remember that the supreme leader is not the supreme leader of Iran. His title is the Supreme Leader of the <em>Revolution<\/em> \u2014 the Islamic Revolution. And it\u2019s also good to remember that the military force, the IRGC, are not the Islamic Revolutionary Guards of Iran. They\u2019re the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of the <em>Revolution<\/em>. They\u2019re the guardians of the revolution. So those two, that connection, that tight connection has meant that it\u2019s always been something that any future supreme leader would try to maintain. Since Mojtaba already had that connection, one of his closest people inside the guards is the former intelligence chief for the IRGC.<\/p>\n<p>Mojtaba was known \u2014 at least whether it\u2019s true or not, because we don\u2019t know, we can\u2019t tell \u2014 [to be] behind the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/10\/world\/middleeast\/iran-supreme-leader-secretive-office.html\">manipulation of votes<\/a> or whatever you want to call it, to have the second term of Ahmadinejad to be president for a second term. On a personal level, people don\u2019t really know him. Everybody in Iran knows who he is because he\u2019s been talked about for years and years as being the closest person to the supreme leader.<\/p>\n<p>He hasn\u2019t shown up yet. There were rumors that he was killed in the first strike on his father. There were rumors that he\u2019s injured, and if he was injured, I can imagine why he wouldn\u2019t want to be seen as the new supreme leader in a hospital bed, for example, if that\u2019s the case.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cNetanyahu and Donald Trump killed his dad, killed his mom, killed his wife, killed his sister, killed his niece in one strike.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>How will he command as the supreme leader, if you want to call it that? It\u2019s hard to say, but Netanyahu and Donald Trump killed his dad, killed his mom, killed his wife, killed his sister, killed his niece in one strike, and potentially injured him. He\u2019s not got to be keen on Donald Trump and on the United States, and he\u2019s definitely not going to be keen on Israel either.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s also probably quite pragmatic. He\u2019s 56 years old. I don\u2019t think he wants to be assassinated. I don\u2019t think he wants war for the long term. I\u2019m sure he wants to continue this war, as we were talking earlier about Iran\u2019s strategy, to go as long as they can to put pressure on Trump and on all the allies, but I don\u2019t think in the long term he wants to commit suicide of any kind and or anything like that.<\/p>\n<p>But he\u2019s going to be a hard-liner. He\u2019s considered to be hard-line, in some cases, more hard-line than his father. One thing that opens up for him is the fatwa that his father supposedly people talk about as prohibiting the building or use of nuclear weapons as being against Islam. He could arguably reverse that. He could arguably have his own fatwa.<\/p>\n<p>So I think we\u2019re in a very dangerous place right now in terms of what could happen in the future. Iran could certainly look at North Korea and say nobody\u2019s threatening North Korea and they have missiles \u2014 nuclear missiles that can hit California. I think there\u2019s a lot of things we don\u2019t know what can happen in the future, what can Mojtaba do.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Israel has already threatened to assassinate him or actually said they\u2019re going to assassinate him. Trump has already said he should be careful. He\u2019s not going to last long, meaning the U.S. is also potentially looking to assassinate him. Clearly he\u2019s not got to be running around the streets of Tehran.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s only ever been seen in a few photographs, and he only ever comes out in the past publicly for the rallies which celebrate the birth of the Islamic Republic. He\u2019s never given a speech, to my knowledge; he will have to as supreme leader, but he has not done so yet. So we don\u2019t really know \u2014 the long answer to that. We really don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> I know you have a forthcoming piece in the <a href=\"https:\/\/lareviewofbooks.org\/article\/iran-united-states-war-2026-diaspora-hooman-majd\/\">Los Angeles Review of Books<\/a>. I want to ask you, as we\u2019re wrapping here, for your personal hopes for the future and thoughts on where this all goes, speaking as an Iranian exile.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HM:<\/strong> My hopes are always for Iran to be a democratic country, rule of law, have the people \u2014 it sounds clich\u00e9, but have people have freedom and freedom to choose their own leaders, not to be imposed from outside, not to be bombed, and not to be at war with anyone. And also to not suffer from economic sanctions that <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2023\/06\/12\/iran-sanctions-medicine\/\">make the lives of the people miserable<\/a>, hardly make the lives of whatever regime is in power miserable. That\u2019s been proven. Regimes don\u2019t change because of sanctions. All it does is immiserate the people. So that\u2019s what I want for Iran. Whether that\u2019s possible or not, I don\u2019t know, but in terms of hope.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-right\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cRegimes don\u2019t change because of sanctions. All it does is immiserate the people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>There\u2019s so many different things that can happen. War upends a lot of other kinds of predictions that we may have had in the past. The Iranians certainly thought at the last meeting they had in Geneva between the Iranian Foreign Minister and Witkoff and Kushner, that they thought things were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/02\/26\/iran-nuclear-talks-geneva\">moving ahead<\/a> and they were going to have a deal.<\/p>\n<p>They were sending their technical team to Vienna for the following week to go through the technical aspects of how this deal was going to work. What we do know, and this is not me, this has been printed and reported on that what Iran was willing to offer the United States was better \u2014 far better \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/news\/mediator-says-iran-has-made-major-nuclear-program-concessions-to-trump\">than the deal that President Obama<\/a> was able to make with Iran in 2015, 2016. Trump, we now know, could have taken that and said, I did better than Obama, but chose not to.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The hope for some Iranians was that with a nuclear deal out of the way, sanctions perhaps being lifted, that the regime would change a little bit, if not completely into something different, but at least loosen up, meet the demands of the people, but that wasn\u2019t to be as we know now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> We\u2019re going to leave it there.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you, Nick and Hooman for joining me on The Intercept Briefing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HM:<\/strong> Thank you. Thank you for having me.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>NT: <\/strong>Thanks so much.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AL:<\/strong> 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=\"https:\/\/join.theintercept.com\/donate\/Donate_Podcast?source=interceptedshoutout&amp;recurring_period=one-time\">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. 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\/11\/podcast-trump-ai-world-wars\/mailto:podcasts@theintercept.com\">podcasts@theintercept.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Until next time, I\u2019m Akela Lacy.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/11\/podcast-trump-ai-world-wars\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the last few days, President Donald Trump has said that the U.S-Israel war on Iran will end soon, after oil prices jumped and the growing regional conflict continued to shake markets. After a wave of heavy bombardments throughout Iran, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth promised another round, \u201cThe most fighters, the most bombers, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4651","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\/4651","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=4651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}