Decades ago, Professor Robert Pape had a clear vision of the Iranian disaster, and he warned against the escalation trap into which President Trump is falling.
No, he's not a psychopath, prepared to perpetuate propaganda to please other psychopaths. Instead he's a man of principle who tells the truth.
The historical record shows that the United States has been the world's leading sponsor of terrorism—including state terrorism conducted by and through itself—since 1945, responsible for the highest number of military and civilian deaths through direct actions and proxy wars. These are not isolated incidents but patterns of indiscriminate violence and intentional war crimes against civilian populations to achieve political and military objectives, which meet any reasonable definition of terrorist acts.
During World War II, the U.S. engaged in carpet bombing of civilian cities in Japan (most notoriously the firebombing of Tokyo) and Germany, deliberately targeting non-combatant populations to break morale. This was followed by the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction—the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—which killed tens of thousands of civilians instantly and caused untold suffering for generations. In the Korean War (1950–1953), U.S. forces conducted relentless carpet bombing of North Korean civilian cities for three years, destroying dams and infrastructure in ways that threatened mass starvation; historians estimate 2–3 million dead, the vast majority civilians. As the many historical investigations of United States war crimes have documented, these were not collateral damage but systematic campaigns of aerial terror, including deliberate “no prisoners” policies, massacres of refugees (such as No Gun Ri), and the intentional targeting of populated areas to force surrender—classic hallmarks of terrorism when carried out by non-state actors, yet normalized when done by a superpower.
The scale is staggering. Since 1945, the United States has been responsible for the highest number of military and civilian deaths worldwide:
• Korea (1950–1953): ~2–3 million dead, mostly civilians from bombing and ground warfare.
• Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia (1955–1975): ~3–4 million civilians and combatants, including mass bombing campaigns like Operation Rolling Thunder and the Secret War in Laos.
• Iraq (1990–2011): ~1–1.5 million dead, including over 500,000 children from 1990s sanctions and post-2003 violence.
• Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia (2001–present): ~400,000+ civilians directly killed, with over 3 million total deaths including indirect causes. Proxy support for conflicts in Chile, Guatemala, Indonesia, Angola, El Salvador, Colombia added hundreds of thousands more deaths.
This pattern extends to unconditional U.S. military aid and diplomatic cover for Israeli actions, including support tied to causes and groups with documented terrorist histories. Examples include:
• Irgun Zvai Leumi (Etzel): A pre-state Zionist underground group that used violence against Arab populations and British forces in the 1930s–1940s, including the 1946 King David Hotel bombing.
• Lehi (Stern Gang): A militant group that broke from the Irgun and carried out assassinations and bombings against British officials and Arab civilians.
• Kach and Kahane Chai: Far-right, extremist groups founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane, labeled terrorist organizations by Israel, the U.S., and the EU due to violence against Arabs.
• TNT (Terror Neged Terror): A 1970s–80s extremist group that carried out attacks against Palestinian targets.
In the current context (2023–present), U.S.-supplied weapons have been used in densely populated areas of Gaza, where over 70,000 Palestinians have been killed—actions for which international bodies and human rights groups view the U.S. as complicit through continued arms transfers.
These are not defenses of any other nation’s actions; they are simply a call for intellectual consistency. If we label non-state or adversarial actors as terrorists for far smaller-scale violence, we must apply the same standard to the world’s most powerful state when it has repeatedly used mass civilian targeting as policy. The U.S. is, by the numbers and the methods, the leading terrorist actor, and nation of war criminals, on the global stage—sponsoring itself above all.
The U.S. has struck roughly 600 schools and 300 hospitals, clinics, and medical centres across Iran, according to multiple independent tallies. Hundreds of schools. Dozens of health facilities. Thousands of kids and civilians. If those strikes were tried at Nuremberg the way the Nazis were tried, POTUS Trump, Hegseth, and Netanyahu would all hang.
Plenty of Americans are defending the mass killing of children because they had the misfortune of living in the wrong postcode. They ask why schools are close to military installations that the schoolchildren's fathers work at, even though the U.S. also sites schools close to military installations. That’s hypocrisy. That’s a performance. Classic narcissist move—exactly the personality profile that thousands of mental-health professionals (Brandy X. Lee and her peers) have attributed to POTUS Trump, and the same one that almost certainly applies to Hegseth and the American deity, Bibi Netanyahu.
Psychopaths omit the human cost. Psychopaths talk in abstractions. Psychopaths always find a way to blame the victims for standing too close to the target.
Same stupid propaganda and logic of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and other smaller conflicts. You guys fall for it every single time. Iran would never try and send a nuke to the US. They would be completely destroyed. They want nukes because Isreal has them.
Vietnam was senseless which is why I spent 5 years protesting and organizing against it. Iran is an existential threat. Read my essay and I will spell it out for you. I'm an old Perennial Hippie so it is rare that I would support a war. This war essentially chose us.
To put it simply, we could not allow Iran Nuclear Weapons and ICBM’s to launch their missiles at the US or the EU.
Old hippies are the new Neocons, sir. For some reason, it has affected your lot. Iran wants a nuke because of Israel. Machiavelli once described a tactic of creating a large base, as big as a country, to control a region. This is exactly what the US has created in Israel, and now they have a madman running that country who believes he is fulfilling biblical prophecy. You can look up his speech on the account of the Amalakites, whom God told Israel to completely destroy, even their children and animals. Iran knows throwing a nuke at the EU or US is assured destruction. Iran wants a nuke because the American-made Israel has them. The WMD propaganda has been dusted off for 2026.
I'm neither a Neocon or a Zionist. I was against the invasion of Iraq for many reasons including the fact they didn't really have WMDs. Iran already has ballistic missiles that could hit London and Paris today. Those ARE WMDs. Couple that with Iran's Islamic Death Cult Ideology and . . . yeah we have a problem that must be solved. And the Iranians were originally Persian Zoroaster's. The majority of Iranians don't want to live under an Islamic Theocracy. Neither would I. Most Hippies I've known are also Constitutionalists who hold freedom of speech, freedom of religion and, finally, freedom from religion.
It is now that USrael assassinated the Supreme Leader of Iran that issued a fatwa prohibiting manufacturing nuclear weapons. Iran hasn't attacked anyone since before the USA was created. Now that Khamenei is dead, assassinated during negotiations in which Iran had agreed to giving up enrichment of nuclear materials to the point they could be used to make weapons, his son, the new Supreme Leader, will not make that mistake that killed his father.
You are the existential threat. You here demonstrably employ DARVO - Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender - psychological manipulation to deceive and render to submission anyone that does not understand that USrael is the cause of the Strait of Hormuz, and now the Bab al Mandeb, being closed, of the shocks to supply chains and the economic destruction being imposed on the world today, because these were absolutely certain consequences of attacking Iran.
Invading Iran is unavoidable for you pathological cultists intent on rendering humanity to possession or the grave for your fun and profit. Turning every civil society in the world into copies of Gaza is unavoidable, too, because your masters mean to own mankind, and no one capable of reason and action will submit to the pedovores you serve. If we listen to you, global genocide just can't be avoided.
However it ends the US is justified to stop Iran from getting ICBMs and nuclear weapons that WILL be used against the US. This is a very serious endeavor and must be carefully executed. Ground troops should be used very sparingly.
You don't have a great grasp on history either:
"Iran hasn't attacked anyone since before the USA was created."
You seem to have forget Khobar Towers (1996) where Iranian proxy Hezbollah killed 7 American soldiers and wounded over 146. And that is just an example of what you seem to forget. How about all the US soldiers killed by IEDs in Iraq: also due to Hezbollah, Hamas and other radical Muslim groups.
At the end of the day the real problem is Islam itself which is incompatible with Judeo Christian values: Islam treats women and non-Muslims as inferior, as Kaffers and Dhimmis. This virus has spread into both the EU, the US and all First World Nations. You should read me series of essays on the subject. You don't have a foggy clue as to the threat Islam represents.
So, Phil, why hasn't Israel just deployed them and solved this problem in the last 30 years? and, since they have them and have not SENT them, why would Iran STILL need nukes. . . at all. If Israel wanted them dead, they would already BE.
Iran mullahs want them because THEY want to be the ones who fire FIRST, just biding their time. They have ALWAYS SAID death to Israel and the US and they always meant it.
Just needed to have the nukes in hand. . . and they were "this" close.
Iranians never chanted Death to America until we foisted the Shah on them, against their will. If another country forced their chosen leaders on the USA, I'd be out there chanting death to them, and maybe you would be too. Doesn't mean either of us would start a nuclear war with them, if we had nukes to use. We'd sure as heck want them as a deterrent against any more such atrocities though. I usually agree with you, respectfully disagree on this. I do see your side, I just don't buy it.
Of course there is no way to KNOW for sure about any of this.
We are all simply speculating from our own little world views incapable of seeing anything but that scene outside our own self-constructed, warped portholes viewing:
Only since the CIA, MI6, and Mossad overthrew their government and then funded Iraq to attack it after they successfully regained self-government. Your ignorance of the historical record leaves you a groveling toady to cruel masters that will destroy you and everything you love.
I'd love to see all the morons in the entire globe cured of God delusions but why is invading Pakistan and North Korea not unavoidable? The U.S. carpet bombed North Korean civilian cities for 3 years in the 1950s, with the result that the North Koreans now 70 years later not only have a visceral hatred for Americans and would love to annihilate them off the face of the earth but may actually have the capacity to do so. The U.S. has more sadistic, narcissistic psychopaths and war criminals than any other nation on earth so why is the U.S. not doing anything about this? Why, apart from the fact that Americans are notoriously gutless and yellow, is the U.S. allowing North Korea to have a nuclear weapon? Evidence from Tulsi Gabbard and numerous others indicates that the Iranians were not pursuing a nuclear weapon. There was a fatwa against it, just like the fatwa for the execution of Salman Rushdie. Now that the U.S. has murdered the relative moderates and they have been replaced with more hardline theocrats it appears there may soon be a fatwa for, rather than against, nuclear weapons. Typical Americans. Not merely psychopaths bur dumb psychopaths.
That's pretty much you. You're incapable of answering the questions and rebutting the argument. The US constitution, alone among all the constitutions in the world, courtesy of the founding fathers, contains a "right to sodomy" (SCOTUS: Lawrence v. Texas, 2004). Being probably a typical pretty-red, old guy, you've spread your ass cheeks too many times and neuro syphilis has damaged the 2 neurons that pass for your brain.
"Whether you love him or hate him, Trump speaks for the state and the state is preparing for war at home, which always happens when empires fray and disintegrate." (Karen Kwiatkowski, Trump’s Iran War: Worse Than Expected, But Better Than Hoped?”) Connect it to the latest news about his seeking 152 million for refurbishing Alcatraz and converting it into a high security prison.
Absolutely, Bruce. The delusional narrow minded, grabbing for poor accounting data and lack or poor critical thought is appalling. This article alone citing a theory based upon conventional weapons knowledge of the 90's and prior and not taking 30 plus years of technological development and new strategy/tactical deployment into consideration is...foolish.
That's not a bad idea. But Pakistan is a secondary threat compare with Iran. As I said in my essays we need Global De-Islamification. This Islamic ideology is a threat to all of us.
EXCELLENT! Thank you, thank you for your truth telling!! A very rare American who has escaped indoctrination and possesses their own mind and the ability to think critically. See my comments which directly coincide with yours.
Read about Diem since you mentioned the war in Vietnam where the United States ended up fighting a war to keep a papal regime in power over noncatholic South Vietnam because of the connivance of MacNamara and the failure of the French . North Vietnam could have been decimated by a united and free South Vietnam but instead , it was run by a Mafia.
You accuse the United States of being the greatest perpetrator of terrorism? Look at the Vatican and Islam first. For centuries they promoted brutal conquests, enslavement, and extermination. They rival each other.
Hey, old guy, MacManara admitted in a video and a book he wrote that they were wrong. Vietnam was not a communist takeover; it was a civil war. We lost over 50k of the US service men, and we still are paying interest on the war debt. Over a civil war. So stupid, but you guys never learn, and here we are again.
You might be "awake", but you're also a poorly-educated propagandist. Sure, you have lots of facts, dates, names, and figures. But you lack an OVERALL UNDERSTANDING of the "big picture". You can't see the forest for the trees. You're telling us everything about each of the trees in this forest, and assuming that explains the forest as a whole. But you're off in your perspective. Look at Germany's invasion of Russia in WW2. You are taking as FACT that Germany wanted to "conquer" Russia. But did it REALLY? Or was Germany's intention to only create the appearance of that intention? You DO realize that "Pearl Harbor" was NOT a "sneak attack"? The U.S. was very well-prepared. Japan KNEW that, if not ahead of time, then by Dec.08, 1941. You forgot to tell us about Japan's "Unit 731", - WORSE atrocities than the Nazis....You should get the idea....
Tell us about the GREAT GAME, played by the BBC, the "Billionaire Boys Club" since the dawn of history.... Yes, America is ruled by "psychopaths", and informed by PROPAGANDISTS, like YOU.... Now that you're "awake", maybe it's time to get up and get out of bed, and get going somewhere and actually DO something....
Thanks for a clear and extraordinary exposition of the historical reality of the cost of terrorism to civil society and why it is imperative to discuss it, particularly when it is the policy of America, posturing as the guarantor of peace and free trade of the world. I note false flags and terrorism long preceded WWII in America, such as the false flag attack on Ft. Sumter that opened hostilities in the Civil War, the sinking of the Maine instigating the Spanish-American War, and more.
We face a stark and brutal reality in which utterly corrupted institutions are wielded to protect their principals from just prosecution for crimes against humanity at any cost, including replicating the genocide and absolute destruction of Gaza across every polity that might escape being rendered to possession as chattel or killed by psychopaths intent on global conquest. The certainty that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, and use it's Houthi proxies to close the Bab al Mandeb similarly controlling Red Sea shipping, reveals that intent to utterly wreck the global economy by USrael behind it's attack on Iran. The human cost of medical corruption and mistakes cannot compare to the horror billions of people may face as global fuel supplies and cessation of shipping impact the QoL across the world.
Trump promises to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity ceaselessly if Iran doesn't grovel before his masters and continues to defend itself from pedopaths that incinerated ~170 little girls hiding in a prayer room on Purim when he ordered them to be slaughtered. In the same breath he misleads us all that the war is won, it's over, and he has other things to do besides deliver the boots on the ground his toadies are inserting in theater as he lies.
Frances Leader points out the scheme our misleaders continually employ, which is the Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender, the DARVO method of projecting on your victims the crimes committed against them. If we do not attend closely to the plan of attack that is being employed against us, we will not be forewarned and forearmed to withstand the crimes against humanity that will be committed against us. This is not an USraeli plan, but the scheme of an intergenerational covert association of narcissistic psychopaths incapable of understanding their own self destructive lust for power that will destroy them along with all civil societies they mean to ruin for their enjoyment and profit. Psychopathy has specific features that render psychopaths incapable of self-reflection, rational consideration of their limits, and devoid of conscience, and this perpetuates cults of madmen intent only on sating their lust for torture of the innocent and gaining more power to do more evil across centuries that are only apparent to researchers that examine history with unflinching clarity.
9/11, the Covid jabs, and Iran are only symptoms of being subjugated to psychopaths, and that is the true plague threatening mankind today.
And guess what, SHug: people slammed John and people like me over the COVID scam. We had advanced BS meters. John and I and others are simply applying the same to this Imbicelic war.
John is moving from one human tragedy, a man-made event of utmost stupidity, just like the medical stupidity of COVID and its vaccine, to the current human folly.
You need to apply what you learned from the covid scam. War is always a scam and a lie, no matter who is president.
The Truth is, Mr. Trump has bought into Netanyahu's bullshit, and now he's trapped in Iran. Trump stepped on his dick. I liked him, but he promised no wars. Listen to John.
I think it's because many have decided Trump is some god-sent Messiah. I've read posts of some people who have expressed this sentiment. I blew it off as a few lunatics. But now it looks like it's widespread.
AI is taking a toll on social intercourse. AI has published more text than all of humanity has since 1500. It looks like it's widespread because AI is spreading it.
Noooo! I respectfully disagree SHug. Sometimes we don't want to hear the scary truth. This war is a perfect example of Professor Pape's wisdom playing out. John is reporting the difficult truth. We all need to listen before it's too late!
Its amazing how you fail to understand what is really happening. Yet, post after post, you keep shining the light on your TDS and inability to comprehend the significance of what's happening in Iran, Venezuela and Cuba. Are you too busy to do any research at all on this topic? Or are you just that deranged that you dont care and just shoot your lack of intellect around the web? Ill give you a little primer: Who has funded Iran? How are they now being affected? Was Iran involved in a conspiracy (and acted upon) to overthrow the voice of We the People in election fraud? How is Iran tied to Venezuela? Where was the head of Iranian cyber intelligence during the 2020 election? What happened?
This is bigger than your mind can absorb apparently....stick to medicine or do some basic research. Most people who signed up for your substack did so for medical research findings...not your unhinged and uneducated opinions on world events. DO YOU HEAR US? ARE YOU LISTENING??????
Leake IS writing about medicine. He is psychoanalyzing Trump.
Not very well, but that's a technicality.
One could posit that his thesis is correct: one narrow criticism of Trump casacades into a cataclysmic decline in intellectual reputation when the larger, more bombastic arguments are deployed.
You want Reagan Ranch or Bush Ranch dressing on that word salad? How about some Carter peanut sauce? Obama onions, or Biden bacon bits?....Clinton cream cheese?....Man, this is one GREAT salad bar!....LOL!, thnx, Daniel!....have a great weekend, ok?....
After living through seven decades of America's speculative military ventures, I'm inclined to the belief that many of them occur so that high-level government officials can get kickbacks from armament companies into numbered overseas bank accounts.
Keep inclining. You're almost there. You are definitely on the right track, Andrew! And, it's that, and also much more, too.... It's all about MONEY, POWER, and CONTROL. Globally, NOTHING ELSE matters....
John- love your articles- but what about king Cyrus ? He allowed them to live in peace and go back to Jerusalem. Personally, if we want to discuss this problem George w. Bush could have ended it- Iran and all the mid east would have been free from these people. I am disgusted that we didn’t crush them then. Muslims use their religion to get what they want politically . Their religion doesn’t abide by laws and they use laws/constitution against us. I would like to see every non citizen purged from our country- revoke all visas, all illegals, all students, etc. and no more birthright citizenship. I would also like to see a law that says only third generations can run for any elected office- if you haven’t been here for 3 generations you cannot run! You are a peaceful man- we all see that- but we are being crushed by many sides- it’s really time to protect America, its laws, its people. As far as govt goes we need changes there too- like every decision goes back to the states and constituents- I want to vote on these decisions. Especially regarding where my money goes! I am not represented in nys!
Surely Hanna, other than "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" you have never read anything about the Indians, the settlers, and the push west. Know nothing at all about the Roman conquests over a millennia, the conquests of Genghis Khan, the conquests of the Medes and Persions in BC, conqusts of the Brits in India.
-- The push across the Western US by Europeans was tame; they sought fortune in Gold and peace in farming and not being subjected to control by a state government. They did not have a detachment of 1,000 army infantry with them as they walked the Oregon Trail. They camped out under the stars and hoped for no Indian raids, raping, hatcheting, torture, abduction, and murder with only their hand held weapons as defense.
-- The push West was not a Genghis Khan . . . "murder every single human, baby, horse, and sheep" in the city genocide.
-- The push West became more humane only when the savages(and yes, that IS what they were; read a bit) were put on reservations under control or the real criminals wiped out.
-- The Indians here in America had already for millennia murdered and warred between themselves and tortured each others captives to death, raped each others' women, and never shown any chance of self governing in peace as a general society. They had never even invented the damn wheel, still dragging their stuff from home grounds to hunting grounds.
-- Native Americans. BS. They could ONLY be called native because they walked here in the stone ages across the Bering Strait before any else sailed here! They never progressed past the stone age. It was inevitable that SOME people(other than Africans) would by chance end up here and displace them. I cannot imagine what would have happened if Genghis Kahn showed up on the scene.
"Several male settlers who were working in the fields and in the blacksmith's shop rushed to the house during the attack and were killed. Six of the young men escaped the slaughter by fleeing.[16] Fifteen settlers were killed and scalped. One victim was scalped twice, from the hair on his head, to his beard.[17] "The men and children were chopped to pieces," writes historian Kerry Trask, "and the dead women were hung up by their feet" and their bodies mutilated in ways too gruesome for contemporary observers to record in writing."
courtesy of Pawatomi and Black Hawk Indians, 1830's
“after having pillaged a town and its environs, and taken away all which they could convert to any useful purpose for themselves, to burn the town itself, and then to march on, leaving in the place only a smoking heap of ruins, with the miserable remnant of the population which they had spared wandering about the scene of desolation in misery and despair.”
NOT what the pioneers of America on the Oregon trail did;
NOT what American Armed Forces have EVER done;
IS what "native Americans" practiced with relish
(NOTE: the Khan and his hordes were likely of the same gene pool. He moved west, they moved NE to the Bering Strait. . . and America.
Oh dear another lefty academic spouting lefty nonsense about Iran. The real Iranians were done out of their country by Jimmy Carter and some more than useless Brit politicians ( i as a brit now discover since covid that we have an abundance of useful idiots running Britain ) The real iranians want their country back and have moved to action that, Israel has always been friends with the real Iranians and Mr Trump rightly sees no need to have a bunch of religious maniacs in charge of world terrorism and nukes. in this article and the interview with Prof Pape there is no mention of the human misery caused since 1979 and a lot of how everything is aimed at a blob of nuclear matter almost ready for use. The Iranians (real ones) have no desire to have the nukes and rightly sees it a good idea for USA AND ISRAEL to come in and get rid of it, remove as much of the IRGC structure and military equipment so that they can be safe to come out and finish off the remaining religious maniacs. I know whose side I am on, no matter what it is time the world got on with the job of the Crusaders of the middle ages and remove the curssse of radical Islam from the world. God bless Donald Trump and Pm Netanyahu and all the sane peace desiring people of the world. Pray for our lives depend on us all praying.
According to the latest polls about six-in-ten Americans (61%) disapprove of Trump’s handling of the conflict, while 37% approve. Who are "the real Americans" here?
probably the ones who dont listen to the MSM (fake news as Trump calls them) but listen to Tousi tv and TBN streamed with direct contacts. As in UK we have been brainwashed by MSM and vast numbers of the population are just as in America , conned, scammed and duped etc by their own government influence over the years.
Try the stations above and then compare the output on your national tv and you will like i have been find your brain cant reconcile the two stories., Good Luck and even more good luck to Mr Trump and your brave military trying the help the very very brave true Iranians out of their 47years of hell. I dont want to entertain any more piffle from people who watch MSM THANKS.
A cure worse than the disease since you want "the real Iranians" to "take their country back" (now that´s a cliché if ever there was one) and install a government in the image of yours, which conns, scams and dupes its own population. If that´s the case, you need to take YOUR country back first.
John, you need to stay in your lane. It is very evident that you are anti- Trump and it is displayed in your writing. If I could do it, I would unsubscribe from just your emails. I do not like them or appreciate your opinions. I do like the others though.
It’s interesting that this experts last name is Pape because Rome has a very close and supportive relationship with the Shia version of Popes, the Ayatollahs.
Instead of seeking opinions from philosophers, look at the reality. Islam like Nazism is an ideology of extermination of nonbelievers in their fiction. Islam is destroying the counties it is currently invading and has already conquered 57 territories belonging to nonmuslims and none of them are places that attract immigration of ordinary people ( to be diplomatic ).
If you go to the source of this war against the Islamic regime, the Iranian people, you will learn that they are fighting a war against a hostile foreign occupation, the Shia Ayatollahs who represent an Arab religion and culture that is alien to Iranians.
I am surrounded by American Iranians, and my wife is Iranian. I study the Bible and can usually distinguish between good and evil based on scripture. The United States was founded by people who use the Bible as a guide to life and protection of their people. We are to reject evil ideologies that want to weaken and conquer us and remove our freedom to pursue our own happiness.
If you want to learn the truth about what is happening in Iran and the threat the Islamic regime poses to the United States through its many proxies, lobbies, and collaborators, follow Tousi TV. It’s all in English.
If you study the Bible, you must be familiar with 1 Samuel 15:3
“Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” And other similar verses as in Deuteronomy 25:19 and Exodus 17:14. Perhaps you could tell us what actually was the crime of Amalek?
Try to educate yourself John. The Occupied Islamic Iran regime, i.e. the IRGC, has just painted itself into a corner, as planned. Who depends on the Strait of Hormuz for it's entire economy? Who just laid mines at their own front door? Where are the Hormuz-alternate-routes being built by the UAE? Listen and you will learn: "Why the US Navy Won't Clear the Mines Even Though It Can" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NNZ2u2WDD0 and "UAE Is Wiping the Strait of Hormuz Off the Map and Building Its Own Secret Bypass" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGdWDc43K_o
Yes but what about the Innocents (recent 50k mostly adolescants , kids and young adults but older fathers & mothers too) who were but shot in streets and or imprisioned and executed for nothing !!? and the many Innocents around the world whose lives seriously negatively affected By Iran's regime ?!?!! You fail to realise that it's literally been and will always will be WW3 for them . Are you saying Obama & Biden , and UK and France , and EU and others, and "hear no evil see no evil” appeasement of such a regime is good!? And not equally catastriohic as anything Trump may be trying to do now !?! id say it was worse !! But & so , while I may 100% agree with your peaceful man take , philosophy and correct political observations/analysis, you surely must take responsibility for every child mother and young person who you've allowed to die while continuing to profit from making deals and appeasing tyranical terrorist rulers like that which I know you would hate living under. So what about those people ? Or do they exist just to play low (or dead in this case ) whilst allowing empowering a certain absolutely hypocritical liberal order (the other tyrant here ) to carry on ‘As business as usual’ , profit over them , and as if they are holy & squeaky clean !! The UK , France, Canada, Carney , Australia ,and biden are not !! They are the ones that empowered said state and got us into the mess Trump is trying to fix. So the comparison between the way you put the hubris of these old kings and empires and empires doesn't compare to trumps reasons. At all. Only to a left leaning political bent person who insists on looking at things that way , could your essay , like MSM in general, make sense !! It seems that you framed it only in a certain anti-djt way (and no mention of the many Iranians who see it the same way as I do !). So , once again, Free Iran (like their oppressor appeasers are !! or better , for i know tha those iranians will actually honor, respect and enjoy freedom better than their oppressor’s appeaser’s do now!) !!!
IRGC is going WIDE in the sense that it is holding international commerce Hostage. That is a declaration of war on humanity--for which there is no civilized rationale. And, here the two of you sit pontificating.
yep, not to mention the fact that the Iranian terrorist mullahs went wide already in their proxy pursuits-- Hezbollah, Houthi's, Hammas -- and killing Americans and Israeli's every chance they got.
Of course, the narrow history this professor (and John) conveniently fail to mention is that Iran has, over decades, worked to build a huge arsenal of missiles, drones, and enough enriched U238 for 11 nuclear bombs -- a present day Armageddon-- something for which no OTHER off-the-hook country in history had even slightest chance.
A great example is Napoleon going into Russia with millions of armed forces with the intent of taking them out. . . He did not suspect Russia of holding immutable, unstoppable, world-killing power but rather as just another jewel to add on his locket. NB went in with no plan to handle the Russian monster-winter with no supply lines and horses not B2's, guys on foot not elite Special Ops with unstoppable air support. The USA has yet to even walk into the country but, even if planning to, has already eliminated 95% of defenses and has accomplished Trumpie's objective nearly 100%(killed most of the defensive infrastructure and political leadership, removed delivery vehicles, and KNOWS where the uranium IS). For at least the next 10 yrs Iran will not be capable of Nuclear Armaggedon and surely this episode has postponed any first nuclear viability-- something most previous POTUSs' have acknowledged and only whined about while Biden and Obama actually sent US dollars to help them!
This is a 90/10 issue. How anyone could feel it sane to jump into the 10% kiddie pool at this early stage is beyond understanding, NOT rational.
The problem with these analogies is they are 1) ignoring that debacles in Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, etc. were all arguably deliberately engineered to spend money, break American morale, increase government power, and kill young patriotic men as primary goals. If that is what the Deep State wants to achieve, then no surprise re the outcome (and that kind of power-engineering applies to WWI, WWII, probably back to Rome etc. as well) and 2) If you ARE fighting to really WIN with clear MILITARY objectives, reducing your opponent to a state of military devastation and functional incapacitation, that has every possibility of success.
Just war theory certainly supports your contention that destroying Iran's infrastructure and imperiling the innocent population--of millions--is wrong. The problem (as Sherman famously demonstrated), is that if "the enemy population" will not take any action to stop the misbehavior of their government, you will never put a stop to that misbehavior until they are driven to do so. Trump's approach is giving the Iranian people every opportunity to control their own future now...but if they can't or won't, at least limiting the power of their evil government (and they ARE evil, killing thousands of their own people for protesting, hanging young wrestler for voicing an opinion, etc.) will diminish its ability to sow violence and discord elsewhere.
John, you forget that Trump used a smaller scale version of this approach to devastate "ISIS" in a matter of weeks. That was over so fast no one even quite noticed it, and he did it "from the air" with minimal or no "boots on the ground." Again, it is really about what is your objective--to start an endless war (Wilson, FDR, Bush/Cheney) or to accomplish a critical task and be done with it. You seem to be so consumed with painting Trump as the next Caligula now that your are losing all focus yourself on what we really can do. This is the Barbary Pirates 2026 version and we aren't in a quagmire at this point, so why prognosticate nothing but doom?
Goodness, we need to wage a war that doesn't make the other side angry. Jeeeze. A little over a month and the opposition can't get the 'interminable escalation' out of its head. Trump has set his guardrails and defined its length.
Your commentaries concerning the USA conflict in Iran, and in other international interactions have mostly centered on President Trump. And it is clear that you very much (if not absolutely) put complete negative expectations of the actions he takes are most likely (if not completely) ruinous and come from his "over privileged" life and resulting actions.
In the Iran conflict, I agree with much of your analysis based on repeated historical results in somewhat comparable circumstances, but with your lens turned on President Trump and the "over reach" he appears to consistently display.
This appears to disclose your own deep opinion of President Trump.
I would certainly appreciate a more rounded, "full flavor" analysis of the bigger picture, in all things, especially in the Iran situation.
Here's why; the established radicalized Islamic government of Iran has been devastating for the Persian people at large. The radicalized ideology has been, IMO, a wide and deep wound in the efforts of the "positive and good" (as defined by God and peace loving peoples) throughout the Middle East and even the world.
The direction and actions of the radicalization of those governing Iran are considered by many as ultimately "evil", and I agree with that. And for an increased likelihood of true peace to be possible in that part of the world, existentially, and on Earth, spiritually, the destructive and ruinous energy from the Irsnian regime must be eliminated.
There is a bigger story to nearly all of what appears President Trumps actions that are not of his origination, but of a coalition of learned folks dedicated to protecting, first, the citizens of the USA, and to do so, by necessary extention, the rest of the world. It is literally of "good vs evil".
While I believe this existence we experience depends on a bipolar makeup, I feel the evil has grown far out of proportion and was on the cusp of gaining a very strong dictative upper hand, globally. The group intent on bringing goodness as dominance back to Earth has been fighting the opponent for a very long time on a generational basis. They could see they had to "move" against the evil during this time to prevent worldwide domination by the evil side. President Trump, from my understanding, was recruited by the good side to represent the unyielding force for good as he had most of, if not all, of the "specifications" needed to be that "front man". I agree, he has some overarching personality flaws, but he is working with "the team behind the scenes" to execute a plan much larger than nearly any number of people are even remotely aware of.
If you are not aware of details of what I am referring to, I invite you to do your due diligence in exploring the intricacies with the same zeal you have studied and learned the histories you so often use in comparison to current events. Then, it would be so good to see a balanced commentary from you that actually helps disclose a balanced, and true, picture of the larger war of good vs evil wr all are currently engaged in.
John, please, please go back to medical reporting.
No, he's not a psychopath, prepared to perpetuate propaganda to please other psychopaths. Instead he's a man of principle who tells the truth.
The historical record shows that the United States has been the world's leading sponsor of terrorism—including state terrorism conducted by and through itself—since 1945, responsible for the highest number of military and civilian deaths through direct actions and proxy wars. These are not isolated incidents but patterns of indiscriminate violence and intentional war crimes against civilian populations to achieve political and military objectives, which meet any reasonable definition of terrorist acts.
During World War II, the U.S. engaged in carpet bombing of civilian cities in Japan (most notoriously the firebombing of Tokyo) and Germany, deliberately targeting non-combatant populations to break morale. This was followed by the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction—the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—which killed tens of thousands of civilians instantly and caused untold suffering for generations. In the Korean War (1950–1953), U.S. forces conducted relentless carpet bombing of North Korean civilian cities for three years, destroying dams and infrastructure in ways that threatened mass starvation; historians estimate 2–3 million dead, the vast majority civilians. As the many historical investigations of United States war crimes have documented, these were not collateral damage but systematic campaigns of aerial terror, including deliberate “no prisoners” policies, massacres of refugees (such as No Gun Ri), and the intentional targeting of populated areas to force surrender—classic hallmarks of terrorism when carried out by non-state actors, yet normalized when done by a superpower.
The scale is staggering. Since 1945, the United States has been responsible for the highest number of military and civilian deaths worldwide:
• Korea (1950–1953): ~2–3 million dead, mostly civilians from bombing and ground warfare.
• Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia (1955–1975): ~3–4 million civilians and combatants, including mass bombing campaigns like Operation Rolling Thunder and the Secret War in Laos.
• Iraq (1990–2011): ~1–1.5 million dead, including over 500,000 children from 1990s sanctions and post-2003 violence.
• Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia (2001–present): ~400,000+ civilians directly killed, with over 3 million total deaths including indirect causes. Proxy support for conflicts in Chile, Guatemala, Indonesia, Angola, El Salvador, Colombia added hundreds of thousands more deaths.
This pattern extends to unconditional U.S. military aid and diplomatic cover for Israeli actions, including support tied to causes and groups with documented terrorist histories. Examples include:
• Irgun Zvai Leumi (Etzel): A pre-state Zionist underground group that used violence against Arab populations and British forces in the 1930s–1940s, including the 1946 King David Hotel bombing.
• Lehi (Stern Gang): A militant group that broke from the Irgun and carried out assassinations and bombings against British officials and Arab civilians.
• Kach and Kahane Chai: Far-right, extremist groups founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane, labeled terrorist organizations by Israel, the U.S., and the EU due to violence against Arabs.
• TNT (Terror Neged Terror): A 1970s–80s extremist group that carried out attacks against Palestinian targets.
In the current context (2023–present), U.S.-supplied weapons have been used in densely populated areas of Gaza, where over 70,000 Palestinians have been killed—actions for which international bodies and human rights groups view the U.S. as complicit through continued arms transfers.
These are not defenses of any other nation’s actions; they are simply a call for intellectual consistency. If we label non-state or adversarial actors as terrorists for far smaller-scale violence, we must apply the same standard to the world’s most powerful state when it has repeatedly used mass civilian targeting as policy. The U.S. is, by the numbers and the methods, the leading terrorist actor, and nation of war criminals, on the global stage—sponsoring itself above all.
The U.S. has struck roughly 600 schools and 300 hospitals, clinics, and medical centres across Iran, according to multiple independent tallies. Hundreds of schools. Dozens of health facilities. Thousands of kids and civilians. If those strikes were tried at Nuremberg the way the Nazis were tried, POTUS Trump, Hegseth, and Netanyahu would all hang.
Plenty of Americans are defending the mass killing of children because they had the misfortune of living in the wrong postcode. They ask why schools are close to military installations that the schoolchildren's fathers work at, even though the U.S. also sites schools close to military installations. That’s hypocrisy. That’s a performance. Classic narcissist move—exactly the personality profile that thousands of mental-health professionals (Brandy X. Lee and her peers) have attributed to POTUS Trump, and the same one that almost certainly applies to Hegseth and the American deity, Bibi Netanyahu.
Psychopaths omit the human cost. Psychopaths talk in abstractions. Psychopaths always find a way to blame the victims for standing too close to the target.
To put it simply, we could not allow Iran Nuclear Weapons and ICBM’s to launch their missiles at the US or the EU.
Why invading Iran was unavoidable
Why Global De-Islamification is necessary
https://brucecain.substack.com/p/why-invading-iran-was-unavoidable
Same stupid propaganda and logic of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and other smaller conflicts. You guys fall for it every single time. Iran would never try and send a nuke to the US. They would be completely destroyed. They want nukes because Isreal has them.
Vietnam was senseless which is why I spent 5 years protesting and organizing against it. Iran is an existential threat. Read my essay and I will spell it out for you. I'm an old Perennial Hippie so it is rare that I would support a war. This war essentially chose us.
To put it simply, we could not allow Iran Nuclear Weapons and ICBM’s to launch their missiles at the US or the EU.
Why invading Iran was unavoidable
Why Global De-Islamification is necessary
https://brucecain.substack.com/p/why-invading-iran-was-unavoidable
Old hippies are the new Neocons, sir. For some reason, it has affected your lot. Iran wants a nuke because of Israel. Machiavelli once described a tactic of creating a large base, as big as a country, to control a region. This is exactly what the US has created in Israel, and now they have a madman running that country who believes he is fulfilling biblical prophecy. You can look up his speech on the account of the Amalakites, whom God told Israel to completely destroy, even their children and animals. Iran knows throwing a nuke at the EU or US is assured destruction. Iran wants a nuke because the American-made Israel has them. The WMD propaganda has been dusted off for 2026.
I'm neither a Neocon or a Zionist. I was against the invasion of Iraq for many reasons including the fact they didn't really have WMDs. Iran already has ballistic missiles that could hit London and Paris today. Those ARE WMDs. Couple that with Iran's Islamic Death Cult Ideology and . . . yeah we have a problem that must be solved. And the Iranians were originally Persian Zoroaster's. The majority of Iranians don't want to live under an Islamic Theocracy. Neither would I. Most Hippies I've known are also Constitutionalists who hold freedom of speech, freedom of religion and, finally, freedom from religion.
"Iran is an existential threat."
It is now that USrael assassinated the Supreme Leader of Iran that issued a fatwa prohibiting manufacturing nuclear weapons. Iran hasn't attacked anyone since before the USA was created. Now that Khamenei is dead, assassinated during negotiations in which Iran had agreed to giving up enrichment of nuclear materials to the point they could be used to make weapons, his son, the new Supreme Leader, will not make that mistake that killed his father.
You are the existential threat. You here demonstrably employ DARVO - Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender - psychological manipulation to deceive and render to submission anyone that does not understand that USrael is the cause of the Strait of Hormuz, and now the Bab al Mandeb, being closed, of the shocks to supply chains and the economic destruction being imposed on the world today, because these were absolutely certain consequences of attacking Iran.
Invading Iran is unavoidable for you pathological cultists intent on rendering humanity to possession or the grave for your fun and profit. Turning every civil society in the world into copies of Gaza is unavoidable, too, because your masters mean to own mankind, and no one capable of reason and action will submit to the pedovores you serve. If we listen to you, global genocide just can't be avoided.
However it ends the US is justified to stop Iran from getting ICBMs and nuclear weapons that WILL be used against the US. This is a very serious endeavor and must be carefully executed. Ground troops should be used very sparingly.
You don't have a great grasp on history either:
"Iran hasn't attacked anyone since before the USA was created."
You seem to have forget Khobar Towers (1996) where Iranian proxy Hezbollah killed 7 American soldiers and wounded over 146. And that is just an example of what you seem to forget. How about all the US soldiers killed by IEDs in Iraq: also due to Hezbollah, Hamas and other radical Muslim groups.
Khobar Towers bombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khobar_Towers_bombing
At the end of the day the real problem is Islam itself which is incompatible with Judeo Christian values: Islam treats women and non-Muslims as inferior, as Kaffers and Dhimmis. This virus has spread into both the EU, the US and all First World Nations. You should read me series of essays on the subject. You don't have a foggy clue as to the threat Islam represents.
=====
Censorship of Free Speech and Muslim Immigration
The 2 gravest threats to humanity
Bruce Cain Mar 11, 2026
https://brucecain.substack.com/p/censorship-of-free-speech-and-muslim
The Urgent Need for Global De-Islamification: Free 460 page series on why Islam is dangerous.
https://brucecain.substack.com/
So, Phil, why hasn't Israel just deployed them and solved this problem in the last 30 years? and, since they have them and have not SENT them, why would Iran STILL need nukes. . . at all. If Israel wanted them dead, they would already BE.
Iran mullahs want them because THEY want to be the ones who fire FIRST, just biding their time. They have ALWAYS SAID death to Israel and the US and they always meant it.
Just needed to have the nukes in hand. . . and they were "this" close.
Your simplistic analysis fails.
Iranians never chanted Death to America until we foisted the Shah on them, against their will. If another country forced their chosen leaders on the USA, I'd be out there chanting death to them, and maybe you would be too. Doesn't mean either of us would start a nuclear war with them, if we had nukes to use. We'd sure as heck want them as a deterrent against any more such atrocities though. I usually agree with you, respectfully disagree on this. I do see your side, I just don't buy it.
Of course there is no way to KNOW for sure about any of this.
We are all simply speculating from our own little world views incapable of seeing anything but that scene outside our own self-constructed, warped portholes viewing:
TRUTH.
"They have ALWAYS SAID..."
Only since the CIA, MI6, and Mossad overthrew their government and then funded Iraq to attack it after they successfully regained self-government. Your ignorance of the historical record leaves you a groveling toady to cruel masters that will destroy you and everything you love.
I'd love to see all the morons in the entire globe cured of God delusions but why is invading Pakistan and North Korea not unavoidable? The U.S. carpet bombed North Korean civilian cities for 3 years in the 1950s, with the result that the North Koreans now 70 years later not only have a visceral hatred for Americans and would love to annihilate them off the face of the earth but may actually have the capacity to do so. The U.S. has more sadistic, narcissistic psychopaths and war criminals than any other nation on earth so why is the U.S. not doing anything about this? Why, apart from the fact that Americans are notoriously gutless and yellow, is the U.S. allowing North Korea to have a nuclear weapon? Evidence from Tulsi Gabbard and numerous others indicates that the Iranians were not pursuing a nuclear weapon. There was a fatwa against it, just like the fatwa for the execution of Salman Rushdie. Now that the U.S. has murdered the relative moderates and they have been replaced with more hardline theocrats it appears there may soon be a fatwa for, rather than against, nuclear weapons. Typical Americans. Not merely psychopaths bur dumb psychopaths.
a toad,
a goad,
a troll.
That's pretty much you. You're incapable of answering the questions and rebutting the argument. The US constitution, alone among all the constitutions in the world, courtesy of the founding fathers, contains a "right to sodomy" (SCOTUS: Lawrence v. Texas, 2004). Being probably a typical pretty-red, old guy, you've spread your ass cheeks too many times and neuro syphilis has damaged the 2 neurons that pass for your brain.
You are.
"Whether you love him or hate him, Trump speaks for the state and the state is preparing for war at home, which always happens when empires fray and disintegrate." (Karen Kwiatkowski, Trump’s Iran War: Worse Than Expected, But Better Than Hoped?”) Connect it to the latest news about his seeking 152 million for refurbishing Alcatraz and converting it into a high security prison.
....yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah....psychobabble & gobbledygook....
The ODNI Director is NOT beyond launching propaganda bombs, either.
I've met her several times. She's even hotter in person.... LOL!....
"...yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah....psychobabble & gobbledygook...."
Almost always the first words out of the mouths of psychiatric patients who've neglected to take their meds, or so I'm told.
What are you on? Risperdal? Olanzapine?
Yes, Tulsi is hot but when would not look twice at you even if you weren't gay. Stick to chasing dick.
Absolutely, Bruce. The delusional narrow minded, grabbing for poor accounting data and lack or poor critical thought is appalling. This article alone citing a theory based upon conventional weapons knowledge of the 90's and prior and not taking 30 plus years of technological development and new strategy/tactical deployment into consideration is...foolish.
Attacking Iran was a war crime, piked atop so many more US led war crimes
Are we talking then about "de-islamification" or "de-nuclearization"? Make up your mind. How about de-ismificating and de-nuclearizating Pakistan?
That's not a bad idea. But Pakistan is a secondary threat compare with Iran. As I said in my essays we need Global De-Islamification. This Islamic ideology is a threat to all of us.
EXCELLENT! Thank you, thank you for your truth telling!! A very rare American who has escaped indoctrination and possesses their own mind and the ability to think critically. See my comments which directly coincide with yours.
Read about Diem since you mentioned the war in Vietnam where the United States ended up fighting a war to keep a papal regime in power over noncatholic South Vietnam because of the connivance of MacNamara and the failure of the French . North Vietnam could have been decimated by a united and free South Vietnam but instead , it was run by a Mafia.
You accuse the United States of being the greatest perpetrator of terrorism? Look at the Vatican and Islam first. For centuries they promoted brutal conquests, enslavement, and extermination. They rival each other.
Your post is unable to be processed. You must have left out a LOT!
Simply not understandable or relatable!
Hey, old guy, MacManara admitted in a video and a book he wrote that they were wrong. Vietnam was not a communist takeover; it was a civil war. We lost over 50k of the US service men, and we still are paying interest on the war debt. Over a civil war. So stupid, but you guys never learn, and here we are again.
read my post. it is about communication.
You are, again, conclusion jumping Philbert.
You might be "awake", but you're also a poorly-educated propagandist. Sure, you have lots of facts, dates, names, and figures. But you lack an OVERALL UNDERSTANDING of the "big picture". You can't see the forest for the trees. You're telling us everything about each of the trees in this forest, and assuming that explains the forest as a whole. But you're off in your perspective. Look at Germany's invasion of Russia in WW2. You are taking as FACT that Germany wanted to "conquer" Russia. But did it REALLY? Or was Germany's intention to only create the appearance of that intention? You DO realize that "Pearl Harbor" was NOT a "sneak attack"? The U.S. was very well-prepared. Japan KNEW that, if not ahead of time, then by Dec.08, 1941. You forgot to tell us about Japan's "Unit 731", - WORSE atrocities than the Nazis....You should get the idea....
Tell us about the GREAT GAME, played by the BBC, the "Billionaire Boys Club" since the dawn of history.... Yes, America is ruled by "psychopaths", and informed by PROPAGANDISTS, like YOU.... Now that you're "awake", maybe it's time to get up and get out of bed, and get going somewhere and actually DO something....
Thanks for a clear and extraordinary exposition of the historical reality of the cost of terrorism to civil society and why it is imperative to discuss it, particularly when it is the policy of America, posturing as the guarantor of peace and free trade of the world. I note false flags and terrorism long preceded WWII in America, such as the false flag attack on Ft. Sumter that opened hostilities in the Civil War, the sinking of the Maine instigating the Spanish-American War, and more.
We face a stark and brutal reality in which utterly corrupted institutions are wielded to protect their principals from just prosecution for crimes against humanity at any cost, including replicating the genocide and absolute destruction of Gaza across every polity that might escape being rendered to possession as chattel or killed by psychopaths intent on global conquest. The certainty that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, and use it's Houthi proxies to close the Bab al Mandeb similarly controlling Red Sea shipping, reveals that intent to utterly wreck the global economy by USrael behind it's attack on Iran. The human cost of medical corruption and mistakes cannot compare to the horror billions of people may face as global fuel supplies and cessation of shipping impact the QoL across the world.
Trump promises to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity ceaselessly if Iran doesn't grovel before his masters and continues to defend itself from pedopaths that incinerated ~170 little girls hiding in a prayer room on Purim when he ordered them to be slaughtered. In the same breath he misleads us all that the war is won, it's over, and he has other things to do besides deliver the boots on the ground his toadies are inserting in theater as he lies.
Frances Leader points out the scheme our misleaders continually employ, which is the Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender, the DARVO method of projecting on your victims the crimes committed against them. If we do not attend closely to the plan of attack that is being employed against us, we will not be forewarned and forearmed to withstand the crimes against humanity that will be committed against us. This is not an USraeli plan, but the scheme of an intergenerational covert association of narcissistic psychopaths incapable of understanding their own self destructive lust for power that will destroy them along with all civil societies they mean to ruin for their enjoyment and profit. Psychopathy has specific features that render psychopaths incapable of self-reflection, rational consideration of their limits, and devoid of conscience, and this perpetuates cults of madmen intent only on sating their lust for torture of the innocent and gaining more power to do more evil across centuries that are only apparent to researchers that examine history with unflinching clarity.
9/11, the Covid jabs, and Iran are only symptoms of being subjugated to psychopaths, and that is the true plague threatening mankind today.
And guess what, SHug: people slammed John and people like me over the COVID scam. We had advanced BS meters. John and I and others are simply applying the same to this Imbicelic war.
John is moving from one human tragedy, a man-made event of utmost stupidity, just like the medical stupidity of COVID and its vaccine, to the current human folly.
You need to apply what you learned from the covid scam. War is always a scam and a lie, no matter who is president.
The Truth is, Mr. Trump has bought into Netanyahu's bullshit, and now he's trapped in Iran. Trump stepped on his dick. I liked him, but he promised no wars. Listen to John.
Excellent analogy. I don't know where the BS meters of much of the anti-jab, anti-lockdown crowd went. I guess they have selective BS meters.
I think it's because many have decided Trump is some god-sent Messiah. I've read posts of some people who have expressed this sentiment. I blew it off as a few lunatics. But now it looks like it's widespread.
AI is taking a toll on social intercourse. AI has published more text than all of humanity has since 1500. It looks like it's widespread because AI is spreading it.
The same powerful people promoting Islamic causes are promoting mRNA gene therapy.
Right as Truth Hurts!
SHug, please go back to trolling Bluesky and getting face tattoos.
Noooo! I respectfully disagree SHug. Sometimes we don't want to hear the scary truth. This war is a perfect example of Professor Pape's wisdom playing out. John is reporting the difficult truth. We all need to listen before it's too late!
Its amazing how you fail to understand what is really happening. Yet, post after post, you keep shining the light on your TDS and inability to comprehend the significance of what's happening in Iran, Venezuela and Cuba. Are you too busy to do any research at all on this topic? Or are you just that deranged that you dont care and just shoot your lack of intellect around the web? Ill give you a little primer: Who has funded Iran? How are they now being affected? Was Iran involved in a conspiracy (and acted upon) to overthrow the voice of We the People in election fraud? How is Iran tied to Venezuela? Where was the head of Iranian cyber intelligence during the 2020 election? What happened?
This is bigger than your mind can absorb apparently....stick to medicine or do some basic research. Most people who signed up for your substack did so for medical research findings...not your unhinged and uneducated opinions on world events. DO YOU HEAR US? ARE YOU LISTENING??????
Leake IS writing about medicine. He is psychoanalyzing Trump.
Not very well, but that's a technicality.
One could posit that his thesis is correct: one narrow criticism of Trump casacades into a cataclysmic decline in intellectual reputation when the larger, more bombastic arguments are deployed.
Has it reached Stage 3?
Stage 4 Word Salad
You want Reagan Ranch or Bush Ranch dressing on that word salad? How about some Carter peanut sauce? Obama onions, or Biden bacon bits?....Clinton cream cheese?....Man, this is one GREAT salad bar!....LOL!, thnx, Daniel!....have a great weekend, ok?....
Careful, Bill, the salad bar got contaminated with E. coli. Poor hygiene…
How about the maggot brigade stand down?
After living through seven decades of America's speculative military ventures, I'm inclined to the belief that many of them occur so that high-level government officials can get kickbacks from armament companies into numbered overseas bank accounts.
Keep inclining. You're almost there. You are definitely on the right track, Andrew! And, it's that, and also much more, too.... It's all about MONEY, POWER, and CONTROL. Globally, NOTHING ELSE matters....
John- love your articles- but what about king Cyrus ? He allowed them to live in peace and go back to Jerusalem. Personally, if we want to discuss this problem George w. Bush could have ended it- Iran and all the mid east would have been free from these people. I am disgusted that we didn’t crush them then. Muslims use their religion to get what they want politically . Their religion doesn’t abide by laws and they use laws/constitution against us. I would like to see every non citizen purged from our country- revoke all visas, all illegals, all students, etc. and no more birthright citizenship. I would also like to see a law that says only third generations can run for any elected office- if you haven’t been here for 3 generations you cannot run! You are a peaceful man- we all see that- but we are being crushed by many sides- it’s really time to protect America, its laws, its people. As far as govt goes we need changes there too- like every decision goes back to the states and constituents- I want to vote on these decisions. Especially regarding where my money goes! I am not represented in nys!
Great post Cheryl. Love your ideas.
specially: 3 generations before holding ANY office. YES!
Go and discuss it with Native Americans, if you still find any.
Surely Hanna, other than "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" you have never read anything about the Indians, the settlers, and the push west. Know nothing at all about the Roman conquests over a millennia, the conquests of Genghis Khan, the conquests of the Medes and Persions in BC, conqusts of the Brits in India.
-- The push across the Western US by Europeans was tame; they sought fortune in Gold and peace in farming and not being subjected to control by a state government. They did not have a detachment of 1,000 army infantry with them as they walked the Oregon Trail. They camped out under the stars and hoped for no Indian raids, raping, hatcheting, torture, abduction, and murder with only their hand held weapons as defense.
-- The push West was not a Genghis Khan . . . "murder every single human, baby, horse, and sheep" in the city genocide.
-- The push West became more humane only when the savages(and yes, that IS what they were; read a bit) were put on reservations under control or the real criminals wiped out.
-- The Indians here in America had already for millennia murdered and warred between themselves and tortured each others captives to death, raped each others' women, and never shown any chance of self governing in peace as a general society. They had never even invented the damn wheel, still dragging their stuff from home grounds to hunting grounds.
-- Native Americans. BS. They could ONLY be called native because they walked here in the stone ages across the Bering Strait before any else sailed here! They never progressed past the stone age. It was inevitable that SOME people(other than Africans) would by chance end up here and displace them. I cannot imagine what would have happened if Genghis Kahn showed up on the scene.
NOT ONE would be left.
You are Manifest Destiny incarnate. Genghis Kahn would have been appalled if he showed up on the scene.
Oh, yeah and one more thing:
15 miles from my home town in Illinois:
"Several male settlers who were working in the fields and in the blacksmith's shop rushed to the house during the attack and were killed. Six of the young men escaped the slaughter by fleeing.[16] Fifteen settlers were killed and scalped. One victim was scalped twice, from the hair on his head, to his beard.[17] "The men and children were chopped to pieces," writes historian Kerry Trask, "and the dead women were hung up by their feet" and their bodies mutilated in ways too gruesome for contemporary observers to record in writing."
courtesy of Pawatomi and Black Hawk Indians, 1830's
Poor trespassers, also called colons! Are we supposed to tear our garments and sit in ashes? Why don´t you watch "Soldier Blue" and
"Outlaw Josey Wales" to maintain some mental balance.
from my book on the Khan:
“after having pillaged a town and its environs, and taken away all which they could convert to any useful purpose for themselves, to burn the town itself, and then to march on, leaving in the place only a smoking heap of ruins, with the miserable remnant of the population which they had spared wandering about the scene of desolation in misery and despair.”
NOT what the pioneers of America on the Oregon trail did;
NOT what American Armed Forces have EVER done;
IS what "native Americans" practiced with relish
(NOTE: the Khan and his hordes were likely of the same gene pool. He moved west, they moved NE to the Bering Strait. . . and America.
Definitely, you must watch "Soldier Blue" and "Outlaw Josey Wales" to maintain some mental, ideological and historical balance.
Hope you remember that third generation thingy, which I agree with, when they try to bring the weird Frankenboy spawn in. No one here will get this.
Cheryl, I believe you have the Muslims confused with another religion. Read the Talmud and the Torah and you will change your thinking!
I doubt it. She is RIGHT on.
i take it you’re familiar with the Talmud and the Quran then?
Enough to know
Excellent John. Thank you very much!
Oh dear another lefty academic spouting lefty nonsense about Iran. The real Iranians were done out of their country by Jimmy Carter and some more than useless Brit politicians ( i as a brit now discover since covid that we have an abundance of useful idiots running Britain ) The real iranians want their country back and have moved to action that, Israel has always been friends with the real Iranians and Mr Trump rightly sees no need to have a bunch of religious maniacs in charge of world terrorism and nukes. in this article and the interview with Prof Pape there is no mention of the human misery caused since 1979 and a lot of how everything is aimed at a blob of nuclear matter almost ready for use. The Iranians (real ones) have no desire to have the nukes and rightly sees it a good idea for USA AND ISRAEL to come in and get rid of it, remove as much of the IRGC structure and military equipment so that they can be safe to come out and finish off the remaining religious maniacs. I know whose side I am on, no matter what it is time the world got on with the job of the Crusaders of the middle ages and remove the curssse of radical Islam from the world. God bless Donald Trump and Pm Netanyahu and all the sane peace desiring people of the world. Pray for our lives depend on us all praying.
WOW, fantastic post Jennifer!
I agree 100%
According to the latest polls about six-in-ten Americans (61%) disapprove of Trump’s handling of the conflict, while 37% approve. Who are "the real Americans" here?
probably the ones who dont listen to the MSM (fake news as Trump calls them) but listen to Tousi tv and TBN streamed with direct contacts. As in UK we have been brainwashed by MSM and vast numbers of the population are just as in America , conned, scammed and duped etc by their own government influence over the years.
Try the stations above and then compare the output on your national tv and you will like i have been find your brain cant reconcile the two stories., Good Luck and even more good luck to Mr Trump and your brave military trying the help the very very brave true Iranians out of their 47years of hell. I dont want to entertain any more piffle from people who watch MSM THANKS.
A cure worse than the disease since you want "the real Iranians" to "take their country back" (now that´s a cliché if ever there was one) and install a government in the image of yours, which conns, scams and dupes its own population. If that´s the case, you need to take YOUR country back first.
John, you need to stay in your lane. It is very evident that you are anti- Trump and it is displayed in your writing. If I could do it, I would unsubscribe from just your emails. I do not like them or appreciate your opinions. I do like the others though.
It’s interesting that this experts last name is Pape because Rome has a very close and supportive relationship with the Shia version of Popes, the Ayatollahs.
Instead of seeking opinions from philosophers, look at the reality. Islam like Nazism is an ideology of extermination of nonbelievers in their fiction. Islam is destroying the counties it is currently invading and has already conquered 57 territories belonging to nonmuslims and none of them are places that attract immigration of ordinary people ( to be diplomatic ).
If you go to the source of this war against the Islamic regime, the Iranian people, you will learn that they are fighting a war against a hostile foreign occupation, the Shia Ayatollahs who represent an Arab religion and culture that is alien to Iranians.
I am surrounded by American Iranians, and my wife is Iranian. I study the Bible and can usually distinguish between good and evil based on scripture. The United States was founded by people who use the Bible as a guide to life and protection of their people. We are to reject evil ideologies that want to weaken and conquer us and remove our freedom to pursue our own happiness.
If you want to learn the truth about what is happening in Iran and the threat the Islamic regime poses to the United States through its many proxies, lobbies, and collaborators, follow Tousi TV. It’s all in English.
great post.
If you study the Bible, you must be familiar with 1 Samuel 15:3
“Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” And other similar verses as in Deuteronomy 25:19 and Exodus 17:14. Perhaps you could tell us what actually was the crime of Amalek?
To put it simply, we could not allow Iran Nuclear Weapons and ICBM’s to launch their missiles at the US or the EU.
Why invading Iran was unavoidable
Why Global De-Islamification is necessary
https://brucecain.substack.com/p/why-invading-iran-was-unavoidable
Try to educate yourself John. The Occupied Islamic Iran regime, i.e. the IRGC, has just painted itself into a corner, as planned. Who depends on the Strait of Hormuz for it's entire economy? Who just laid mines at their own front door? Where are the Hormuz-alternate-routes being built by the UAE? Listen and you will learn: "Why the US Navy Won't Clear the Mines Even Though It Can" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NNZ2u2WDD0 and "UAE Is Wiping the Strait of Hormuz Off the Map and Building Its Own Secret Bypass" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGdWDc43K_o
What seems obvious to ME, apparently has not cross the minds of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. . .
Become allies, wage war on Iran with the sole purpose to take the land around the straight of Hormuz and CONTROL it themselves.
Of course, they HAVE thought of this. However, real concerns for drones and missiles stopped that thought dead in its tracks, before . . .
hmmmm. How about. . . NOW?!
fantastic links Marjorie!
thank you.
John, please view these.
Yes but what about the Innocents (recent 50k mostly adolescants , kids and young adults but older fathers & mothers too) who were but shot in streets and or imprisioned and executed for nothing !!? and the many Innocents around the world whose lives seriously negatively affected By Iran's regime ?!?!! You fail to realise that it's literally been and will always will be WW3 for them . Are you saying Obama & Biden , and UK and France , and EU and others, and "hear no evil see no evil” appeasement of such a regime is good!? And not equally catastriohic as anything Trump may be trying to do now !?! id say it was worse !! But & so , while I may 100% agree with your peaceful man take , philosophy and correct political observations/analysis, you surely must take responsibility for every child mother and young person who you've allowed to die while continuing to profit from making deals and appeasing tyranical terrorist rulers like that which I know you would hate living under. So what about those people ? Or do they exist just to play low (or dead in this case ) whilst allowing empowering a certain absolutely hypocritical liberal order (the other tyrant here ) to carry on ‘As business as usual’ , profit over them , and as if they are holy & squeaky clean !! The UK , France, Canada, Carney , Australia ,and biden are not !! They are the ones that empowered said state and got us into the mess Trump is trying to fix. So the comparison between the way you put the hubris of these old kings and empires and empires doesn't compare to trumps reasons. At all. Only to a left leaning political bent person who insists on looking at things that way , could your essay , like MSM in general, make sense !! It seems that you framed it only in a certain anti-djt way (and no mention of the many Iranians who see it the same way as I do !). So , once again, Free Iran (like their oppressor appeasers are !! or better , for i know tha those iranians will actually honor, respect and enjoy freedom better than their oppressor’s appeaser’s do now!) !!!
'...often through “horizontal escalation” '
You/he are so indiscriminate in your language.
IRGC is going WIDE in the sense that it is holding international commerce Hostage. That is a declaration of war on humanity--for which there is no civilized rationale. And, here the two of you sit pontificating.
Your position is absurd. Simply absurd.
yep, not to mention the fact that the Iranian terrorist mullahs went wide already in their proxy pursuits-- Hezbollah, Houthi's, Hammas -- and killing Americans and Israeli's every chance they got.
Of course, the narrow history this professor (and John) conveniently fail to mention is that Iran has, over decades, worked to build a huge arsenal of missiles, drones, and enough enriched U238 for 11 nuclear bombs -- a present day Armageddon-- something for which no OTHER off-the-hook country in history had even slightest chance.
A great example is Napoleon going into Russia with millions of armed forces with the intent of taking them out. . . He did not suspect Russia of holding immutable, unstoppable, world-killing power but rather as just another jewel to add on his locket. NB went in with no plan to handle the Russian monster-winter with no supply lines and horses not B2's, guys on foot not elite Special Ops with unstoppable air support. The USA has yet to even walk into the country but, even if planning to, has already eliminated 95% of defenses and has accomplished Trumpie's objective nearly 100%(killed most of the defensive infrastructure and political leadership, removed delivery vehicles, and KNOWS where the uranium IS). For at least the next 10 yrs Iran will not be capable of Nuclear Armaggedon and surely this episode has postponed any first nuclear viability-- something most previous POTUSs' have acknowledged and only whined about while Biden and Obama actually sent US dollars to help them!
This is a 90/10 issue. How anyone could feel it sane to jump into the 10% kiddie pool at this early stage is beyond understanding, NOT rational.
Who has held international commerce hostage? (via sanctions)
Who has declared “war on humanity”?
Read William Blum.
The problem with these analogies is they are 1) ignoring that debacles in Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, etc. were all arguably deliberately engineered to spend money, break American morale, increase government power, and kill young patriotic men as primary goals. If that is what the Deep State wants to achieve, then no surprise re the outcome (and that kind of power-engineering applies to WWI, WWII, probably back to Rome etc. as well) and 2) If you ARE fighting to really WIN with clear MILITARY objectives, reducing your opponent to a state of military devastation and functional incapacitation, that has every possibility of success.
Just war theory certainly supports your contention that destroying Iran's infrastructure and imperiling the innocent population--of millions--is wrong. The problem (as Sherman famously demonstrated), is that if "the enemy population" will not take any action to stop the misbehavior of their government, you will never put a stop to that misbehavior until they are driven to do so. Trump's approach is giving the Iranian people every opportunity to control their own future now...but if they can't or won't, at least limiting the power of their evil government (and they ARE evil, killing thousands of their own people for protesting, hanging young wrestler for voicing an opinion, etc.) will diminish its ability to sow violence and discord elsewhere.
John, you forget that Trump used a smaller scale version of this approach to devastate "ISIS" in a matter of weeks. That was over so fast no one even quite noticed it, and he did it "from the air" with minimal or no "boots on the ground." Again, it is really about what is your objective--to start an endless war (Wilson, FDR, Bush/Cheney) or to accomplish a critical task and be done with it. You seem to be so consumed with painting Trump as the next Caligula now that your are losing all focus yourself on what we really can do. This is the Barbary Pirates 2026 version and we aren't in a quagmire at this point, so why prognosticate nothing but doom?
Goodness, we need to wage a war that doesn't make the other side angry. Jeeeze. A little over a month and the opposition can't get the 'interminable escalation' out of its head. Trump has set his guardrails and defined its length.
Stropped reading at "the Iranian disaster".
Tell us why you say that?
They threatened us with 11 nukes.
We reacted accordingly.
John, To me;
Your commentaries concerning the USA conflict in Iran, and in other international interactions have mostly centered on President Trump. And it is clear that you very much (if not absolutely) put complete negative expectations of the actions he takes are most likely (if not completely) ruinous and come from his "over privileged" life and resulting actions.
In the Iran conflict, I agree with much of your analysis based on repeated historical results in somewhat comparable circumstances, but with your lens turned on President Trump and the "over reach" he appears to consistently display.
This appears to disclose your own deep opinion of President Trump.
I would certainly appreciate a more rounded, "full flavor" analysis of the bigger picture, in all things, especially in the Iran situation.
Here's why; the established radicalized Islamic government of Iran has been devastating for the Persian people at large. The radicalized ideology has been, IMO, a wide and deep wound in the efforts of the "positive and good" (as defined by God and peace loving peoples) throughout the Middle East and even the world.
The direction and actions of the radicalization of those governing Iran are considered by many as ultimately "evil", and I agree with that. And for an increased likelihood of true peace to be possible in that part of the world, existentially, and on Earth, spiritually, the destructive and ruinous energy from the Irsnian regime must be eliminated.
There is a bigger story to nearly all of what appears President Trumps actions that are not of his origination, but of a coalition of learned folks dedicated to protecting, first, the citizens of the USA, and to do so, by necessary extention, the rest of the world. It is literally of "good vs evil".
While I believe this existence we experience depends on a bipolar makeup, I feel the evil has grown far out of proportion and was on the cusp of gaining a very strong dictative upper hand, globally. The group intent on bringing goodness as dominance back to Earth has been fighting the opponent for a very long time on a generational basis. They could see they had to "move" against the evil during this time to prevent worldwide domination by the evil side. President Trump, from my understanding, was recruited by the good side to represent the unyielding force for good as he had most of, if not all, of the "specifications" needed to be that "front man". I agree, he has some overarching personality flaws, but he is working with "the team behind the scenes" to execute a plan much larger than nearly any number of people are even remotely aware of.
If you are not aware of details of what I am referring to, I invite you to do your due diligence in exploring the intricacies with the same zeal you have studied and learned the histories you so often use in comparison to current events. Then, it would be so good to see a balanced commentary from you that actually helps disclose a balanced, and true, picture of the larger war of good vs evil wr all are currently engaged in.
Thank you for your consideration of my comment.
You practice that which you preach. Can't get any more balanced than that.
Hopefully, John is paying attention.