Today’s Handmaidens of War

They come in many shapes and sizes and with myriad conflicts of interest, but they share one agenda: perpetual war.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

Mar 25, 2026

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/todays-handmaidens-of-war/

This is not a partisan affair. Experts in military strategy, regional history, and current power dynamics in the Middle East—as well as American politics and geoeconomics—are struggling to make sense of the U.S.–Israel war launched on February 28 and warn that its escalatory spiral is spinning out of control.

But just like when the bloom was off the rose in late 2003, when the insurgencies and sectarian violence started emerging in Iraq and it was becoming clear that the Bush administration had no plan for “what’s next,” the cheerleaders and shills are rushing to battle stations today to do everything to maintain some sort of rationalization for the disaster unfolding right before our eyes.

This time, these messaging force-multipliers, tied directly or otherwise to the political and military machinery behind this war, shouldn’t get off so easily. Too many of them were around for the last big war when they lied and cajoled the American public into thinking we simply needed more “stomach” for the fight in Iraq. Many were called out. But apparently not enough.

Mixed in with the familiar figures are new voices lobbying for a big Mideast war. We have influencers paid in dark money from our “partners” in the Israeli government. They are mixed in with ideological diehards pervasive in conservative normie media and the fever swamps of X, Fox News, and talk radio. Then there are the national security “experts” who for professional reasons—establishment status or, more insidiously, ties to the defense industry or the think tanks funded by it—are rolled out onto major media to legitimize a cockeyed strategy pulling the country further into endless war.

Take note, because remembering what they say today will be important for the reckoning tomorrow.

Ideological Diehards

The loudest voices in this arena are also the most bloodthirsty and vicious when it comes to dissent. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Fox News host Mark Levin, podcaster Ben Shapiro, and social media influencer Laura Loomer are like the Red Guards trying to enforce order on the right, and they are becoming more shrill by the day as they see MAGA cohesion breaking down because of President Trump’s war.

“Just so you are aware, if you suspect someone you know in the US is working on behalf of Iran or any other adversary during a time of war, you can and should report them to the FBI and DOJ. It’s the America First thing to do,” said Loomer in a recent X post. “We need to bring back McCarthyism and start rooting out traitors.”

On March 15, Levin read out most of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1940 Fireside Chat, “Arsenal of Democracy”, which was an effort to conflate anti-war voices in America at the time with spies, enemy agents, and sympathizers. In FDR’s words, “these trouble-breeders have but one purpose. It is to divide our people, to divide them into hostile groups and to destroy our unity and shatter our will to defend ourselves.”

Levin said Trump “is doing what all great presidents do: taking on a government, an illegitimate terrorist regime, whose roots are in seventh-century barbarism… just like Franklin D. Roosevelt had to take out a barbaric Third Reich.”

He said opponents of this war, like those of 1940, “are giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” Levin saves his real venom for dissidents on the right. “Shame on you… You will be remembered as anti-America, neo-fascist Jew haters.”

The political scientist Max Abrahms has long promoted war with Iran and often smears conservatives as antisemitic isolationists. Abrahms, who teaches counterterrorism at Northeastern University, last week joined Loomer in rage-posting against Tucker and Joe Kent, who resigned from his position as director of the National Counterterrorism Center over the war with Iran. 

“My sense is Tucker served as a backchannel between Joe Kent and Iran. Joe leaked national security secrets to Tucker who was communicating with the Iranian regime,” Abrahms posted on X last week.

Abrahms chortled in July that “MAGA isolationists” were embarrassed because they had warned that the U.S.–Israel attacks on Iran in June would lead to a regional conflagration. Yet here we are. But he and others still cling to the notion that Trump is playing 4D chess and that America’s apparent strategic blunder is part of an elaborate plan that only really smart military experts can understand.

Other pro-war voices share that view. "You actually have to throw your enemies off their game," Ben Shapiro told Fox News last week, calling Trump’s war "the single bravest foreign policy move of my lifetime" and arguing that the Iranian regime is now in its "death throes."

Many think tankers seem to think the Iran war is going swimmingly for the U.S. “We are destroying Iran's ability to even produce more weapons after we've destroyed the missiles, the launchers, the drones, and so the Iranians at this point only have the ability to essentially terrorize, shooting a drone here, a drone there, at civilian targets against Gulf states,” said the Hudson Institute’s Rebeccah Heinrichs, a regular now on Fox News, last week. 

It was the same week in which “a drone here, a drone there,” plus Iran’s ballistic missiles, struck numerous oil and gas sites across the Gulf, emptied U.S. embassies, terrorized Israeli citizens, drove up gas prices, and raised the risks of a global recession. The neoconservative Hudson Institute has received $2.6 million from defense contractors in funding since 2019, according to the Think Tank Tracker.

The best sign that things are going sideways is when the cheerleaders just stop making sense, like when they say Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s announcement of lifting sanctions on some Iranian oil only hurts the Chinese, or that Iran’s launching Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles at Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, is an ex-post facto “imminent threat” to the United States. “Basically every major development in the Iran War has vindicated Trump’s decision to strike,” says Will Chamberlain. Nice try.

Abrahms unironically says “the discrepancy between the war commentary and what’s actually happening in the war is the greatest the world has ever seen.” He doesn't realize how right he is.

Then there is the stray neoconservative Never Trumper who, despite their previous revulsion at anything the current president says or does, has given their blessing to his war aims today.

Eliot Cohen, who not only led the cheer sections for Iraq and Afghanistan two decades ago but has been shaming Americans into supporting the Ukraine war, now says the media is being too “negative” with regards to Operation Epic Fury.

“The [Iranians’] desire to destroy [Israel]... the failure to talk about that is driving me crazy. The truth is on [Trump’s] side,” Cohen said, noting that previous presidents just didn’t act against Iran decisively but that Trump “is actually trying to resolve it in a very direct violent way.” 

Retired four stars giving one-star analysis

When you see a retired four-star on the media, it’s best to follow the money and/or the professional affiliation to understand where their analysis is coming from. The producers and editors won’t do it for you: That way, Admiral High Hat can say whatever he wants and be afforded all sorts of authority without the viewers knowing what his conflicts of interest are. 

Take General Jack Keane. He has been shilling for war on Fox since Iraq. He’s been out of service since 2003 and in that time has worked in private equity investing in military tech and has ties with several defense contractors, including serving on the board of General Dynamics. 

Keane is probably the most prolific war supporter on Fox and stands to benefit financially the longer the war goes on. Each of his appearances show his aptitude for saying things that defy reality. He told Fox News viewers that “we aren’t going to go toe-to-toe” with Iran on the Strait of Hormuz (which days later the Pentagon said we were doing) and that we would instead escort shipping with Navy ships (which we are not doing). 

The Jewish Institute for National Security of America has scores of former American military officers in its stable, including Ret. Vice Adm. Robert Harward, a former Centcom deputy commander, who just a week ago was lauding Israeli assassinations and regime change operations.

Calling Tehran “the center of gravity,” he told CNN that “if the IRGC can be decimated so the people have that advantage, maybe arm the people. That's how this thing flips.” Harward retired in 2013 went to work for Lockheed Martin, heading up its UAE business for eight years. He is now a top executive for Shield AI, which currently holds major contracts with the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard.

In a later interview with NPR, he said the length of the war would be "irrelevant" if the end result was destroying the regime. “Only allow a regime that we support, and the people support, to come to power. Anyone else remains a target. So I think that's a very sound strategy.”

So does Ret. General H.R. McMaster, who works for the neoconservative  Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which we now know the White House cribbed from to make its case against Iran. He actually laughed when asked by CBS News last week about regional escalation. 

Ret. Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, who also works for FDD (which does not disclose its donors), warns that “China is watching” and that we just need patience to see the genius of Trump’s vision.

“If the United States can hold firm for the next few weeks, it can fully degrade Iran’s war-making apparatus,” he wrote for the New York Times on March 19. “This would usher in a multiyear interval of calm of the kind that neither sanctions nor diplomacy has been able to produce in over four decades. In that window, a better regional order could emerge.”

These manufacturers of consent are no different from their Iraq war counterparts. Calling them out will mean absolutely nothing, however, if they are not held accountable by the court of public opinion and whatever foreign policy establishment survives the wreckage of this catastrophic war.

Report: US Preparing Major Escalation Against Iran That Could Include Ground Troops and Intensified Bombing

by Dave DeCamp | March 26, 2026

https://news.antiwar.com/2026/03/26/report-us-preparing-major-escalation-against-iran-that-could-include-ground-troops-and-intensified-bombing/

The Pentagon is developing options for a potential major escalation against Iran that could involve ground troops and an intensified bombing campaign, Axios reported on Thursday.

US officials and other sources speaking to Axios reporter Barak Ravid, a former IDF intelligence officer, described the potential escalation as a “final blow” that would give Trump more leverage and room to “declare victory,” though all indications are that Iran is ready to face ground forces and that any such operation would prolong the war.

Ravid’s sources said the potential options for a “final blow” include:

1.   Invading or blockading Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export hub.

2.   Invading Larak, an island that helps Iran solidify its control of the Strait of Hormuz. The strategic outpost hosts Iranian bunkers, attack craft that can blow up cargo ships, and radars that monitor movements in the strait.

3.   Seizing the strategic island of Abu Musa and two smaller islands, which lie near the western entrance to the strait and are controlled by Iran but also claimed by the UAE.

4.   Blocking or seizing ships that are exporting Iranian oil on the eastern side of the Hormuz Strait.

Another operation being considered is sending troops deep inside Iran to secure Tehran’s stockpile of uranium enriched at 60%, though it’s believed to be buried under the rubble following the June 2025 airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, so it’s unclear if a team of US special operators would be able to access the material.

The report said that President Trump hasn’t made a decision, but that a major escalation was likely if negotiations made no progress, and there’s no sign that real diplomacy is underway despite Trump’s claims. Iranian officials have rejected a 15-point proposal that the US passed through mediators and have set their own conditions to end the war.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt threatened on Wednesday that President Trump was ready to “unleash hell” on Iran.

Thousands of US Marines and US Army Airborne appear to be on their way to the Middle East as the Pentagon prepares for ground attacks, operations that are fraught with risk and will likely result in major US casualties since any ground force would face significant and sustained Iranian missile and drone attacks.

In the meantime, US-Israeli strikes continue to pound Iran, and the Iranian military continues to launch successful attacks on Israel and US bases across the region. According to a report from The New York Times, the majority of US bases in the Middle East are now basically uninhabitable due to the Iranian strikes.

 

Iran trained in ‘asymmetrical warfare’ for two decades waiting for US troops: Defense official 

Tuesday, 24 March 2026 

https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/03/24/765806/Iran-trained-in-asymmetrical-warfare-for-two-decades-waiting-for-US-troops-Defense-official

A senior Iranian defense official says the armed forces have “trained in asymmetrical warfare” for two decades in anticipation of American troops being deployed to “designated regions.”

“We have been waiting for the arrival of Americans to designated regions,” Ali-Akbar Ahmadian, a senior aide to Leader of the Islamic Revolution in the Defense Council, said in a post on his X account on Tuesday.

“For more than two decades, we have trained for this moment with the strategy of asymmetrical warfare,” he wrote.

Ahmadian said that Iran has only one message for American soldiers: “Come closer.”

The warning comes as Trump administration officials have hinted at the possibility of ground operations in certain regions of Iran.

US military planners have reportedly presented the White House with options for a potential ground operation, should the bombing campaign fail to achieve its objectives.

According to The Wall Street Journal, discussions have included scenarios involving “boots on the ground” to dismantle Iran's nuclear infrastructure and missile capabilities.

Pentagon officials have also acknowledged planning for "contingency operations" that could involve special operations forces or heliborne assaults on key Iranian facilities, though they stress such options remain a last resort.

The commander of the Ground Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) warned earlier in the day that any such threat or act of aggression would be met with a crushing response.

Speaking to IRGC ground troops in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, Brigadier General Mohammad Karami said his unit was prepared at the highest level.

The Israel Lobby’s Responsibility for the Iran War

Advocates for the U.S.-Israeli special relationship have played a special role.

By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

https://archive.is/20260320130945/https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/17/israel-lobby-iran-war-trump-responsibility

News flash: The war in Iran is not going as expected. I could say not going as “planned,” except that word seems completely inappropriate in this case. As Americans and others experience yet another Middle East debacle, they want to know who is responsible. It is vitally important to place blame where it belongs, but equally important that those who are not responsible not be wrongly accused.

Not surprisingly, some observers think this is a war being fought on Israel’s behalf. As evidence, they point to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statement that the administration knew Israel was going to attack, anticipated that Iran might retaliate against U.S. forces in the region, and therefore chose to preempt. Furthermore, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been pushing hard for another war for months, and there are plenty of pro-Israel pundits—like former Jerusalem Post editor in chief and current New York Times columnist Bret Stephens—who have repeatedly called for war on Iran in the past and are defending the current war even now.

This raises an obvious question: To what extent does the “Israel lobby” here in the United States also bear some responsibility for the war? Before I consider that question in detail, however, two notes of caution are in order.

First, it is still early days, and more evidence for how and why this happened is bound to come to light in the months ahead, along with the usual efforts to kick up dust and shift the blame if things go further south. Unlike the 2003 war in Iraq, this conflict was not preceded by a long campaign to sell the war to the American people, so it’s harder to know exactly who was pushing for it and who was raising doubts.

Second, in trying to gauge the impact of any lobbying effort, it is essential to define it properly. As John Mearsheimer and I made clear in our 2007 book on this topic, the Israel lobby is not defined by religion or ethnicity, but rather by the political positions its members try to advance. It is a loose coalition of groups and individuals whose common aim is maintaining a “special relationship” between the United States and Israel. In practice, this special relationship means providing Israel with generous military and diplomatic support no matter what it does. The lobby is comprised of both Jews and gentiles, and many American Jews are not part of the Israel lobby and do not support the special relationship. Moreover, some key parts of the lobby (such as Christian Zionists) are not Jewish.

It would therefore be both analytically wrong and dangerously divisive to blame the American Jewish community for the war, just as it was wrong to blame that community for the 2003 war in Iraq. Indeed, back in 2002-03, surveys showed that Jewish Americans were less supportive of going to war against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein than the American population as a whole. Although Israel’s Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) recently released a poll purporting to show that a majority of Jewish Americans supports the current war against Iran, these results are from a carefully selected and decidedly unrepresentative group of respondents and are almost certainly bogus. (As a side note, it’s irresponsible for JPPI to release such dubious findings, as it risks fueling precisely the sort of antisemitism that all of us want to prevent.) It is also worth noting that J Street, the largest mainstream liberal pro-Israel group, and progressive groups like New Jewish Narrative and Jewish Voice for Peace have already issued public statements condemning the war.

So who is responsible?

First and most obviously, President Donald Trump, and his collection of feckless and incompetent loyalists. Like George W. Bush in 2003, he made the decision, and he bears the ultimate responsibility for the consequences. And, of course, Netanyahu, who is trying to establish Israeli hegemony over the entire region but has no chance of doing so without active U.S. support, bears direct responsibility as well.

But no president acts entirely alone—whatever Trump wants us to believe—and it is well established that Trump can be swayed by what he hears from those around him. And Trump’s inner circle includes many people who are staunch defenders of Israel, longtime beneficiaries of Israel-related campaign contributions, or both. Trump’s two Middle East envoys—Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner—are both ardent supporters of Israel, as is U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. Rubio, who also serves as national security advisor, was a reflexive proponent of the special relationship during his Senate career and one of the biggest recipients of pro-Israel campaign funding. Current White House chief of staff Susie Wiles worked as a consultant for Netanyahu’s 2020 reelection campaign. Except for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who questioned excessive U.S. support for Israel in her pre-MAGA career, it is hard to think of anyone in the upper reaches of the administration who publicly favors distancing the United States from Israel.

Second, Trump himself has acknowledged his own debt to ardent pro-Israel figures such as the late Sheldon Adelson and his widow, Miriam. As Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick recount in a recent article in the Nation (and a soon-to-be-published book), Trump singled out Miriam Adelson—the largest single contributor in recent U.S. elections—during his address to the Knesset in October 2025, and even speculated that she might love Israel more than the United States. Similar concerns may also explain why some Democratic Party leaders have been reluctant to criticize Israel for starting the war or the Trump administration for joining in and have focused instead on the failure to plan the war more carefully.

Third, this war did not come out of nowhere. To be sure, the United States and Iran have been at odds for decades, and neither Israel nor the lobby is solely responsible for the suspicion with which each country views the other. Nonetheless, lobby groups such as AIPAC, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Zionist Organization of America, and United Against Nuclear Iran have worked to demonize Iran over the years, prevent U.S. companies from doing business there, and derail prior attempts by former Iranian presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammed Khatami to improve relations. (For evidence on the latter point, check out chapter 10 of our 2007 book.) Unlike J Street, these groups worked overtime to thwart the 2015 agreement that reduced Iran’s enrichment capacity and nuclear stockpile, and they eventually persuaded Trump to tear up the deal in 2018 even though Iran was in full compliance. Had Trump not done so, of course, there would be much less reason to worry about Iran’s nuclear program today.

Finally, by making it almost impossible for either Democratic or Republican presidents to put meaningful pressure on Israel, the lobby has enabled Netanyahu to engage in “reckless driving” all over the region, whether in Israel’s sustained efforts to oppress its Palestinian subjects or in its repeated attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iran, and even Qatar. Although Steven Simon is correct to say that Israel did not “compel” the U.S. into this latest war—the Trump administration jumped in voluntarily and enthusiastically—the lobby’s role in defending the special relationship and enabling Israel to keep disturbing the peace helps us understand why Americans keep finding themselves embroiled in costly conflicts far from home.

The bottom line: As this latest disaster unfolds, Americans and others will rightly want to hold those responsible to account. They should focus on the specific groups and individuals—from the president on down—who embraced Israel’s approach to the region and managed to convince themselves that yet another orgy of violence would be in the U.S. interest. Until the lobby’s influence is reduced and the United States establishes a more normal relationship with Israel, such episodes are likely to be repeated, making the United States look like a heartless bully and leaving all of us worse off.

Trump's window for face-saving exit may be closing now

Escalation is only putting him in a lose-lose situation, so negotiating is the only option. However, Iran's growing leverage could prevent an easy off-ramp.

Trita Parsi

Mar 19, 2026

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-end-war-iran/

The developments of the past 24 hours may prove a turning point in this war: Israel and America’s escalation by striking oil facilities at the Qatari-Iranian Pars field, and in Asaluyeh, Iran's massive retaliation against oil and gas installations in Saudi, Qatar and beyond, which shot up oil prices, the near downing of an American F-35 fighter by Iran, and Secretary Bessent's revelations that the U.S. may un-sanction Iranian oil on the waters to bring down oil prices.

As I said already on the fourth day, the U.S. has lost control of this war. It had a Plan A, but no Plan B.

Plan A came crashing down after it became clear that the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei neither brought the implosion of the theocracy nor their surrender. As a result, Washington is increasingly letting the Israelis drive the bus, by virtue of them having a plan, even though their plan does not serve U.S. interests (the Israelis want to prolong the war to degrade Iran's entire industrial base, regardless of what happens to energy markets, Trump's presidency, and security in the region as a whole.)

The Israeli strike against the Pars field, coordinated with the U.S., is particularly important because it violated a promise Trump made to Qatar back in September 2025 that Israel would no longer be allowed to strike Qatar.

But that gas field is shared by both Iran and Qatar, hence it was an attack on Qatar as well as on Iran. With American coordination. This — and the impact on energy markets — may explain why Trump took to social media to blame Israel for the attack and publicly forbade them from striking further energy fields.

But Bessent's comments about un-sanctioning Iranian oil currently sitting in tankers on the sea are the most important. Though it's primarily done to push down oil prices, it appears that we may have nevertheless entered sanctions relief territory out of necessity.

I wrote several days ago that Tehran is very unlikely to end the war even if the U.S. pulls out and declares victory. Iran has leverage for the first time in years and will seek to trade it in. It has publicly demanded a closing of American bases, reparations, and sanctions relief in order to stop shooting at Israel and open the Straits. The first may happen over time anyway, the second is highly unlikely, but the third — sanctions relief — may become more plausible as the cost of the war rises, and escalation strategies become increasingly suicidal for Trump.

As I have explained, a return to the pre-war status quo is unacceptable to Tehran because it will not only be in a degraded state, but also in a continuously weakening state because its pathways to sanctions relief have been blown up. If Iran weakens further, it will only invite further American and Israeli aggression, Tehran believes, because it was the false perception of Iranian weakness that created the "window of opportunity" to attack Iran in the first place.

Sanctions relief is, as a result, a necessity to ensure that the war doesn't restart.

But here is where Iran may miscalculate. Trump may not yet have reached the point at which the cost of continuing the war is so high that he opts to offer sanctions exemptions to select countries to get Iran's agreement to open the straits and end the war. He will likely only reach that point once it's clear that his base is starting to turn against the war in a serious manner.

At that point, Trump will face a time crunch. He will need a narrative in which he declares himself a victor — with his base believing it. Absent the ability to convince his base that he has won, the benefit of ending the war may not outweigh the cost of continuing it. And as soon as his base starts turning against the war, his ability to convince them of his victory starts to wane.

Mindful of the fact that negotiating this end may take an estimated 7-10 days at best, which is different from the 24 hours or so it took to negotiate the unconditional ceasefire in June, Tehran may overplay its hand and only agree to enter these negotiations at a point at which the length of the negotiations may exceed the time Trump has left to convincingly declare victory and provide himself a face saving exit.

Getting the timing of this right will be very difficult for both the U.S. and Iran. Israel will do all it can to sabotage any such off-ramp, including killing Iranian's negotiators. But it will become increasingly clear — if it hasn't already — to Trump that all his escalatory options only deepen the lose-lose situation he has put himself in.

That's why Trump should never have listened to Netanyahu in the first place.

Iran attacks Israel's Dimona nuclear site in retaliation, dozens wounded

Iran signals tit-for-tat escalation after missile hits site near Israel’s nuclear facility

By Elis Gjevori

Published date: 21 March 2026

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-attacks-israels-dimona-nuclear-site-retaliation-dozens-wounded

Iranian state television says a missile strike on Dimona, home to a nuclear facility in southern Israel, was a "response" to an earlier attack on its Natanz nuclear site.

Iran’s atomic energy organisation said the "Natanz enrichment complex was targeted this morning", adding there was "no leakage of radioactive materials reported", according to local media.

The Israeli army confirmed "a direct impact of an Iranian missile" on a building in the city that houses a nuclear research facility, AFP reported.

Israeli media report that at least 39 people were injured, although officials have yet to provide a full breakdown of casualties.

Dimona sits near one of the most sensitive locations in Irael: the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, long linked to Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons programme.

The Israeli state continues to refuse transparency, neither confirming nor denying its arsenal, while maintaining one of the region’s most heavily fortified sites in the Naqab desert.

The International Atomic Energy Agency says it is aware of reports of a strike in Dimona but has received no information of damage to the Negev nuclear research centre from Israel

However, with Israel maintaining secrecy over its undeclared nuclear programme, questions remain over how much information is being shared with international inspectors.

The agency said regional authorities reported no abnormal radiation levels and that it is monitoring the situation. 

Iran’s Natanz nuclear plant

The strike on Dimona came hours after a US-Israeli attack targeted Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment complex.

Iran condemned the strike as “criminal attacks”, saying it violated international law and nuclear agreements, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and warned of wider consequences.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the Natanz attack but reported no rise in radiation levels outside the facility, as it launched an investigation and urged restraint.

Iran had previously warned it could target Dimona if Israel continued striking nuclear sites.

A military source told Tasnim News Agency on Saturday that Iran has shifted its strategy, signalling a move beyond a policy of proportional retaliation.

The source said Tehran now intends to raise the cost of any attack, warning that future responses will be broader and more damaging.

"The enemy must have realized by now that if they attack one infrastructure, we will attack several of their infrastructures; if they attack a refinery or gas facility, we will attack several similar facilities and teach them a crushing lesson."

The source added: "Iran responds to every mistake of the enemy with surprise and sets their interests on fire."

How the Israeli Tail Wags the American Dog

The US attack on Iran may be less about American security than about the priorities of Israel’s government.

Eli Clifton and Ian S. Lustick

March 12, 2026

https://archive.ph/e4PEo

One prominent rationale for the Israeli-American attack on Iran is to bomb the country into friendliness to the US and Israel. Very few believe this will succeed. Iran, a country as big as Germany, Britain, and France combined, has a population of 93 million, more than triple that of Iraq when the United States tried, even with a massive army, to transform it into a US ally. We all remember how that worked out.

President Trump ran two successful presidential campaigns with a populist foreign policy platform of promising “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars” and denouncing the “endless wars” pursued by his predecessors in Iraq and Afghanistan. He now appears to have jettisoned his “America First” foreign policy with no strategic rationale. But understanding this war as rational means believing it was launched as a means to achieve some particular end for Americans. Yet, despite President Trump’s claims to the contrary, Iran’s long-range missile program posed no foreseeable threat to the US according to US intelligence assessments. This forces our attention to its real origins and beneficiaries, in Israel.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged that the primary answer to the question of “Why [attack Iran] now?” was that US war-making decisions were effectively being driven by Israel. “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed, and then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act,” he said on March 2.

The first part of Rubio’s answer, that Israel was planning to attack Iran and that Iran would retaliate against US targets, is a statement of a real problem: Israel’s behavior imposes security and economic costs on the United States. Successive US presidents supplied Israel with billions of dollars of military aid, political cover in international forums and tirelessly worked to shield Israel from accountability for its war on Gaza and long-running occupation of the West Bank. Israel has become accustomed to acting with impunity and disregarding US interests, particularly with respect to presidents Obama, Biden, and Trump’s stated priorities of refocusing US foreign policy toward the challenges of a rising China.

But the Trump administration’s solution, as explained by Rubio, was simply to acquiesce to Israel and join a deadly war of choice against Iran that is predictably sowing chaos in the region, killing Iranian civilians, and promising, much like George W. Bush’s ill-fated Iraq War, quick regime change to a US- and Israel-friendly democracy.

The real goals of Trump’s war cannot be found in his strategic vision, which is overshadowed, if it even exists, by a pinwheeling embrace of postures that serve his vanity and his short-term political interests. While most combat operations have been undertaken by the US military, at considerable risk to US service members and costs borne by American taxpayers, the war was born, planned, and insisted upon by Israel, and its long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I have tried to persuade successive American administrations to take firm action [against Iran], and President Trump did,” Netanyahu told Fox News, acknowledging his own efforts to push the US into yet another war in the Middle East. Netanyahu famously overpromises what US interventions will achieve. In 2002 he told Congress, “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”