The Firehose of War

March 1, 2026

Trump’s firehose strategy overwhelms the newsfeed so that we can’t even respond sanely to any one outrage. Events have been firehosing in a big way in the last few days. Not only do Trump’s ICE thugs continue their brutal and lawless arrests of thousands, not only do the Clintons’ appearances in hearings emphasize the absence of any investigation of Trump and the rest of the Epstein class, not only does this president exhibit his monstrous corruption right out in the open--with the stolen oil, the pocketing of tariff money, the Trump bibles and gold tennis shoes, the crypto--but now he has singlehandedly, without clear explanation, without required congressional approval or buy-in from the American people, launched a massive bomb and missile attack on Iran. In an Orwellian vein, Mr. Board of Peace posts on social media that the strikes will continue as long as it takes to achieve "PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!"

Why the strikes, and why now?  Intelligence experts say that despite Trump’s pronouncements, there was no pressing reason for an attack, no imminent threat of the emergence of nuclear weapons in Iran.  Now that the US - Israeli bombing and destruction are well underway, and supreme leader ayatollah Khamenei is dead, the president explains that he and Netanyahu have made these military strikes to cause regime change. (That’s not what Trump achieved in Venezuela on January 3 when he snatched Maduro-- the same regime remains in power there, and Venezuela is already a distant speck in our collective memory because of the firehose.)   

Air strikes on Iran can destroy, and they are doing so with terrific force, but they can’t create, as Timothy Snyder says: you do not help Iran build a pluralistic democracy by raining bombs on it, and there doesn’t seem to be a plan to do anything more than destroy. Last month Trump appeared to champion the wave of Iranian anti-government demonstrations, but he didn’t rescue the protesters as he had suggested he would—and the police killed tens of thousands. Now that he urges the Iranian people to rebuild their newly “liberated” country, how feasible an idea is that?

With the clarity we’ve come to expect of him, Tim Snyder asks three questions:   First, what does the Iran attack have to do with the US elections?   Second, how much does it have to do with the fact that other countries in the region such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain have given Trump and his family huge amounts of money?   Third, what does this military operation have to do with regime change in Iran – and regime change for whom?  

To address the first question, of course this action is about America’s midterm election. Most things Trump does are with an eye on the upcoming elections: Claiming that he won in 2020 when he lost to Biden. Confiscating the ballots in Georgia. Spreading disinformation constantly. Suppressing the vote with redistricting campaigns by Republican states, voter intimidation by ICE thugs, threatening to federalize the election process, and getting his Republican congress to pass restrictive voter ID legislation. Trump must win elections because otherwise he knows he’ll be impeached, lose his wealth and power, and end up in prison. A good war win, he reasons, should restore his popularity, and of course if he can declare a national emergency because of war, there goes the election.

Snyder’s second point: when you can’t figure out what Trump is up to, follow the money. Think of the Qatari gift of the gold-plated airplane, think of the two billion given to son-in-law Jared at the end of Trump’s first presidency, think of the billions pouring in to the family crypto scam from various powers in the Gulf region. Middle Eastern nations have injected huge amounts of money to pay off the US; maybe this is a military action on contract. At least in part, the strikes are not so much a slap to Iran for enriching its uranium, but payback to Iran’s neighbors for enriching the Trump empire.

Third, how can the US possibly achieve a stable and healthy regime change for Iran, especially from the air? Instead, after Iran’s first flush of liberation from murderous theocratic rule for almost 50 years, the killing of its leadership is liable to unleash a brutal internal struggle. In a vicious free-for-all, any groups with guns will likely be vying for power. And Trump could not care less about the Iranian people, even less about them than he cares about the American people.

To summarize, why would the United States undertake this unnecessary war? It has been entirely Donald Trump’s decision. He is claiming an easy victory and making himself look strong. He is acting like a despot, and no one is stopping him, so he escalates. Every day.

As Snyder says, the news media and many Americans are treating the Iran strike as if we’re in a traditional, normal presidency. A parade of elected officials says over and over on TV that there should have been consultation with Congress, the people should have been informed. But Trump has shown, over and over, that he does not care about the law.

We constantly try to find a way to think of our domestic affairs, too, in a framework of normalcy, despite the ugly and disturbing reality--the private army of thugs, the building of concentration camps, and the rapid disintegration of most government agencies. We need to realize we’re no longer a sovereign state with a legal system, we’re a way for Donald Trump to feed his insatiable ego. If you’re as corrupt as Trump, you don’t care about creating a better Iran or a better US, you’re interested in money and power for yourself, and trashing Obama’s and Biden’s legacies.

For Trump to satisfy his endless cravings, he has had to destroy the White House, the Kennedy Center, public health, the environment, Obamacare, Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. And staying in power means everything depends on the 2026 election: he simply must win--if he allows an election to occur at all. Timothy Snyder predicts: Trump will say it was Iran that was going to interfere in the midterm elections. He’ll blame Iran: and anyone who opposes this war is “pro-Iran” and is a terrorist, backed by Iran, and threatening our American elections.  

Snyder advises that there’s no excuse for us not be prepared for this development in Trump’s rhetoric. We have the opportunity to counter his madness if we’re prepared, if we stop our wishful thinking that things will somehow return to normal if we just wait it out. Mass protest, mass boycotts, mass civil disobedience, this all has to be bigger than Trump.

Our voices have to be louder than Trump’s. Our singing and our solidarity have to drown out Trump’s bellowing lies. We must muster our courage, wear paper clips and red knitted Norwegian caps and frog costumes and carry big signs to demand free and fair elections in November. We might not succeed, but along with the slow, imperfect grindings of the court system, it’s the main hope we have.

Finally, what is the perspective from inside Iran? The American-Israeli strikes are creating complex and contradictory impacts. Crowds are dancing in the streets in Tehran. Whatever happens tomorrow or next week, those Iranians can breathe right now; and paradoxically, it’s the corrupt egomaniac American president who has made this euphoria possible. But other vast crowds in the streets are mourning the death of their supreme religious leader, and vowing to avenge it.

Here is what an Iranian man posted the other day, before the strikes; it’s probably the single best explanation of the reality facing the Iranian people.

"As an Iranian, I can tell you the situation is no longer just political—it's existential. We are trapped between two collapsing structures: one internal, one external. On one hand, we face a deeply dysfunctional government, led by the Supreme Leader and the Islamic Republic’s unelected institutions.

Decades of economic mismanagement, suppression of dissent, and brutal ideological control have alienated multiple generations. No one believes in reform anymore—because every attempt has either been co-opted or crushed. But here's the paradox: We are also terrified of regime collapse—because we've watched the aftermath of Western intervention in countries like Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan. Each was promised freedom; each descended into chaos, civil war, or foreign occupation.

So no, we don't trust the U.S. or Israel. Not because we support our regime—but because we know how imperial powers treat ‘liberated’ nations in the Middle East.

Freedom, in their language, often means vacuum, fire, and permanent instability. Right now, many Iranians live with three truths at once: The Islamic Republic is morally and politically bankrupt. The alternatives offered by foreign actors are not liberation—they’re collapse.

A bad government is survivable. No government is not. We are not silent because we agree. We are cautious because we’ve learned—too well—what happens when superpowers decide to "help." In a sentence: Iran is a nation held hostage by its own regime, but haunted by the fate of its neighbors. We are stuck in a house we hate, surrounded by fires we fear more."

Now that Khameini and other leaders are dead, will Iran suffer the fate of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan? It certainly looks like the US has no plan for rebuilding, just as it has left Gaza in tatters. All we can do is stay informed, take care of one another, and do everything we can to restore our own democracy.