On February 28 2026, President Donald Trump posted an eight minute long justification of renewed combat operations on Iran, to both X and Truth Social. In it, Trump focused on a number of key issues to justify the bombings in Iran’s capital, Iran, with the goal of ending the supposed nuclear program in Iran once and for all, as well as a call to the Iranian people to overthrow their government. With such a drastic strike against the nation, listeners might assume that the justification is against some unique evil that the Iranian government has committed, one so heinous as to demand prompt and unconstitutional action against the nation. However, even a surface level analysis of the United States’ own history in the region shows that America is no better off than Iran.
Lets examine the main claim for justification from Trump: the supposed nuclear weapons program in Iran. Lets first ignore the fact that this seems like a straight riff from the Iraq war playbook, in which the George W. Bush White House Archives reminds us of the supposed “weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)” that were the main justification for attacking Iraq, identical to the nuclear weapons that Iran is supposedly developing. Regardless of whether or not Iran is truly developing nuclear weapons, which is a shaky claim that has some merit but is far from confirmed, we should not forget that the United States itself has the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world, trailing only slightly behind the Russian Federation.
The Department of Energy and the Department of War (previously the Department of Defense) boast about the sophistication of its nuclear weapons, which can reach any target in the world. Meanwhile, the Independent Atomic Energy Agency, an independent United Nations commission that monitors the development of nuclear energy and weapons across the world, estimates that Iran may have enough enriched uranium to produce one nuclear weapon, IF it were enriched to weapons-grade capability. In Trump’s own justification, he estimates that Iran’s missile capabilities are not yet at the level to strike the United States homeland. The supposed president of peace has five thousand nuclear weapons, most of which can strike any location on Earth, justifies war against a nation that might have enough enriched uranium to produce one nuclear weapon that doesn’t even have the range of one hemisphere.
And who are we to judge a nation who might be producing a weapon for who knows what purpose, a nation that we have repeatedly antagonized, demonized, and strike by our various governments. Let us compare Iran’s situation to that of North Korea. Regardless of your opinion on the current state of North Korea, the way American government and media has vilified both nations is nearly identical. And yet, North Korea has hardly seen any direct strikes from the United States since the Korean war, because they host their own verified nuclear arsenal. Any nation who has any sense of self preservation— the basic instinct to survive— would realize that having some nuclear weapons wouldn’t be a bad idea. Infact, it is the threat of nuclear weapons that many say prevented a third world war against the former Soviet Union and the United States, in a theory known as mutual destruction.
The second major claim Trump uses to justify this strike is Iran’s support for terror groups across the world. Similarly, the irony of this claim should not be lost on the reader. According to Britannica Encyclopedia, one of Trump’s role model presidents, former President Ronald Reagan, was caught selling weapons to Iran in order to fund an anti-government terror group in Nicaragua in the 80s, in what became known as the Iran-Contra afair. David Carrett, an American Navy officer, was indicted in Italy for involvement in a bombing in Milan in the 60s, according to news archives from the region. Turkey, Russia, and Syria have condemned the United States for sponsoring terror groups in war-torn Syria through the 2010s, including the Islamic State (ISIS). Of course, the Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba was a failed attempt by then-President John Kennedy to destabilize and overthrow the communist government in Cuba. Right-wing Colombian death squads throughout the 20th century were found to be consistently backed by the United States government.
There is evidence to suggest that the United States was one of the first state sponsors of terrorism in the world, and potentially the most prolific in history. Of course, the United States does not call these actions terrorism, its always the guise of protecting the people, or American interests, or some other socio-political or economic excuse. But do not be fooled, every other nation who conducts similar actions justifies their work in the same exact way. This is by no means to excuse these actions, but rather to remind the reader that the United States is no better than Iran in this regard.
This is a great example of why education is essential in navigating today’s world. It is thanks to the work of archivists and historians that we are able to call out this hypocrisy from the United States. Now more than ever, we must remain vigilant in combatting the claims of those who stand to benefit the most from war and conflict. While the future of the war in Iran is unclear, you can now be certain that this is no more unique than our war with Iraq, or Afghanistan, or truthfully, most nations in our history: it is a war justified by deception.