First Thoughts on the New Iran War

By John Podhoretz

Saturday, February 28, 2026

 

For weeks, on our podcast, I have wondered: Did Donald Trump find himself stumbling uncomfortably into a new military conflict with Iran due to unfolding events inside the Islamic Republic in late December? This would account for the way his regime-change rhetoric in early January suddenly morphed into a “let’s make a deal but this time a good deal” after the mullahs went on their monstrous killing spree from Jan. 8 to Jan. 10. Why discuss “deals” with a regime that not only committed one of the greatest crimes of our time but that honestly doesn’t have that much to offer in a deal—unless, that is, you don’t want to do what you were intimating you would do and are looking for an escape route from your own heedless path?

 

Or…did Trump actually make the hard decision to go after Iran  in early January? That would mean everything that has happened since has just been a kind of public show to distract from the way the U.S. systematically moved its military assets on sea and in the air into the Middle East to give it the maximum force it would need to do the job and do it commandingly, over a period of days, and achieve multiple aims—the complete elimination of the ballistic missile program, finally finishing off for once and for all the nuclear program, and taking out Iran’s navy and its offensive military capabilities?

 

Achieving those aims is what the president said we would do in the middle of the night as he announced the beginning of the war.

 

He did not say the war was for regime change. He said that ,after we had achieved our military aims, the Iranian people should take the golden opportunity to free themselves from the tyranny that has had its boot on their faces for 47 years.

 

There is a distinction.

 

A regime-change war would effectively require us to go in on the ground in Tehran, take out the mullahs, and announce that a regency of some sort that would then lead to a new republic. Instead, this war is designed to take out the command, control, communications, and military abilities of the regime and leave Khamenei and his demonic underlings denuded, undefended, alone, and astoundingly weak—to leave their regime a carcass to be picked over rather than continue to exist as a punch-drunk boxer who can rise from the canvas and try to keep swinging. Once we’re done, it would be quick work for Iranians themselves to kick the mullahs to the curb.

 

But, regime change war or not, I think my questions now have pretty clear answers. The six weeks of diplomatic dithering following the Iranian slaughter were, in fact, simply temporizing. We got our ducks in a row—and, presumably, gave Israel time to help us locate the necessary targets inside Iran to strike the bad guys while leaving the general population largely unmolested.

 

Today, February 28, 2026, may be the most important day of the 21st Century so far. May God bless our fighting forces as they place themselves in harm’s way to protect, defend, and save the West—and may we triumph over this remorseless, conscienceless, and evil enemy that has been at war with the “Great Satan” for nearly half a century.