Twenty-three years ago this month, the United States invaded Iraq. The George W. Bush administration launched that war on shifting justifications. First was the specter of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist, then the promise of liberation and democracy flowering across the Middle East. We know now, as many of us understood from the very beginning, that the war was actually about control of Iraq’s oil, projection of American power, and the settling of a personal score the Bush family had against Saddam Hussein. We were told the troops would be welcomed as liberators. Instead, a violent resistance dragged on through 2011. The Iraq Body Count project documents more than 211,000 civilian deaths from violence directly attributable to the war. Other estimates exceed one million.
Yesterday, the United States and Israel launched a full-scale air war on Iran. We are watching the same imperial machinery, the same hollow justifications, the same contempt for law and for human life dressed up as strength. This time, the supposed threat is Iran’s nuclear program. This time, Donald Trump is at the podium, calling on Iranians to rise up and overthrow their government, while Israeli and American warplanes strike cities across the country. Among the first reported casualties are 148 people, many of them schoolchildren, killed when an airstrike destroyed a girls’ elementary school in Minab. Let’s all think about these little girls before reading another word of Trump’s and Netanyahu’s official justifications.
The Bush administration’s illegal war on Iraq rested, in part, on the assumption that the country was so weakened by sanctions, the first Gulf War, and years of isolation that resistance would be minimal and the war would be swift. Even on those terms, they were completely wrong. The occupation became a grinding, deadly disaster that destabilized the entire region, gave rise to new extremist movements, and cost American lives and credibility for a generation. Iran in 2026 is not Iraq in 2003. It has not spent years under the kind of comprehensive sanctions regime that hollowed out Iraqi military capacity. It maintains a large, motivated, and battle-tested military force with deep ties to armed movements in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, and stockpiles of missiles and drones capable of hitting targets throughout the region. The Trump administration is not just repeating the recklessness of the Bush years; it is running the same playbook against a far more capable adversary, with an even less coherent strategy and far less international support.
This war was launched with the kind of impunity that comes from two governments that believe accountability simply does not apply to them. And why would they think otherwise? There were no real consequences for the Iraq invasion. There have been no real consequences for the genocide in Gaza. The message the international community has sent, over and over, is that the powerful can act without restraint.
Let’s be clear about what this war is not about. It is not about Iran’s nuclear program. If it were, the United States would have remained in the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement that, whatever its limitations, was actually constraining Iranian nuclear development. Trump tore that agreement apart in his first term to please Netanyahu and his domestic base, and the collapse of that deal is one reason Iran’s program advanced as far as it did. If it were about Iran’s nuclear program, they would have continued the current negotiations, of which Oman’s foreign minister, who was mediating those talks, said a deal “is now within reach.” It is not about freeing the Iranian people from a repressive government, either. Trump has no interest in democracy in Iran; he barely hides his opposition to it here at home. The administration that has systematically dismantled democratic norms and institutions, weaponized immigration enforcement against dissidents and protesters, and is rounding up Iranian immigrants for deportation even now does not get to claim the mantle of Iranian liberation. This war is about power: projecting American dominance across a region that has spent two decades pushing back against it, advancing Israel’s colonial ambition for a “greater Israel” that requires a permanently weakened and fragmented neighborhood of subordinate states, and feeding the dangerous need of a corrupt president to cloak himself in the theater of imperial strength.
This war is also an attack on the international legal order constructed, painfully and imperfectly, in the aftermath of World War II. The United Nations Charter prohibits wars of aggression. International humanitarian law prohibits the targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure. That entire architecture is built on the premise that powerful states cannot simply decide to bomb and invade weaker ones at will. The United States has violated those principles many times over many decades, but there has until recently been at least a performative commitment to the framework; a recognition that international law, however imperfectly enforced, provides a common basis for resolving disputes and constraining the worst impulses of the powerful. What the Trump-Netanyahu project represents is something different: not just a violation of the rules, but a rejection of the rules as an organizing concept for the world. It is an explicit ambition to return to a system organized around dominance and coercion. This is what Israel’s accelerating annexation of the West Bank represents. This is what the Gaza genocide represents. And this is what the war on Iran represents.
Mondoweiss covered the Iraq War critically, when the mainstream press was cheerleading for it. We have covered the Gaza genocide from the beginning. We will cover this war the same way: without illusions, without deference to power, and with our eyes on the people dying under the bombs while their governments explain why it was necessary. We need to build resistance in the streets, in workplaces, and in our communities. We need to connect this war to the genocide in Gaza, to the occupation of the West Bank, to the bombing of Yemen, to the deportation of Iranian immigrants. These are not separate crises. They are expressions of the same project. We know how this playbook ends. The question is whether enough people resist it this time to change the outcome.
🇵🇸 Occupation and exploitation of Gaza
This week, we covered Israeli soldiers beating Palestinians at the Rafah crossing, billionaires circling to profit off the rubble, and a reconstruction plan that Gazans themselves have made clear they want no part of. Amid all of this, ordinary Gazans are trying to hold onto their traditions in the first Ramadan since the genocide.
READ MORE → ‘We own Gaza now’: Inside an Israeli interrogation room at the Rafah border crossing — Tareq S. Hajjaj
READ MORE → Meet the companies and billionaires looking to make a massive profit off Trump’s plans in Gaza — Michael Arria
READ MORE → Gaza does not need new overlords — Jehad Abusalim
READ MORE → Palestine Letter: Rebuilding Ramadan traditions in Gaza’s rubble — Tareq S. Hajjaj
READ MORE → What the Gaza genocide did to Palestinians’ ability to feel shock and wonder — Abdaljawad Omar
🇮🇱 “Greater Israel”
U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee claimed Israel has a biblical right to land from the Nile to the Euphrates. Israel’s supposed liberal opposition agreed with him, new polling shows Israeli youth moving further right than any generation in Israeli history, and Tucker Carlson’s much-publicized visit to the region reveals just how far even sympathetic critics remain from understanding what Palestinian freedom actually requires.
READ MORE → New Israeli poll shows young Jewish voters most right-wing, fanatically religious, and pro-genocide in Israeli history — Jonathan Ofir
READ MORE → The Shift: International outcry over Huckabee claim that Israel can control from Egypt to Iraq — Michael Arria
READ MORE → Israeli ‘liberal’ opposition leader agrees with Mike Huckabee that the Bible gives Israel the right to land from Egypt to Iraq — Jonathan Ofir
READ MORE → Tucker Carlson’s criticism of Israel misses the point — Qassam Muaddi
📉 Israel’s increasing isolation
Saudi Arabia is undergoing a significant strategic realignment, rethinking its relationships with both the United States and Israel. Europe’s arms ties with Israel are being transformed by the genocide in ways that will outlast the current political moment. And at the Winter Olympics, Israeli athletes were met with boos.
READ MORE → Inside Saudi Arabia’s regional realignment — Mitchell Plitnick
READ MORE → How the Gaza genocide is transforming Israel’s military relations with Europe — Shir Hever and Rhys Machold
READ MORE → Israel’s legitimacy was on thin ice at the Winter Olympics. It’s just the beginning. — Jonathan Ofir
🚨 Repression and resistance
The crackdown on Palestine solidarity in the United States has been harsher than anything activists faced during the Black Lives Matter protests, and it is part of a broader assault on dissent that mirrors the imperial project underway abroad. The Israel lobby is working to destroy the reputation of UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. And on college campuses, a necessary debate is underway about whether Zionism deserves a platform at all.
READ MORE → How data on the crackdown on Gaza protests reflects the increasing repression of activist movements in the U.S. — Tom Perkins
READ MORE → Francesca Albanese is a powerful voice for justice, which is why the Israel lobby is trying to silence her — Michael Lynk
READ MORE → In defense of de-platforming Zionists on college campuses — Tarik Aougab
The Define and Punish Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 10) empowers Congress to establish Article I Courts or Claims Commissions governing Piracies, Felonies on the High Seas and violations of the Laws of Nations. It does not have to submit those maritime or extra-territorial crimes to the DoJ. In fact, the Doctrine of Non-Delegation should be used to end the idea of a unitary Executive who can initiate wars of aggression. This authority allows the U.S. Congress to address offenses that occur outside the territorial jurisdiction of any single nation, ensuring that the United States can fulfill its obligations under international law.
FYI, Congress has the enumerated power and has established its own Courts that are under its immediate jurisdiction. Nothing prevents it from adjudicating claims from Iran and making Trump and or Hegseth pay reparations or serve time in prison. Here are a few examples of Article I Courts:
* The historical Indian Tribal Claims Commissions.
* U.S. Tax Court: Resolves disputes between taxpayers and the Internal Revenue Service.
* U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces: The final appellate court for military court-martial cases.
* U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims: Reviews decisions from the Board of Veterans’ Appeals.
* U.S. Court of Federal Claims: Handles monetary claims against the U.S. government.
* U.S. Bankruptcy Courts: Function as units of the U.S. District Courts to handle all bankruptcy matters.
* Territorial Courts: Federal courts located in U.S. territories, including Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
* Court of Military Commission Review: Reviews certain decisions from military commissions.
“What the Trump-Netanyahu project represents is something different: not just a violation of the rules, but a rejection of the rules as an organizing concept for the world.”
To reinforce this point, listen to Peter Beinart’s 10 minute discussion of the attack on Iran:
America, Iran and the Lessons of Nuremberg
As Beinart points out toward the end of the talk, the recent developments are not going to be good for the Jews: many, many people now understand that the war doesn’t serve U.S. security interests and Israeli influence over U.S. politics helped push us into this. I fear we are going to see anti-semitism on steroids.
US Calls Iranian Retaliatory Strikes “Unprovoked”, And Other Notes
Caitlin Johnstone
Mar 01, 2026
“The US-Israeli war on Iran rages on. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed. Iran has been hammering US military bases in the region with missiles and drones, and oil prices are already beginning to rise as the IRGC cuts off the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the attacks.
US soldiers have already begun to die. US Central Command reports that three American service members were killed in combat, with five seriously wounded — and it should here be noted that “seriously wounded” can mean permanently brain damaged, comatose, or otherwise rendered severely handicapped for the rest of their lives.
Trump said during an interview with The Daily Mail that he now expects this war to last “four weeks or so”, and that he expects US casualties to continue.
I have said it before and I will say it again: every single American soldier who dies in this war was killed by Trump and Netanyahu. The US and Israeli governments bear sole responsibility for their deaths.
At least 153 people were reportedly killed in a strike on an Iranian girls’ school in the opening wave of attacks. Most of the fatalities were girls between the ages of seven and twelve.
Turns out “freeing Iranian women from the hijab” just meant killing girls before they’re old enough to start wearing one.
There’ve been viral claims on social media that it was a misfired Iranian missile which struck the school and that the Iranian government has admitted to this — both of which were swiftly debunked.
We’ve seen this play before. In October 2023 hasbarists were saturating the information ecosystem with claims that Gaza’s Al-Ahli Baptist hospital was hit by a misfired Palestinian rocket rather than by Israel. Israel has now bombed that very same hospital eight separate times, which tells you all you need to know.
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US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz used the word “unprovoked” to describe Iran’s retaliatory strikes on US military bases in the region, which is just plain hilarious.”
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/us-calls-iranian-retaliatory-strikes
“advancing Israel’s colonial ambition for a “greater Israel” that requires a permanently weakened and fragmented neighborhood of subordinate states… These are not separate crises. They are expressions of the same project. We know how this playbook ends. The question is whether enough people resist it this time to change the outcome.”
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In this article Dave details the nature of the problem.
An important question now is to consider is “how” best to resist the fundamental dynamic. Etablishing which side is the true victim is less important than building bridges to poitical allies necessary to challenge the status quo.
IMO, those allies are the citizens of the aggressing nations. Bridging to them will be advanced with a better understanding of the vision that can facilitate co-existence from the river to the sea.