US Attacks Iran 2026

[mike]

A positive spin on the war from the WSJ opinion section.

A Mideast Moment of Hope
The commentariat’s bleak verdict depends on lazy readings of recent history.
By Barton Swaim

April 1, 2026 5:00 pm ET

If all you knew about the war in Iran is what you read in the American and
European press, you might conclude that the U.S. has never prosecuted a
war so ineptly as it has this one. In fact, nearly the opposite is true.

Iran’s rulers have been on the job for a month, their predecessors having
died on Feb. 28. The U.S. has destroyed most of Iran’s navy and neutered
what remains of it. Its air defenses no longer exist. Some large part of its
ballistic missiles have been used, destroyed or damaged; its capacity to
build more is nearly at an end. Iran’s nuclear program—central to the
regime’s identity—lies under rubble. Israeli strikes have inflicted havoc on
the Islamic Republic’s internal repression apparatus. The regime’s terrorist
proxies appear quiet or on the run, suggesting a shortage of Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders telling them what to do.

Most of America’s and Europe’s news media, meanwhile, sift through the
details to find evidence of U.S. incompetence. The administration didn’t plan
for missile and drone strikes on its bases. The war benefits Russia. It
benefits China. War planners didn’t count on Iran’s closing the Strait of
Hormuz. On and on.

These claims deserve attention, though dispositive they are not. The war
obliged the U.S. to ease sanctions on Russian oil, but the destruction of
Russia’s chief client in the Middle East creates problems for Moscow that far
outweigh any short-term boost in oil revenue. The complaint that a war in
Iran “distracts” the U.S. from Chinese aggression rests on the truism that a
nation’s attention is finite: All wars distract. As for the strait, its remaining
open would have been the real surprise.

You have to assume some of this relentless pessimism stems from the belief,
familiar after a decade, that whatever Donald Trump does must lead to
disaster. That’s a sorry way to get at the truth. But the smallness and
lockstep defeatism of so much commentary on the war also stems from the
normal human tendency to interpret today’s big thing as another version of
yesterday’s. A lazy cyclical view of events sets in. The Iran war is like the
Iraq war, which was a version of the Vietnam War. All sooner or later end in
chaos and failure.

History doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes, as the maxim has it. But it rhymes
infrequently. Linear thinking can enlighten where cyclical doesn’t. The
overthrow of Saddam Hussein and attempt to replace his regime with a
democratic government failed to remake the Middle East in the way its
planners hoped. But the removal of Iraq as a global mischief-maker set in
motion a longer and wider remaking in which the Arab Gulf states moved
closer to the U.S. and Israel to thwart the remaining menace, Iran.

Since then, for a host of complicated and mostly unforeseeable reasons,
disparate circumstances across the region incline, slowly, in a promising
direction. Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has
undertaken the risky work of Westernizing the kingdom and abandoning the
cynical policy of funding radical madrasas abroad to buy off the Islamists.
The regime of another implacable enemy of the West, that of Bashar alAssad in Syria, unexpectedly collapsed in 2024, an event made possible by Israel’s degradation of its guarantor, Iran. No one knows which course Syria
under Ahmed al-Sharaa will choose, but for the first time in a half-century
its government appears to want amicable relations with the U.S. and Israel.

Lebanon, also for the first time in decades, makes progress in ridding itself
of Hezbollah, weakened as that jihadist terror group is by the travails of its
backers in Tehran. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, breaking a taboo
against so much as acknowledging Israel’s legitimacy, gestures toward a
settlement with the Jewish state for the purpose of disarming Hezbollah.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain grow daily more
committed to the work of defanging or toppling Iran, beginning with the
forcible opening of the Strait of Hormuz. In the background lie the Abraham
Accords and the recognition by the Gulf Arab states that their survival
depends as much on commerce with the West, including Israel, as it does on
oil. Bahrain and the U.A.E. are signatories. Saudi Arabia hints that joining
isn’t unthinkable.

It’s notable that the foreign-policy mandarins in the U.S. and Europe either
opposed or scorned each of the big events that made possible this moment
of hope—the Iraq war, the Abraham Accords and the kinetic strikes on Iran
first by Israel and then by the U.S. The mandarins preferred Barack Obama’s
nuclear deal, which failed to pacify Iran and explicitly did nothing to curtail
its exportation of terror.

A stabler and more commerce-driven Middle East has an immeasurably
greater chance of emerging after the Islamic Republic falls, or anyway falls
to its knees. Everything depends on what a fractured and abused Iranian
populace can do when the bombs stop dropping. No one knows, although
one may reasonably surmise, based on Israeli competence so far, that the
regime’s opponents will have access to weapons and intelligence.

Another reasonable inference: Iran’s rulers, whoever they are at this point,
would rather die than relinquish their ambitions at the hands of the Great
Satan. They may get their druthers in the end.

Appeared in the April 2, 2026, print edition as 'A Mideast Moment of Hope'

[Jazman]

This is a good lay out of why Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons.

I don’t know what is said as I don’t watch those sort of things on a personal or church level. Do they argue against the historical precedent for nukes getting your nation left alone?

I wonder if they talk about the one and only country to ever use nukes upon an enemy...?

[JohnH]

And, incidentally, the IRGC really seems to believe they are on some God-given mission to defeat the Great Satan.

So does Pete Hegseth.

So far, you don't seem to express much sympathy at all for the victims of war. You do seem to justify just about everything done to them. Why is that?

Can you stick to I statements? I don’t think I’ve done that.

I think it’s horrible the regime uses children and schools as human shields and that doing so causes terrible suffering. I also think it’s horrible they continue to lash out at all their neighbours, making a peaceful end to this not possible in the short term.

Is it remotely possible that war crimes are not a good thing?

I don’t think war crimes are good, which is why I am not sympathetic to the IRGC.

I don’t think America generally commits war crimes. If they did I wouldn’t support that either.

You seem to have much more concern for COs than for war victims or refugees.

I’m not sure how I’ve expressed “concern” for COs at all. I have said elsewhere (not here) that COs in Iran get treated terribly, for example, and in Russia as well. I know one person in Russia who did that and he basically had to pretend to be insane and spent a few years in an insane asylum in order to be found unfit for duty. He was willing to go to prison tho in order to not pick up arms and go fight, though.

I have plenty of sympathy for refugees but I don’t think the right thing to do is relocate large populations to the west. I also don’t consider large populations of young, single men to be legitimate “refugees”. Women and children first.

[Bootstrap]

And, incidentally, the IRGC really seems to believe they are on some God-given mission to defeat the Great Satan.

So does Pete Hegseth.

So far, you don't seem to express much sympathy at all for the victims of war. You do seem to justify just about everything done to them. Why is that?

Can you stick to I statements? I don’t think I’ve done that.

Even in this response, you just can't bring yourself to criticize the United States in this war, can you? Or to suggest that the United States should do anything at all to help the victims of this war. Why is that?

If these things were happening to you and your neighbors, I think you would respond differently. When invited to express compassion toward victims, you often respond with a bunch of blame statements, always directing blame away from the United States. When invited to weigh in on refugees, "not our problem", or "they aren't really refugees".

[JohnH]

Even in this response, you just can't bring yourself to criticize the United States in this war, can you? Or to suggest that the United States should do anything at all to help the victims of this war. Why is that?

I would prefer a war not be happening at all, but the reality is we live in a dangerous world, and the regime has been picking fights since the revolution installed them into power.

I have not said the U.S. should not do anything at all to help victims. I do not, however, think that a gigantic refugee program is the right thing to do. The fact the U.S. gets stuck in a war with a country doesn't mean that country's population should have free reign to move to the U.S., for rather obvious reasons.

If these things were happening to you and your neighbors, I think you would respond differently.

If I were Iranian I would mostly be focused on trying to stay alive and not get killed for my religious beliefs, including my refusal to fight on behalf of the regime if called to do so.

When invited to express compassion toward victims, you often respond with a bunch of blame statements, always directing blame away from the United States. When invited to weigh in on refugees, "not our problem", or "they aren't really refugees".

The refugees are, indeed, not our problem. The entire world's problems are not our problem. The U.S. has been avoiding war with Iran for many years now. As far as refugees go, Iran has lots of neighbours, including some quite wealthy ones who can accept lots of refugees. I hear the countries in the Gulf like lots and lots of foreign workers, so perhaps there is an opportunity there that would be mutually beneficial.

[mike]

Even in this response, you just can't bring yourself to criticize the United States in this war, can you? Or to suggest that the United States should do anything at all to help the victims of this war. Why is that?

I would prefer a war not be happening at all, but the reality is we live in a dangerous world, and the regime has been picking fights since the revolution installed them into power.

I have not said the U.S. should not do anything at all to help victims. I do not, however, think that a gigantic refugee program is the right thing to do. The fact the U.S. gets stuck in a war with a country doesn't mean that country's population should have free reign to move to the U.S., for rather obvious reasons.

If these things were happening to you and your neighbors, I think you would respond differently.

If I were Iranian I would mostly be focused on trying to stay alive and not get killed for my religious beliefs, including my refusal to fight on behalf of the regime if called to do so.

When invited to express compassion toward victims, you often respond with a bunch of blame statements, always directing blame away from the United States. When invited to weigh in on refugees, "not our problem", or "they aren't really refugees".

The refugees are, indeed, not our problem. The entire world's problems are not our problem. The U.S. has been avoiding war with Iran for many years now. As far as refugees go, Iran has lots of neighbours, including some quite wealthy ones who can accept lots of refugees. I hear the countries in the Gulf like lots and lots of foreign workers, so perhaps there is an opportunity there that would be mutually beneficial.

Immigration policy is a political topic. Too much of this discussion for a current events thread, so take it to the appropriate forum please.

[QuietlyListening]

Guess I would love for our president to explain why he started the war. Supposedly to remove those in power and help those who have been protesting. But now he is threatening to remove a whole civilization - which I am assuming will mean bombing/killing many of those he said he wanted to help/to save.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Guess I would love for our president to explain why he started the war. Supposedly to remove those in power and help those who have been protesting. But now he is threatening to remove a whole civilization - which I am assuming will mean bombing/killing many of those he said he wanted to help/to save.

Ask Bibi. He knows.

[Soloist]

Guess I would love for our president to explain why he started the war. Supposedly to remove those in power and help those who have been protesting. But now he is threatening to remove a whole civilization - which I am assuming will mean bombing/killing many of those he said he wanted to help/to save.

Wife: I could potentially see it meaning something else like the governmental/religious establishment of Persia or sending them back to the Stone Age or something, but that’s some pretty inflammatory clickbait worthy language being used.

[barnhart]

I have been praying all day. This is sickening.