- The majority of Americans believe U.S. military action against Iran was a mistake.
- The war follows the same pattern of deception used to justify the 2003 Iraq invasion.
- Congress has not declared war, violating constitutional requirements for military action.
- The Pentagon’s own report states Iran cannot develop a deliverable nuclear weapon for nearly a decade.
- Diplomatic negotiations were squandered when U.S.-Israeli strikes interrupted talks mediated by Oman.
The United States is once again at war in the Middle East, this time against Iran. And once again, a majority of Americans are questioning whether the military action was justified. A new Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll finds that 61% of Americans say the U.S. military action against Iran was a mistake, while only 36% say it was the right decision. The question of why we are fighting and who benefits remains unanswered by the administration.
History repeating itself
The parallels to the 2003 invasion of Iraq are striking. Back then, the Bush administration sold the war through a series of fabricated claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was collaborating with Al-Qaeda. As Nolan Denaro wrote in a recent Antiwar.com analysis, “this narrative would go on to be proven false over the subsequent years. Saddam did not have WMDs and he was not aligned with Al-Qaeda.”
That war, launched without a formal declaration from Congress, triggered a chain of catastrophe that continues to this day. Between 2003 and 2023, between 200,000 and 600,000 Iraqi civilians were killed, along with roughly 4,598 American troops. Trillions of dollars were spent, borrowed and printed, fueling inflation at home.
Denaro argues that the current war against Iran, launched in late February, without congressional approval, follows the same pattern of mass deception. The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to declare war, yet no declaration has been made since World War II.
The deeper story
The official narrative claims Iran posed an imminent nuclear threat. But the Pentagon’s own 2025 report, “Golden Dome for America,” stated that Iran could not develop a deliverable nuclear weapon for close to a decade. As Denaro observes, “Nobody is buying the narrative that Iran was plotting to develop a deliverable nuclear weapon for the purpose of bombing the United States.”
Understanding the conflict requires historical context. In 1953, the CIA and MI6 orchestrated Operation Ajax, a coup against Iran’s prime minister, Mohammed Mosaddegh. The U.S. then installed the brutal Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whose repression culminated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Since then, Denaro notes, “the U.S. has overthrown all of Iran’s neighbors. Iraq, Syria and Libya have all been casualties of the United States’ ‘War on Terror,’ which sought to overthrow regimes across the Middle East that were hostile to Israel.” The neoconservatives who drove that agenda, he argues, explicitly prioritize Israeli interests over American ones.
Madman diplomacy fails
President Trump’s approach to the conflict has relied on what analysts call the “madman theory” of diplomacy. As Benjamin Giltner of the Cato Institute wrote, Trump’s “bombastic form of diplomacy appears to have undermined the prospects for peace between the United States and Iran.”
The president’s threats, including one promising to “destroy Iran’s civilization,” have provoked massive public backlash. A separate poll found that 76% of Americans had a negative reaction to Trump’s warning that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran did not reach a deal.
Giltner notes the U.S. lacks the will and capabilities to back up such threats. In just over four weeks, the U.S. launched about 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles against Iran, depleting more than a quarter of its total inventory while producing only about 90 new missiles per year.
Diplomacy squandered
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres described the strikes as a “grave threat to international peace and security,” noting that the joint U.S.-Israeli operation occurred after indirect conversations between the U.S. and Iran that were mediated by Oman, "squandering an opportunity for diplomacy.”
China’s ambassador to the U.N., Fu Cong, said it was “shocking” that the attacks came in the middle of diplomatic negotiations.
The majority of Americans may not know the full history of U.S. intervention in Iran, but they sense deep down that something is wrong. As Denaro writes, quoting former Congressman Ron Paul, “Truth is treason in the empire of lies.”
With 61% calling the war a mistake and economic concerns mounting — 40% of Americans say they are worse off financially than when Trump took office — the nation faces a crisis of credibility. The question remains whether leaders will listen to the public or continue down a path of endless war built on deception.
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