The last time an American president and his intelligence team faced a global crisis, there was at least the grace of a carefully produced pre-game show.
George W. Bush, often blistered by his alleged wisdom, but who looks like a cross between Copernicus and Abraham Lincoln compared to the clown show of the day, helped direct a months-long campaign of justification for the fallout from the Iraq war that began 23 years ago this month.
Colin Powell, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was sent before the United Nations with a large amount of flawed intelligence, photographs, charts, and power point presentations, all of which clearly proved that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Vice President Dick Cheney was busy lying about “yellow cake,” he prepared uranium from Iraq from Niger, and Bush actively lived like the college musician he once was.
The latest tragedy
In an America that never seems to learn anything from international conflicts, perhaps because the very concept of negotiation and its power and failure has long been considered the realm of dweebs and dorks, the next preventable disaster is always rushing at us with the speed of ignorance.
So on the morning of Feb. 28, 2026, in the same building where partygoers The New York Times said they paid $1 million per ticket to have near power, Donald Trump announced that we are fighting Iran in a converted Situation Room at his golf club, Mar-a-Lago, known as the South Florida Home for the Criminally Insane/US Military College.
Within 48 hours, a dozen basic reasons had come out of the mouths of senior administration officials, including a school-to-school cry from Testosterone Secretary Pete Hegseth that read the following:
“Destroying,” “ruining,” “stupid rules of engagement,” “stupidity,” “cruelty” “death cult,” “unleashing the deadliest and most accurate air force campaign in history,” “hunting you down without apology,” and, “we will kill you.” These were the descriptions of Operation Epic Fury, a break from the commanders’ practice of naming military campaigns like sex films, eg Operation Midnight Hammer, Operation Southern Spear.
Hegseth, to remind everyone, as a young man running an international military operation with profound political and security implications around the world, has credentials that are considered the gold standard in the Trump administration: He was a Fox News host.
Host on the weekend, but still.
His work in Iran was so deadly and precise that he removed several people Trump thought had succeeded Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who also killed him. As Trump explained to Jonathan Karl of ABC News, “It’s not going to be anyone we thought of because they’re all dead. Second or third place is dead.”
So brilliant.
Who’s in fourth place, Kid Rock?
A tragedy in progress
“We didn’t start this war,” said Hegseth, crying. “But under President Trump, we’re getting rid of it.”
And that, of course, is 100% true except for the first part and the second part. You started it, and you don’t know how or when it will be finished, but Trump said it could last four or five weeks before “we will win easily.”
It will be easy as can be for Trump and his party guests. Six Americans died in the first three days of the war, but none were billionaires and none would have been, even if, as in Iraq, 4,500 lives were ultimately lost.
Trump said during a press conference that “I don’t have the yips about boots on the ground,” meaning he’s not against sending in the ground troops. That is as long as it’s not his boots, because yips, no, bone spurs, hell yes.
“I learned over the years that when dignitaries like Donald Trump beat the war drums and beat their chests in Washington, DC, and talk about sending troops to war, he’s not talking about his children,” said former Army Ranger and paratrooper Jason Crow (D-Colorado).
“He doesn’t talk about all the children of his fans,” he continued. “You’re talking about kids like me, people I grew up with in working class areas, in rural areas across the country who have to take guns, jump into tanks or helicopters, and do hard work.
The reason the president seems to be strong on the Iran war, the kind of dubious adventure that Trump campaigned on for 15 years, is the nuclear power of Iran, which most intelligence seems to indicate could not produce a nuclear missile that threatens the US for another 10 years. This would be the same nuclear power that Trump said last June would be “totally and completely eliminated.”
In any context, the president has a very difficult time saying “absolutely” without adding “absolutely,” which would seem like an annoying repetition if not for its new clarity. Obviously he can denuclearize Iran without destroying it, or otherwise.
An unnecessary tragedy
Trump has been bemoaning Iran’s reluctance to say “secret words,” that it will refuse to develop nuclear weapons, which he says were mandatory in any deal.
Trump’s 2018 deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, negotiated by the State Department and overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency, contained language that prevented Iran from acquiring, developing, or acquiring a nuclear weapon.
The part Trump didn’t like? It was signed by Barack Obama.
Gene Collier is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. ©2026 PG Publishing Co. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.
