Operation: Epic Fury is an Epic Crime Against Humanity

(Originially appeared on my Substack on March 2nd, 2026)

Regime Change By Any Other Name

“This is not a so-called regime change war- but the regime sure did change, and the world is better off for it. We didnt start this war, but President Trump is finishing.”

-Sec. Def. Pete Kegseth

They killed the Iranian religious and political leader, a figure as consequential to Shiite Muslims as the Pope is to Catholics. But it's not a regime change effort, no way… Hegseth employed a lot of “radical islamist” rhetoric, and stated that to protect American interests in the region Iran must be kept from pursuing nuclear proliferation. It is clearly an effort to further American strategic and economic interests in the region via a regime change.

He is operating, at best, from a false premise. Iran has a stated policy of not attempting to produce nuclear weapons. Their nuclear ambitions of late have been related to power generation based on UN investigations and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard- if even Tulsi cant find an excuse to both a majority Muslim country, there's no legal or moral justification for Operation: Epic Fury.

The worst and most cynical explanation, and one with a non-zero chance of being borne out as accurate, is that the war serves to rally right-wing support for the administration. As the Epstein scandal continues to smolder, approval polls drop precipitously. Iran serves as a red herring, a distraction that, while bloody and a war crime, serves an ulterior motive.

“Their war on Americans has become our retribution against their Ayatolloah and his death cult.”

-Sec. Def. Kegseth

What war on Americans? When did Iran strike domestic territory? Does nobody remember less than a year ago, when we tried to start a war at the insistence of Bibi Netanyahu? If anyone started this illegal, unethical, and impractical war, it was the Trump administration who waged war on Iranians, not the other way around.

It's About To Get A Lot Less Safe…

“All I want is freedom for the people of Iran.”

- Donald Trump, revealing a desire for a bloody regime change war against the Islamic Republic

“We're knocking the crap out of them… it's not safe out there, and it's about to get a lot more unsafe…”

Over 150 children, CNN reported this morning- young girls simply going to school that made the mistake of studying underneath American bombs. This is not a pre-emptive strike, taken in defensive posture. This is not a noble effort to safeguard Americans. What this is about is what it always is with these warhawks: securing resources for our corporation to plunder and asserting our dominance around the world.

The rhetoric being deployed by Trumpist officials erases civilian deaths, framed as unfortunate collateral. Infrastructure destruction as strategic necessity, and the killing of political leadership as liberation. Sadly, many Democrats are falling over themselves to condemn Iran and celebrate the Ayatolloah's assassination by Israel. The world is safer, they say.

Bombs do not create safe conditions. They create rubble, retaliation, and power vacuums. We have seen this movie before and it didn't end well- Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan- each sold to the American public with assurances of precision, necessity, and moral clarity, yet leaving behind destabilization and internal power struggles properly measured in decades. The Iranian people do not see our unprovoked, entirely criminal attacks as emancipation. They know it is simply foreign actors priorities violently imposed upon their sovereignty.

What Could We Possibly Stand To Gain From This?

At the end of the day, the core questions we must ask every official who defends any part of this action are:

• Does this conflict make America more safe?

• Does it make the Middle East less unstable?

• Or does it repeat a cycle in which violence justified as defense produces more enemies, more grief, and more justification for future wars?

If the last three Republican Presidents have taught us anything, it is that military force in the Middle East cannot bomb away political complexity which resulted from British colonialism's division of land and resources in a manner unaligned with the norms of the indigenous population. You can't erase complex cultural and political dynamics in a region you fundamentally misunderstand and look down on with more colonialism and conquest. That just reopens and deepens the wounds when a power vacuum predictably leads to Balkanization and sectarian violence.

When all the smoke finally clears, the people who were forced to pay the price will not be the officials giving press conferences. Secretary Kegseth isn't going to be in a firefight to save America from a nation that dared to assert their own sovereignty. Donald Trump isnt going to take up arms and risk danger for his ego. That's what those dirty poors are for, after all.

Ordinarypeople on both sides of the world who had no say in the decision will pay for this war with their lives, while Trump and Bibi keep on committing war crimes indiscriminately.

Solidarity Forever,

-Dee

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