No New Wars
Last night, while most of America slept, the missiles were already in the air.
Tomahawk cruise missiles crossing Iranian airspace. F-35s over Tehran. Strikes landing in Qom, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Karaj, city after city, before dawn. The Pentagon named it Operation Epic Fury. By the time most Americans woke up and reached for their phones, the war had already begun.
Iranian state media reported a strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab, in southern Iran’s Hormozgan province. Dozens of children dead. Dozens more injured. The United States and Israel have not confirmed or denied it.
Trump acknowledged American troops could face casualties. He called it “a noble mission.”
He also said this, at every campaign stop, in rallies, in victory speeches, in farewell addresses, so many times that a journalist compiled a montage from his first fifty stops alone. It ran for minutes without repeating:
No new wars.
In his farewell address after his first term, he said it was his proudest achievement: “I am especially proud to be the first President in decades who has started no new wars.” On election night 2024, standing at the podium, he said it again. “I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars.”
Friday, the day before the bombs fell, he told reporters he was giving nuclear negotiations with Iran more time.
Thirteen months after election night: Operation Epic Fury.
The Rubble Record
“To remove the menace of the present Communist-controlled government.” — President Eisenhower, 1954.
The CIA overthrew a democratically elected president who had given land to 500,000 peasants. The United Fruit Company got its land back. The civil war that followed lasted forty years. Two hundred thousand dead.
“In support of freedom and in defense of peace in Southeast Asia.” — President Johnson, 1964.
The attack that started the war almost certainly did not happen. McNamara admitted it. Nineteen million gallons of herbicide followed. The dioxin does not leave. Babies are still being born in the sprayed provinces without eyes, without limbs, without spinal cords. The planes stopped flying in 1971. The births have not stopped.
“To disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger.” — President Bush, 2003.
The weapons did not exist. Colin Powell held up a vial at the United Nations and called the intelligence solid. A hundred eighty-five thousand civilians died. The power vacuum became ISIS.
“To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader would have been a betrayal of who we are.” — President Obama, 2011.
Libya had no ground troops and no exit plan. Gaddafi fell. The state collapsed. Within years, open-air slave markets operated on Libyan soil.
“To defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats.” — President Trump, 2026.
Friday, he was still giving talks more time. Today, the rubble is still warm.
The Template
The words change. Freedom. Communism. Terror. Imminent threat. Grave danger. Betrayal of who we are.
The grammar does not change.
Every time: a threat so urgent it cannot wait. Every time: this is defensive, not aggressive. Every time: we have no ambition except to remove the danger. Every time: the intelligence is solid. Every time: the people will be liberated.
And every time, the speech ends long before the consequences do.
The promise always comes first. Before the rubble, the liberation. Before the body counts, the grateful crowds. Someone always cheers. In April 2003, Iraqis watched Saddam’s statue fall in Firdos Square. A woman named Suheila was among those who welcomed the troops. “We thought the Americans would free us from Saddam,” she said. “That finally, we would get our rights.”
The occupation disbanded the Iraqi army. Power grids failed. Sectarian war began. ISIS rose from the wreckage.
“We have not seen any benefit,” she said.
The promise is not made to Suheila. It is made to the audience watching the statue fall. By the time Suheila gets to speak, the cameras have moved on.
This is not a pattern of mistakes. Mistakes happen once. This is policy wearing the costume of emergency. The emergency is always new. The policy is always the same. What the government learned across seventy years is that the words matter more than the outcome. Say freedom long enough and the rubble looks like liberation. Say no new wars for eight years, then start one, and the promise becomes the alibi.
There is also the question of Israel, which the word “we” papers over. Operation Epic Fury was launched jointly. The strikes were coordinated. The targets were shared. Benjamin Netanyahu has sought this confrontation with Iran for decades. American presidents come and go. The push for this war outlasted all of them. Last night it found its moment. The question of whose war this actually is, and whose sons will fight it, is one the word “we” is designed to prevent you from asking.
They Knew
Before the bombs dropped, polls showed anywhere from 49% to 70% of Americans opposed or wanted congressional approval before military action against Iran. Support never cracked 30% in any major survey. Not a close call. Not a divided country. A country that had watched this before and said, clearly: not again.
The traders read it differently.
On Polymarket — a prediction market where traders bet real money on real-world events — $472 million flowed into a single question: US strikes Iran by...? As recently as early February, the odds sat at 13 cents on the dollar. One anonymous trader had lost $500,000 betting against Trump in 2024. He went quiet for a year. In early February, he came back and put $171,000 on a US strike. Polymarket has faced questions about insider trading before. Nobody has ever publicly answered them.
He woke up this morning a fortune richer.
Lockheed Martin — the company that makes the F-35s now flying over Tehran — was up 2.7% by the end of trading yesterday. It had already gained 28% this year. One analyst put it plainly in a defense stock preview: “Where there’s war, there’s money to be made.”
He is right.
Forty-nine percent of Americans said no. The market said otherwise. The market was right.
The explanation is already being written. It will say no one could have known.
They always know. They just know you will forget by the next time.
The promise was never for you. It was for the podium, for the arena, for the montage that runs for minutes without repeating. Words designed to be believed once, long enough to matter, and forgotten when the next emergency arrives with its own urgent language and its own ancient template.
The planes stopped flying in Vietnam in 1971. The births have not stopped.
There is a girls’ elementary school in Minab, in southern Iran’s Hormozgan province. The Minab school — those kids. Whether the United States did this will be sorted out by people whose job is to manage the story. The United States and Israel have not confirmed or denied it. By the time you finish reading this, the news cycle will have moved. There will be a new number, a new development, a new urgent thing requiring your attention.
That is the mechanism. Not the bombs. The moving on.
Suheila waited for her rights. The cameras moved on. The dioxin is still in the soil. The cameras moved on. The slave markets opened. The cameras moved on. The power vacuum became ISIS. The cameras moved on.
The question is not whether you believed him. You have believed versions of this before. So have I.
The question is what you do in the window between the bombs falling and the cameras moving on. That window is open right now. It will not stay open.
No new wars.
NOTES & SOURCES
The Event
Operation Epic Fury confirmed, Trump “noble mission” quote, largest U.S. military buildup in Middle East since Iraq 2003:
Minab girls’ school (Shajareh Tayyebeh), 57 dead, 60 injured, victims ages 7–12, per Iran’s Tasnim News Agency citing local governor — unconfirmed by U.S. and Israel:
Trump farewell address: “I am especially proud to be the first President in decades who has started no new wars”:
Trump election night 2024: “not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars” — full timeline of peace president claims:
Trump Friday February 27 giving negotiations “more time,” quotes “We’ll see what happens. We’re talking later”:
Polling sources, those opposed to the war
49% oppose — University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll, February 5-9, 2026: https://criticalissues.umd.edu/feature/do-americans-favor-attacking-iran-under-current-circumstances-latest-critical-issues-poll-0
70% oppose — Quinnipiac, January 14, 2026 (70% say presidents should seek congressional approval before military action against Iran): https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3945
The Rubble Record
Guatemala 1954 — CIA coup, United Fruit Company, land reform reversed, 200,000 dead in ensuing civil war:
Gulf of Tonkin — NSA historian Robert Hanyok concluded August 4 attack never occurred; intelligence deliberately manipulated; McNamara’s 1995 admission to General Giap in Hanoi:
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2008/february/truth-about-tonkin
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/nov/10/mcnamara-question-answered-second-tonkin-gulf/
https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/tonkin-gulf
Agent Orange — 19 million gallons of herbicide, dioxin still causing birth defects in third-generation Vietnamese children; 3 million Vietnamese affected; Vietnam Red Cross estimate of at least 150,000 children:
Iraq — WMDs did not exist; Iraq Body Count documents at least 185,194 violent civilian deaths:
https://www.iraqbodycount.org/
Libya — NATO intervention, no exit plan, open-air slave markets after state collapse; British parliamentary report concluding negotiated settlement was possible:
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/political-science/articles/10.3389/fpos.2025.1536457/full
https://fair.org/home/media-nato-regime-change-war-libya-slave-markets/
The Template
Suheila — Iraqi woman, PBS NewsHour interview, welcoming U.S. troops in 2003, later saying “We have not seen any benefit”:
They Knew
Polymarket Iran market, tens of millions in volume, thesecondhighlander trader, February 9 position, JP Morgan:
https://restofworld.org/2026/polymarket-online-betting-politics-war-charts/
https://www.fool.com/investing/stock-market/market-sectors/industrials/defense-stocks/
“Where there’s war, there’s money to be made” — analyst quote: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/lockheed-martin-israel-war/
"Operation Epic Fury"
They think they are playing video games.
😩
We all knew the likelihood of this. And still congress did nothing.