It was a peaceful Saturday morning. A gentle breeze slipped beneath my window, carrying murmurs from the bristling leaves. I laid still, enjoying the sun’s warmth for a while. 

Then I turned over. Life inches forward, I remembered. I opened my laptop. I don’t quite remember where I saw the headline: “Khamenei is dead.” Images followed and flashed across the screen. Great plumes of smoke rose over Iran. 

A terrible headache came over me. I shut my laptop and walked to the corner store. Fraternities played music as they prepared for another party. Dogs went with their owners on morning walks. People jogged. 

In this corner of the world, relative tranquility is abundant: the breeze, wildflower perfume, petrichor. At nearly the same latitude, in that far-away corner of the world, violent explosions, black rain, and toxic smog poison innocent Iranians. And still, I understand that in this city, in Austin, peace is a luxury. Nearly 100,000 people live in poverty, and many of their days begin under the cold moon rather than the warm sun. I understand that healthcare is a luxury. That safe housing, healthy food, and quality schooling too, are privileges. Our government does not, on the whole, care to meaningfully address those issues. 

No, as suffering pervades at home, we seem rather intent on spreading it abroad. Read a history of U.S. intervention post-WWII, and one is hard-pressed not to conclude something more: that we have been content to spread it. Why? Because a hegemon is always at the mercy of its own hubris and delusions. The U.S.’s hubris has led us to treat the world as a game rigged in our favor. We act as if sovereignty and self-determination are hollow rhetorical tools, not principles that demand universal observance. Indeed, our foreign interventions betray the very rules-based order we purport(ed) to defend. For instance, from 1798 to 1991, the U.S. conducted 218 interventions. Since 1991, the US government has managed 251—not counting the covert operations Congress doesn’t dare recognize. 

Now we have pulled off another. But this time, the likely outcome is a full-scale, high-US casualty war, perhaps the largest since Vietnam. We need to speak frankly about it. Condemn it. Pull every lever at our disposal to refuse it. Because the U.S. is not animated by some commitment to freedom, or democracy, and certainly not human rights. I welcome anyone who sincerely believes otherwise to take up that tiny hill; you will surely die on it. Everyone else will live long on this one. Let us scrutinize the U.S. and Israeli governments, and their recent actions, under the harshest possible light; they deserve nothing less. By the end of this article, I’m confident you’ll agree (that is, if you don’t already).

President Trump exercised authority the Constitution does not confer, in a manner forbidden by the War Powers Resolution, to launch a war-of-choice against Iran. And not just any war of choice, a monumentally foolish war of choice. Before the war started, the Strait of Hormuz was open. Nearly a month in, and the US’ top priority is to open the Strait of Hormuz. 

In order to justify war to the American public, Trump and his Republicans expertly communicated a single justification. Trump told us that preemptive action was necessary to counter Iran’s rapid nuclear buildup (the B2s did a tremendous job, but more to be done!). Then he told us it was to preempt (non-nuclear) Iranian strikes on US bases. Then, Little Marco told us Israel was going to strike first, so we simply had to. And then, Lindsey Graham told us it was all because we stand to make “a ton of money.” 

Never mind a few things. Never mind the fact that the late Khamenei issued a fatwa against developing nuclear weapons. Never mind that our own intelligence agencies assessed Iran as posing no imminent threat. Never mind that the price of gas is already at or above $4 per gallon, and stands to rise much further (Lindsey was talking about oil corporations, probably). That leaves us with the Israel justification. Never mind that Israel’s intention to start a war does not justify joining it. Never mind how pathetic and devoid of agency the US must be to mindlessly follow Israel into what could become World War Three. 

A war with no clear and obvious justification is a war of choice. 

In the opening hours of the conflict, the U.S. killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with his daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter. Shortly thereafter, on the morning of Saturday, February 28, the U.S. reduced the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab, Iran, to rubble; the strike killed over 170 young girls. 

In a shocking twist, neither the U.S. nor Israel could remember who launched the $2 million missile that massacred those 170 schoolgirls, most of whom were between the ages of seven and twelve. Israeli sources farcically suggested that an Iranian missile misfired and exploded above the school—even though Iran did not begin retaliating until Saturday evening. There is not and has never been a single shred of evidence to support the claim. An independent investigation by Bellingcat, an online sleuthing group, uncovered first-person footage of the strike. In it, we see a U.S. Tomahawk missile obliterate the school. We also know that the U.S. targeted the school a second time, just forty minutes after the first attack. When asked who carried out the strike, President Trump remarked, “It was Iran.” Moments later, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth noted, “We, of course, never target civilian targets, but we’re taking a look and investigating…” That investigation wrapped up. Oh, it turns out we do target civilians. 

A few days later, the U.S. set its sights on an unarmed Iranian vessel, the IRIS Dena. The Dena had disarmed for the 2026 International Fleet Review, a joint naval exercise in India. The U.S. also participated in the exercise. As a demonstration of our unyielding decency, we ordered the USS Charlotte, a submarine, to sink the Dena with a torpedo. After that, we sat idly by while Iranian sailors drowned. Refusal to rescue stranded enemy sailors is a war crime under international humanitarian law (Article 11 of the Second Geneva Convention). Our inaction forced the Sri Lankan navy to conduct its own search and rescue mission. Sri Lanka reportedly rescued 32 sailors. Speaking at the Republican Issues Members Conference, Trump recounted the following conversation about the sinking of the Dena: 

“I [Trump] said what quality of ship [is the Dena]? [They told me:] excellent sir, top of the line. I said why don’t we just capture the ship…we could have used it…why did we sink them?” [They said] it’s more fun to sink them.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) is using the fog of war to quietly stop food shipments (once again) from flowing into Gaza. On March 1st, World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés stated the organization could run out of meals by week’s end. But that’s not all. Netanyahu continues to ban all products containing glycerin, a substance found in small amounts in common medicines. The justification: that glycerin could, in theory…in those minuscule medicinal amounts…be used to make bombs. It is an unapologetically fallacious claim, which is part and parcel of the Israeli government’s playbook. As a result, “15,000 boxes of children’s cold and essential medicines” remain in a warehouse, blocked by Israeli authorities. Palestinian children will die of malnutrition, common illnesses, and preventable diseases because the Israelis have invented a shortage of basic medical supplies. Unsurprisingly, given the three-year mass starvation and bombing campaign imposed on Gaza since 2023. The death toll of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people thus far is at least 70,000. According to Drop Site News, since the current “ceasefire” began, Israel has killed at least 631 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 1,700.

Israel has also invaded Lebanon since the war began. Closely following the Gaza strategy, Israel has ordered Lebanese citizens to evacuate the whole Southern region of the country. According to the IDF (i.e., take this with a block of salt), the evacuation is necessary to fully dismantle Hezbollah. If that were true, however, one would expect Hamas to be long gone. Except, they aren’t. In Gaza, residential buildings, basic infrastructure, schools, mosques, and hospitals have either been bombed out of existence or severely damaged, but Hamas remains. In October 2025, for instance, the United Nations found that “[fewer] than 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional.” The truth is that the objective was never to remove Hamas (in fact, the Israeli government funded Hamas). No. Israel wanted to subjugate the people of Gaza in order to de facto annex it. For three years, the Netanyahu government has done exactly that—murdering, maiming, and demolishing with extreme prejudice as the world stands quietly by. It appears Lebanon may well suffer the same fate as Gaza. If so, the IDF will soon inform us that Hezbollah also uses human shields. Oh wait, they have. 

In Iran, the U.S.-Israel coalition is targeting civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, courthouses, desalination plants, and oil refineries. According to Drop Site News and the Iranian Red Crescent, a humanitarian Non-Governmental Organization, civilian targets tally to: 62,200 residential units; over 19,100 commercial units; 275 healthcare and treatment centers and emergency service facilities; 17 Red Crescent centers, three medical helicopters; and 48 ambulances and vehicles. The U.S. and Israel have killed 22 Red Crescent workers and medical staff. Strikes aimed at degrading civilian infrastructure are direct violations of Article 53 of the Geneva Convention.

Now, let me illustrate why the Geneva Convention includes such articles. On March 7th, the IDF struck an Iranian oil refinery. The storm of toxic fumes that the ensuing fire produced turned Tehran’s day into night. Then the toxins precipitated: “[t]he rain is black, I can’t believe it, I’m seeing black rain…even in Tajrish, which is miles and miles away from the oil tanks.” Runoff from the crippled refinery entered Tehran’s sewer system. The petrochemicals ignited. A fireball erupted and cascaded under the streets. Towers of flame ejected manhole covers as they roared up into the sky. 

Such strikes do little more than degrade Iranian civilians’ ability to live normal, healthy, safe lives. In other words, they foment social unrest. The scale and frequency of these illegal strikes suggest that that is exactly the US and Israel’s strategy; encourage revolution or regime change by creating unlivable conditions for average Iranians. It doesn’t seem to be working.

Our actions have thus far (simply) immiserated and (likely) helped radicalize a country of ninety million people, for no reason at all. There is no objective, no serious plan, and no chance of “winning.” 

Imagine it. You’re an educated Iranian living in Tehran. You despise theocracy, the current regime. The US promises freedom; they do not explain how the Khamenei regime will be dismantled, who will fill the inevitable power vacuum, or what a provisional government might look like. But they do deliver bombs that collapse apartment blocks. They do tacitly accept responsibility for heinous war crimes, and ignore those committed by their ally.

There is good reason to think that troops on the ground are the only way out of this mess, apart from accepting defeat. Of course, our vain, imbecilic President will never accede to the latter. 

You might question whether troops on the ground are really necessary. After all, why should Motjaba Khamenei not accept a ceasefire, if only to end the killing? Here’s why. Imagine that the U.S. teams up with Israel, which is actively conducting a genocide against the neighboring Palestinians, and threatens to starve and choke your country unless your government complies with nuclear disarmament rules it has already complied with for a decade. Then suppose your faith revolves around a single spiritual leader, the Ayatollah, and U.S.-Israeli forces conspire to assassinate him, his daughter, his granddaughter, and his step-son. Meanwhile, for over forty years, the U.S. has upheld crippling sanctions on your country and has twice, in the past year alone, attacked your country during active negotiations. Then, imagine that the U.S. murders close to two hundred young girls while they’re at school. Would you accept a ceasefire from the U.S.? For Iran, a ceasefire does nothing but allow the U.S. and Israel to regroup and reequip before unilaterally resuming the war. Iran will (justifiably) accept nothing less than serious concessions and guarantees. 

What’s more, anti-Khamanei Iranians, those who tend to be much more partial to liberal democracy, and who tend to be well-educated, overwhelmingly reside in Iran’s urban centers (e.g., Tehran). Pro-Khamenei, pro-IRGC, and ‘anti-America’ Iranians tend to live in more rural regions. Yet, the U.S. has disproportionately targeted urban centers. Hegseth’s “strategy,” or that drunkard’s malevolence, is poised to radicalize the exact demographic the U.S. and the IDF are ostensibly counting on to revolt.

We have forced Iran into an existential, spiritual, and ideological war. Blinded by hubris, Trump has fumbled open the genie’s bottle, and he’ll have to grant more than a few of Iran’s wishes to force it back in. A regime in charge of a country of ninety million people has no means of escape and nothing left to lose. The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed indefinitely. Twenty percent of the world’s oil will no longer flow to the countries that (regrettably, still) rely on it. The Gulf States, which import 85% of their food, will face starvation. The global economy will suffer. All that, unless the Strait reopens. 

But it gets worse. The U.S. and Israel will continue to deplete their stockpiles of interceptors, and it is entirely unclear what they will do once they’ve run out. During the Twelve Day War, Israel used as many as 150 THAAD missile defense systems to shield itself from Iran’s barrages. The U.S. supplies nearly all of Israel’s interceptor missiles, and each of them costs over $12 million. At least two to three precision-guided interceptors are required to destroy a single Iranian missile. In 2024, the U.S. produced only 11 THAAD systems, and just 12 of them in 2025. Iran has thousands of ballistic missiles in its stockpiles, many of them new—and apparently very capable—hypersonic variants. The U.S. military also appears not to have taken Iran’s massive stockpile of Shahed fixed-wing drones seriously. The Gulf States and U.S. military bases there are uniquely susceptible to Shahed attacks. 

Indeed, in the Gulf, many U.S. bases and high-value assets have already been struck. One long-range radar on which THAAD systems rely, and which costs about $300 million to build, was destroyed by Iran less than a week into the war. Other U.S. assets in the region have also been destroyed. Having apparently not taken any notes from the war in Ukraine, it seems Iran will continue their successes while the U.S. reluctantly digs in. Being a man incapable of good faith diplomacy, Trump may need to deploy troops at a scale not seen since Vietnam. How else, after all, can you subdue a country of nearly 100 million people, of whom an increasing number hate your guts? How else can you keep open the Strait of Hormuz, the oil flowing? How else can you sustain the petrodollar?

As our imperial war drags on, the world’s working people, the poor, and students will suffer the most. Meanwhile, the West’s rich and powerful, the military-industrial complex, and the tech oligarchs will remain insulated from the turmoil. At their first opportunity, they’ll capitalize on our mass immiseration (e.g., emergency weapons sales to Israel, Mark Zuckerberg).

The real question for us as students, as Americans, is how long we will passively accept the pain. Because as the days drag on and the Strait continues to choke the flow of oil, troops will be called up. More troops, that is. About 2,200 marines are already sailing East. The obvious questions remain. When will they come home? How many more of us will be shipped off? Will the US ever choose peace?