Getting Iran Wrong, to the Nth Power
Is this competence or optics?
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World
/ March 19, 2026
Getting Iran Wrong, to the Nth Power
Trump’s unhinged war in Iran is but an escalation of our willful misapprehension of the country’s history and makeup.
David Faris
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People clear rubble away from a Tehran apartment bombed in the US/Israel war on Iran.
(Majid Saeedi / Getty Images)
President Donald Trump has plunged the United States, and the global economy, into turmoil with his impulsive, reckless, and illegal decapitation of Iran’s senior leadership and the ensuing, indefinite military “excursion.” Contrary to the surreal press conference hallucinations of self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, the war increasingly looks like a bewildering strategic blunder whose costs will only escalate the longer it staggers on.
Trump is hardly the first American president to misunderstand the capacities, motivations, fears, and grievances of Tehran’s theocratic regime—but he is the first one stupid enough to start an actual shooting war on the basis of those delusions. The reasons past presidents had been reluctant to take this fateful step should now be painfully obvious. (And yes, I’m aware of Trump’s desperate effort to conjure a plainly imaginary past commander in chief to approve of his demented lurch into Iran.)
Still, the long history of basic misapprehension of Iran in American policy and military circles bears fresh scrutiny—as not merely the broader context for Trump’s unhinged invasion but also a way to take stock of the grim options now before the United States. In the midst of a volatile, unpredictable military action upsetting the Middle East’s balance of power, it is more important than ever for our leaders to understand the sources of Iran’s behavior—especially how the regime’s seemingly self-defeating decision-making is driven primarily by a very well-justified fear of the United States of America.
The Iranian government is undeniably one of the worst on the planet, a clique of amoral, self-dealing, repressive fanatics who have done incalculable damage to their own society. Iran’s fundamentalist regime has accomplished very little of substance in close to 50 years other than its own entrenchment. But American commentators truly seem to relish spoon-feeding their readers the same litany of Iranian aggression, in a historical timeline that always magically begins in 1979. This fable of outraged American innocence kicks off with that year’s hostage crisis at the American embassy, then duly proceeds along a tidy neoconservative timeline: the 1982 Hezbollah Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, the attacks on US troops during the first Iraq War, the 2002 revelations of secret …
Is this competence or optics?
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Current Issue
World
/ March 19, 2026
Getting Iran Wrong, to the Nth Power
Trump’s unhinged war in Iran is but an escalation of our willful misapprehension of the country’s history and makeup.
David Faris
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
People clear rubble away from a Tehran apartment bombed in the US/Israel war on Iran.
(Majid Saeedi / Getty Images)
President Donald Trump has plunged the United States, and the global economy, into turmoil with his impulsive, reckless, and illegal decapitation of Iran’s senior leadership and the ensuing, indefinite military “excursion.” Contrary to the surreal press conference hallucinations of self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, the war increasingly looks like a bewildering strategic blunder whose costs will only escalate the longer it staggers on.
Trump is hardly the first American president to misunderstand the capacities, motivations, fears, and grievances of Tehran’s theocratic regime—but he is the first one stupid enough to start an actual shooting war on the basis of those delusions. The reasons past presidents had been reluctant to take this fateful step should now be painfully obvious. (And yes, I’m aware of Trump’s desperate effort to conjure a plainly imaginary past commander in chief to approve of his demented lurch into Iran.)
Still, the long history of basic misapprehension of Iran in American policy and military circles bears fresh scrutiny—as not merely the broader context for Trump’s unhinged invasion but also a way to take stock of the grim options now before the United States. In the midst of a volatile, unpredictable military action upsetting the Middle East’s balance of power, it is more important than ever for our leaders to understand the sources of Iran’s behavior—especially how the regime’s seemingly self-defeating decision-making is driven primarily by a very well-justified fear of the United States of America.
The Iranian government is undeniably one of the worst on the planet, a clique of amoral, self-dealing, repressive fanatics who have done incalculable damage to their own society. Iran’s fundamentalist regime has accomplished very little of substance in close to 50 years other than its own entrenchment. But American commentators truly seem to relish spoon-feeding their readers the same litany of Iranian aggression, in a historical timeline that always magically begins in 1979. This fable of outraged American innocence kicks off with that year’s hostage crisis at the American embassy, then duly proceeds along a tidy neoconservative timeline: the 1982 Hezbollah Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, the attacks on US troops during the first Iraq War, the 2002 revelations of secret …
Getting Iran Wrong, to the Nth Power
Is this competence or optics?
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Getting Iran Wrong, to the Nth Power
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Current Issue
World
/ March 19, 2026
Getting Iran Wrong, to the Nth Power
Trump’s unhinged war in Iran is but an escalation of our willful misapprehension of the country’s history and makeup.
David Faris
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
People clear rubble away from a Tehran apartment bombed in the US/Israel war on Iran.
(Majid Saeedi / Getty Images)
President Donald Trump has plunged the United States, and the global economy, into turmoil with his impulsive, reckless, and illegal decapitation of Iran’s senior leadership and the ensuing, indefinite military “excursion.” Contrary to the surreal press conference hallucinations of self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, the war increasingly looks like a bewildering strategic blunder whose costs will only escalate the longer it staggers on.
Trump is hardly the first American president to misunderstand the capacities, motivations, fears, and grievances of Tehran’s theocratic regime—but he is the first one stupid enough to start an actual shooting war on the basis of those delusions. The reasons past presidents had been reluctant to take this fateful step should now be painfully obvious. (And yes, I’m aware of Trump’s desperate effort to conjure a plainly imaginary past commander in chief to approve of his demented lurch into Iran.)
Still, the long history of basic misapprehension of Iran in American policy and military circles bears fresh scrutiny—as not merely the broader context for Trump’s unhinged invasion but also a way to take stock of the grim options now before the United States. In the midst of a volatile, unpredictable military action upsetting the Middle East’s balance of power, it is more important than ever for our leaders to understand the sources of Iran’s behavior—especially how the regime’s seemingly self-defeating decision-making is driven primarily by a very well-justified fear of the United States of America.
The Iranian government is undeniably one of the worst on the planet, a clique of amoral, self-dealing, repressive fanatics who have done incalculable damage to their own society. Iran’s fundamentalist regime has accomplished very little of substance in close to 50 years other than its own entrenchment. But American commentators truly seem to relish spoon-feeding their readers the same litany of Iranian aggression, in a historical timeline that always magically begins in 1979. This fable of outraged American innocence kicks off with that year’s hostage crisis at the American embassy, then duly proceeds along a tidy neoconservative timeline: the 1982 Hezbollah Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, the attacks on US troops during the first Iraq War, the 2002 revelations of secret …
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