It Was Not Trump Who Started the Iran War

It is by now well known that President Donald Trump and his administration have unleashed the American military on Iran, initially through a February 28th attack that resulted in the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and top deputies. In the time since, the United States and its Israeli partners have significantly diminished Iran's military capacity. Many of President Trump's critics have weighed in, accusing him of violating his promise to promote peace while he was a candidate for this high office, both in 2024 and previously.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris declared: “This is a dangerous and unnecessary gamble with American lives that also jeopardizes stability in the region and our standing in the world. What we are witnessing is not strength. It is recklessness dressed up as resolve.” Journalist Glenn Greenwald commented above a November 4, 2024 image posted by the Republican Party on X declaring then-candidates Trump and J.D. Vance "the pro-peace ticket," now decrying their campaign "[o]ne of the most shamelessly fraudulent presidential campaigns in American history." Similarly, former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene inveighed: “The Trump admin actually asked in a poll how many casualties voters were willing to accept in a war with Iran??? How about ZERO you bunch of sick f—liars. We voted for America First and ZERO wars." Criticism of the war in Iran also featured prominently in the significant support received by Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie from grassroots Republican donors and volunteers in his recent primary defeat to Ed Gallrein.

To these critics' credit, it is indeed true that the Trump campaign strongly emphasized a peace platform, promising no more forever wars and winding down American entanglements abroad. Therefore, on a superficial reading, the American attack on Iran is seemingly incompatible with the President's promises on the campaign trail. More damaging, in the eyes of these critics, President Trump is guilty of hypocrisy, lying, and fraud.

Is there any way to defend President Trump, without falling into the trap mentioned by George Orwell in his 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four that "WAR IS PEACE/FREEDOM IS SLAVERY/IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH."

Yes, there is.

In November of 1979, Iranian militants seized the American embassy in Tehran, a grave violation of the inviolability of American diplomatic premises under international law. To add insult to injury, the Islamic Republic kidnapped sixty-six American hostages and held them for 444 days.

But this is only the tip of an infamous iceberg. Over the years the murderous Iranian regime has killed not dozens, not scores, but hundreds of Americans. Here is but one horrifying statistic:According to the United States Department of State, “Between 2003 and 2011, Iran-backed militias killed at least 603 U.S. troops in Iraq,” corresponding to “roughly one in every six American combat fatalities in Iraq.” Iran-backed combatants have killed numerous Americans at military bases and in Israel during the forty-seven years since the Islamic Republic came into existence. There are indeed dozens of separate instances in which the Islamic Republic and its proxies shed American blood.

So we are warring against them? In reality, the reverse is true: the Islamic Republic has been engaging in a multi-decade war against the United States, and it is high time that President Trump has the courage to fight back, on our behalf. This is made all the more pressing since the Islamic Republic has been dead set on acquiring a nuclear weapon, resisting many diplomatic efforts to encourage it to halt such development.

A series of presidents, including President Trump himself in his first term, did not properly defend our country. When an aggrieved nation fights back, finally, and conquers a belligerent force, it brings about peace. President Trump, in attacking the Islamic Republic, and hobbling its ability to export violence abroad, will be bringing about peace in the long run.

One may ask: Why did it take so long for the United States to respond? Does not the considerable time gap between Iran’s original attack on Americans in 1979 and our belated reaction to this perfidy in 2026 undermine our claim?

By not one whit! The aggressed upon country, the United States, is not required by international or any other law to respond immediately. The defensive nation may defend itself at the time of its choosing. It matters not at all, insofar as justice is concerned, that the United States was derelict for a long duration in engaging its self-defense rights. Better late than never. And better before Iran possesses a nuclear weapon.

The United States is not starting a war. It is not attacking an innocent country. Rather, the United States, under the leadership of President Trump, is out to restore a peace originally toppled by the Islamic Republic of Iran. If the President continued to refrain from taking the necessary actions, paradoxically, the war might continue on for another forty-seven years.

Walter E. Block, an Austrian school economist and anarcho-libertarian philosopher, is Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Chair in Economics and Professor of Economics at Loyola University New Orleans. Frank Tipler is a professor of mathematics and physics at Tulane University New Orleans.