On the morning of Feb. 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched a massive coordinated assault on Iran branded as “Operation Epic Fury” killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, assassinating top generals and scientists, bombing hospitals and an elementary girls’ school. In the days since, the Trump administration has offered the world a reassurance that someone, somewhere, has a plan. They do not.
This is the documented, on-the-record reality of a president who launched a war without congressional approval, a coherent endgame and apparently without asking himself a single question about what comes next.
Ask the Trump administration what this war is for and you will receive a different answer every time. The justification since the attack began has wavered between preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, deposing the Iranian regime, stopping an imminent Iranian attack on U.S. interests, and following Israel’s lead.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared this is “not a so-called regime change war.” Trump, hours before the strike began, posted a video explicitly calling for a regime change, urging Iranians to “take over your government.” Trump then told reporters he personally must be involved in picking Iran’s next leader: an amazing assertion of American imperial power masquerading as liberation. When he was asked who could replace the Supreme Leader he had caused the death of, Trump replied, “Most of the people we had in mind are dead.”
Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank stated what many have been thinking, “What is this all for? What are we trying to achieve?” Senator Elizabeth Warren emerged from a classified briefing and said, “It is so much worse than you thought.”
One of the worst parts is that the operation came two days after the most substantive round of the U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations in years, with both parties agreeing to continue talks. Yet within hours of those assurances, bombs were dropped.
So far, the most sickening moment in this catastrophe came on the first day of the war. A girl’s elementary school, the Shajareh Tayyebeh school, in the city of Minab, in southern Iran, was struck while children were in class. The death toll from the strike on the school rose to 165 people, with 96 injured. Other estimates placed the numbers killed even higher. Circulating footage showed a man clutching the remains of a child, accusing the U.S. and Israel of war crimes.
The U.S. military said it was “looking into” reports of the school’s strike. The Israeli military said it was “not aware” of any strikes in that area. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Hegseth announced airstrikes would intensify across Iran, telling reporters that the U.S. forces were delivering “death and destruction from the sky all day long.” He boasted that rules of engagement were designed to “unleash American power, not shackle it.” This was his response to dead children at the hands of the U.S.
According to the head of the Medical Council of Iran, ten medical centers have been damaged by U.S. and Israel attacks. At least 300 children have been hospitalized, and more than 6,000 people across the country have been wounded.
The United States has long positioned itself as the global guardian of international law, civilized conduct and human rights. It lectures other nations and sanctions governments for civilian harm. What is happening in Iran right now exposes the U.S.’ selective standard and shows how maybe the U.S. should try taking a couple pages from its own book.
International humanitarian law is unambiguous: civilians and civilian objects (schools, hospitals, public transportation) are protected and may not be directly targeted. If there is any doubt whether a target is military or civilian, it has to be assumed to be a civilian. Children under 18 receive additional special protection under the same law. These are rules every seemingly civilized nation is expected to follow.
Retired Air Force Lt. Col., and previous chief of international law at U.S. Central Command, Rachel VanLangingham said the attack “not only violate international law in numerous respects, [they] clearly violate the U.S. constitution and the War Powers Resolution.” The UN charter restricts the use of force to cases of self-defense or with approval from the UN Security Council, of which the U.S. had neither.
When one of the most powerful nations decides the rules don’t apply it harms the entire framework built around civilized conduct.
This is what happens when a president with no coherent foreign policy doctrine, no genuine strategic patience and no accountability fires missiles first and asks questions later, or maybe even never. Arms control experts noted that the U.S. is “in this situation precisely because President Trump gave up on an agreement that was negotiated by his predecessor. He gave up on diplomacy.” His withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 set off a domino effect that led here.
The Center for International Policy noted that history provides no encouraging precedent for this kind of military campaign” the 2003 invasion of Iraq produced a multi decade military presence, hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties and a country that never truly returned to stability. Libya in 2011 showed that air operations designed to facilitate regime change produce state collapse, not democratic transition.
The United States Senate attempted to exercise its constitutional authority when a war powers resolution brought down by Senators Tim Kaine and Rand Paul was shot down, yet, the bombs kept falling. Un-specified Pentagon sources told Congress that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran was planning to attack U.S. forces first which directly contradicts the administration’s public justification for the war.
When a nation bombs a school full of little girls and calls it liberation; when a national launches a war with no plan, no mandate, no legal authority, and no endgame; when a nation claims the title of the free world’s defender while refusing to follow the rules that define what “civilized” means, that is not strength, or strategy or justice.
Countries that consider themselves civilized do not, or at least should not, brag about “death and destruction” while children’s funerals are being arranged and mass graves are being dug. The United States, under this administration, has forfeited its right to be the moral voice of anything on the world stage until it can account for every child killed in Minrab, every hospital damaged in Tehran and every civilian who died.
This is deplorable from every aspect and it’s not partisan to say that. What is happening in Iran right now is a catastrophe driven by a man who mistakes aggression for strength. The world and the Iranian people deserve better.
