Iran to Trump: ‘You started the war…we’re going to finish it

 Iran to Trump: ‘You started the war…we’re going to finish it

Speculation abounds Trump is seeking an off ramp to his failed war to destroy the Iranian regime, neutering Iran as an Israeli hegemonic Middle East rival.

His golfing buddy turned world’s worst diplomatic negotiator Steve Witkoff is believed to have texted Iranian leaders to discuss an off ramp to Trump’s failed war destroying US bases in the region, bombing Israel nonstop, killing US service personnel and edging the world economy to recession if not depression. 

Iran’s response? They’re not responding to Witkoff’s texts. 

Iran’s position is ‘Fool me once (June 2025) shame on America. , Fool me twice (last month), shame on Iran. Try and fool me a third time to exit your failed war? Ha ha, no more negotiations for the most duplicitous country on earth.’ 

Here’s Iran’s non-negotiable terms for Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Trump. Close your Middle East bases and get out of the region. End your criminal war on the Iranian people who will never capitulate to your existential threat. End all economic sanctions on Iran. Pay reparations for the hundreds of billions in damage to Iran.

Can Trump’s criminal war defeat Iran? Yes, Iran could run out of missiles devastating US bases, Gulf States oil facilities and the Israeli homeland. Iran could simply collapse under most ghastly, murderous bombing campaign this century. 

But by the time that occurs the US and world economy will be so degraded it may take months, if not years to recover. Trump will be left to emulate Pyrrhus of Epirus, who, after his victory over the Romans in 279 BC exclaimed, "One more victory over the Romans  and we are completely done for.”

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL 

With Chuck DeVore commentary, Chicago Tribune goes all in for Trump’s criminal US war on Iran

 With Chuck DeVore commentary, Chicago Tribune goes all in for Trump’s criminal US war on Iran

 

Been reading the Chicago Tribune for 75 years. Never before have I read Tribune commentary that fully supports a criminal US war. That streak ended today upon reading former US Army intelligence officer Chuck DeVore’s commentary “The US has the ability to achieve victory in Iran.” 

 

DeVore justifies Trump’s dastardly attack for “two reasons: because we had to and because we had the ability to achieve victory.” Neither is remotely true. The verdict of history will put Trump’s deranged and likely failed war on Iran down as a criminal war of choice, the supreme international crime. The verdict worldwide, with the exception of criminal war partner Israel, is already putting their stamp of criminality on Trump’s war.

 

The US has no ability to achieve victory. Why? Because Trump and his war council have no effective response to Iran’s robust defense systematically destroying US military assets in the region, bombing Israel round the clock in retaliation, and choking off the world’s oil and other resource supplies presaging worldwide recession.

 

Indeed, Trump and his war council have no articulated plan of victory because their only one was Iran capitulating in 3 days once they assassinated Iran’s leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. That had the opposite effect…galvanizing Iran’s 90 million souls to resist the US, Israeli existential threat to their existence. They will never surrender and never quit resisting Trump’s criminal war.  

 

In a stunning development yesterday as DeVore’s deplorable commentary went to press, Trump’s top counterterrorism officer Joe Kent resigned in protest against Trump’s criminal war with this irrefutable rationale:

 

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war. Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war. As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.”

 

The Chicago Tribune should remove Chuck DeVore’s commentary from their website. It should publish an editorial condemning Trump’s criminal war on Iran and demanding its end.

 

The damage Trump has done to Iran, Israel, US bases in the region and soon the worldwide economy will reverberate for months, possibly years. The least the Chicago Tribune can do is stop supporting this madness and atone for doing so by abandoning that support and calling for its end.

 

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  

DePetris’ Chicago Tribune commentary on Iran war stunning in its obfuscation of Trump’s unfolding criminal catastrophe

DePetris’ Chicago Tribune commentary on Iran war stunning in its obfuscation of Trump’s unfolding criminal catastrophe 

Chicago Tribune foreign affairs correspondent Daniel DePetris in Tuesday’s commentary “The war in Iran is beginning to grate on Donald Trump” tells Trib readers nothing of value on Trump’s criminal war on Iran. 

Iran, Israel and US bases in the region are being bombed night and day with missiles and drones. Over 1,500 are dead including 13 Americans. The Strait of Hormuz is shut down spiraling the world economy downward with no end in sight. The US may be on the cusp of being pushed out of the region because our Gulf State partners have lost all confidence America can protect them from its senseless war engulfing them. Also gone is help from any country America has called upon to prop up its failed regime change offensive. Worst of all, Trump is now a pariah worldwide for launching a criminal war, the supreme international crime. In a just world he’d be headed to the dock at The Hague.  

Yet DePetris spends over 900 words focusing on how Trump is both surprised and flummoxed by his utter failure to cruise to victory within 3 days. No mention how the war is essentially lost. No condemnation of the war being an international crime. Indeed, DePetris signals his tacit support for the war by helpfully repeating US propaganda touting the war’s successes. “According to the Pentagon, Iranian ballistic missile launches are down by 90%. Iranian drone attacks have been reduced even more. Approximately 100 Iranian vessels have been destroyed”. 

DePetris’ statement that “the war is not going according to plan” is a colossal understatement. But claiming “Inexplicably, the White House seemed caught off guard that Iran, with its leaders seeking sheer survival, would quickly escalate by taking shots at the Middle East’s oil infrastructure and clogging up the region’s key waterway” is nonsense. 

There was nothing inexplicable about the unfolding catastrophe Trump blundered into. Any independent, honest analyst would have predicted that. As Joe West, America’s top counter terrorism expert said in announcing his resignation: “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby” Nothing inexplicable about Trump being “caught off guard” by his decision to invade that backfired spectacularly when the Israeli and American war promoters were the only ones in the room planning it. 

Chicago Tribune readers need and deserve thorough, reasoned analysis of the ongoing war on Iran. They will never get it from Daniel DePetris. 

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn 

US Congress near totally complicit in Trump’s criminal Iran war

 US Congress near totally complicit in Trump’s criminal Iran war

There are 533 congresspersons (2 vacancies) all of whom have allowed Trump to launch his immoral, criminal war on Iran that has failed. Not a single one called out Trump’s criminality before his clear, obvious decision to invade.

Virtually all 271 Republicans are either supportively silent about its criminality or are, like Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Ted Cruz, ecstatic Trump finally launched the war they have e spent years promoting. Even the lone antiwar Republicans, Senator Rand Paul and Representative Tom Massie, avoid calling out Trump’s criminality by focusing on his usurping Congress’ constitutional power to declare war.

Aside from fanatical Democratic war supporter Senator John Fetterman, the other 261 Democrats oppose the war for two political reasons. They support Rand Paul and Tom Massie’s constitutional argument regarding Congressional primacy in declaring war. But they are more motivated by using the war’s failure and rising US gas prices to demolish the Trump presidency and regain Democratic control of Congress this November. Their cynicism ignoring Trump’s international law criminality killing thousands including 13 US military, causing massive destruction in Iran, Israel and the Gulf States, pushing the world economy into decline is both stunning and reprehensible.

President Trump is a monstrous war criminal who, in a just world, would be answering to his war crimes in the dock at The Hague. But the 533 cowardly congresspersons who either support Trump’s war crimes or simply use them to collapse his presidency are near fully complicit in them. When the war ends and the wages of his sins are totaled up, President Trump can look toward the 533 congresspersons on Capitol Hill and beam…’Couldn’t have done it without you.’

Iran seeking end to 73 years of US perfidy, regime change, criminal war on Iranian people

 Iran seeking end to 73 years of US perfidy, regime change, criminal war on Iranian people

President Trump and his Secretary of Criminal War Pete Hegseth are completely flummoxed by Iran’s robust defense against Trump’s deranged attack. It’s so robust it has turned Trump’s planned three day victory into endless defeat. US bases in the Gulf States are being decimated. Israel is taking a ferocious pummeling night and day. The US, Israel, the Gulf States are running out of interceptors to stop Iran’s seemingly endless stockpile of offensive missiles. Iran has choked off Middle East oil and other critical resources which will crash the world economy, all due to Trump’s failed folly.

Trump has no path to victory and no face saving exit from his inevitable defeat.

To understand Iran’s strategy and determination, one must go back 73 years to Operation Ajax, America’s first regime change operation, which toppled the legitimate Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 to retain British, US control of Iranian oil. Once deposed, the US installed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, to serve US interests in perpetuity. For the Iranian people it meant the Shah’s brutal rule enabled by the US military and CIA which killed upwards of 10,000 anti Shah dissidents.

After twenty-six years of brutal rule the Iranian people forced the Shah to flee in February 1979, allowing the transition from monarchy to an Islamic Republic.

Had President Carter not allowed America’s three decade puppet ruler to seek refuge in the US, there would likely never been the November 4, 1979 takeover of the US embassy by 500 students resulting in taking 66 US hostages for 444 days.

Shortly thereafter the new government made 3 reasonable demands of the US, that if granted, would likely have promptly returned the hostages.

Most important was return of the Shah to face justice in Iran. Second, a US apology for the ’53 US coup that overturned Mosaddegh and installed the Shah’s brutal rule. Third, return of the $20 billion the Shah stole and the US seized after the revolution.

Besides quick return of the 66 hostages, there would have been no failed April 1980 rescue mission that killed 8 service members.

But the hard liners in the Carter administration led by National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski would have none of that, setting off 46 years of endless US machinations in behest of every US administration and Israel to complete the second Iranian regime change in 73 years.

But this time Iran was ready for America, the most duplicitous, violent nation on earth that could never be negotiated with or appeased. They have prepared for decades and responded to the Trump, Netanyahu criminal invasion with astonishing effectiveness totally upending regime change 2.0, shredding US military bases in the region, bringing unimagined devastation to Israel, and likely pushing the world into economic decline.

Everything coming from the deceiving, lying; indeed, delusional mouths of Trump and Hegseth must be ignored to understand the unfolding catastrophe they have marched us into. Anyone interested in where we are today need go back to Operation Ajax in 1953 to see how this 73 year long nightmare began. It may be 73 days, 73 weeks, even 73 months till the horrendous aftereffects of their criminality will be consigned to history along with Trump and Hegseth’s ignominy.

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn 

Trump Cabinet (minus Hegseth) and GOP Congresspersons (minus Graham) must deliver Trump his ‘Goldwater moment’

 Trump Cabinet (minus Hegseth) and GOP Congresspersons (minus Graham) must deliver Trump his ‘Goldwater moment’

Some are calling for the Trump cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump for office for committing war crimes in Iran and lurching the world economy to ruin. Alas, the section of the 25th allowing the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to declare the president incapacitated to involuntarily remove him under the Constitution, does not apply when that Cabinet and Republican Congress enabled his criminal war that now requires his removal.

What to do? Simple, channel Senator Barry Goldwater. On August 7, 1974 Sen. Goldwater, joined by Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott and House Minority Leader John Rhodes, requested and got a meeting with Watergate beleaguered President Richard Nixon. They told him he was going to be impeached, only had support of 10 to 15 Republican senators and would surely be removed from office. To whit…fall on your sword and resign. Next day Nixon resigned.

It took an esteemed conservative Republican and two GOP leaders to persuade Nixon to resign, something he publically said was against every fiber of his being.

Goldwater’s successful gambit removing Nixon from office had no importance beyond the simple political need of Republicans to end the Watergate scandal and continue in power under squeaky clean Gerald Ford.

The stakes 52 years later are monumentally more critical. A clearly degraded President Trump unilaterally launched a criminal war of aggression on Iran. Within three days the war was lost for two reasons. First, Instead of heeding Trump’s edict for Iranians to depose their government on behalf of the US and Israel, the Iranian people rallied to their government’s existential defense. Second, knowing the US and Israel would attack, Iran prepared a missile defense that is destroying US military assets in the region and destroying Israel itself.

Even worse for Trump and the world, Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off a fifth of the world’s oil supply. The unfolding economic decline worldwide will be enormous and unstoppable unless Trump ends his failed, criminal war and settles on Iran’s sensible terms.

Since Trump will never admit defeat to save thousands of lives and a worldwide economic meltdown, a select group from his Cabinet and GOP Congress must remove him from office. Since the 25th Amendment is technically unavailable, hey must invoke the Goldwater option. Pay him a visit and request his voluntary resignation. When Trump as expected refuses, they tell him they will go public with their demand. If he refuses again, they must employ the nuclear option, shut down the Cabinet and shut down Congress till he resigns.

Should Trump refuse a third time, the Cabinet will likely have enough deranged behavior to constitutionally invoke the 25 Amendment based on Trump’s mental incapacity representing a clear and present danger to America, indeed the world.

The Cabinet and GOP Congress must not waste a single day invoking the Goldwater option to prevent further war crimes and worldwide economic calamity.

And if Goldwater were around today to observe the proceedings, he’d smile and say ‘Nice work boys, glad I could show you the way.

Chicago Tribune should replace Daniel DePetris as its foreign affairs correspondent

 Chicago Tribune should replace Daniel DePetris as its foreign affairs correspondent

 

His commentary Friday, “Militarily, the Iran war is a success. But what are the US goals?” disgraces responsible, honest analysis. No reputable political scientist, military observer or historian would concur with a title that opens with Trump’s war being a military success. It is a military disaster getting worse every day for 15 days now.

 

The title ends with the misleading question, “But what are the US goals?” Like anyone studying the war, DePetris knows full well the US singular goal is to remove Iran as a hegemonic rival of Israel in the Middle East to certify US, Israeli domination over the entire region.

 

His first sentence “From a pure military-centric perspective, the ongoing U.S. and Israeli war against Iran has been a smashing success” is smashing all right, but not a success for anyone: not Iran, not Israel, not America; indeed, not the world. The cutoff of oil production and transit in the Middle East may plunge the world into global recession and chaos predictable from the instant Trump launched his senseless, murderous war two weeks ago.

 

DePetris mentions none of this murder and economic mayhem with no end in sight. He nibbles around the edges of its international criminality with this ingenuous statement. However, all the military successes in the world don’t add up to much if the campaign itself is untethered to a clear set of realistic goals. And therein lies the big problem with the Trump administration’s war of choice against Iran (minus the questionable legality of it). Saying the war is of questionable legality is akin to saying Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland was of questionable legality. Trump is tethered to removing Iran as a powerful Middle East hegemon, a goal that does not justify preemptive attack. And the thousands it murders, and billions, possibly trillions in damage it spreads across the Middle East, including US bases, Israel and Gulf States besides Iran, represent the supreme international crime…criminal war.

 

It’s not Trump who’s untethered, it’s DePetris, who is untethered from honest analysis of the unfolding catastrophe launched by the nation whose foreign policy he shamelessly supports.

 

Come on Chicago Tribune. Give Chicagoland a foreign affairs correspondent tethered to reality, common sense and truth.

 

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn

Iran just checked Trump into their ‘Hotel California’

Iran just checked Trump into their ‘Hotel California’

On February 28th Trump made the most self destructive presidential military decision in America’s 250 years. He sucker punched Iran with a massive bombing campaign while falsely negotiating a peace deal.

It has backfired spectacularly.

Iran’s been preparing for Trump’s sabotage of US peace with Iran for 10 years. Back in 2016, candidate Trump campaigned to withdraw from Obama’s signature foreign policy accomplishment, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JPCOA) which certified Iran’s peaceful nuclear program and set the stage for détente with Iran.

Bankrolled by the Israel Lobby which wanted Iran destroyed as a hegemonic Middle East rival, Trump followed orders and withdrew from JCPOA in 2018. He didn’t get around to attacking Iran in first term, but began stowing the seeds of war on day one of term two.

February 28 was his third try at destroying the Iranian regime to rid Israel of its last remaining regional rival. The 12 day war Israel initiated last June 13 failed to crush the regime; indeed, Iran’s missiles so damaged Israel they called on Trump to affect a ceasefire. Trump declared victory, claiming his one off bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites “obliterated them.”

Undaunted by failure, the US and Israel tried again in late December. They had their spy networks infiltrate the peaceful antigovernment protests, turning them violent. The plan was to create so much violence Trump could unleash a second bombing campaign to save the Iranians being slaughtered by their government. But Iran quickly quashed the protests bringing peace to the streets and upending Trump’s depraved plan to bomb again.

January brought the third crack at ousting the Islamic regime. Trump set up new false peace deal negotiations to sucker punch Iran again. No one off attack this time. The massive strike of February 28 was designed to inspire the Iranian people to rise up, oust the Ayatollah, then bow down to their new US, Israeli masters. Three days was all that Trump planned to topple the regime, and neuter Iran as an Israeli rival.

Two things upended Trump’s masterstroke. The Iranian population rose up all right, not to oust their government but to oust the US, Israeli invaders. Second, this time Iran was prepared with a brilliant missile defense that is demolishing US military resources in the region and causing the most massive damage to Israel in its 78 years.

So what has Trump wrought? He lost the war by day 3. Iran stands strong, proud and determined to outlast the US, Israeli military goliaths. He’s seeing his Middle East military bases bombed and degraded. He’s seeing Israel bombed night and day with little means of defending themselves. He’s seeing America’s weapons stores evaporate. Trump is seeing the US inexorably being pushed out of the Middle East.

America’s credibility as a fair negotiator on matters of war and peace is gone. No nation aside from Israel can trust a thing Trump’s advisors negotiate. Trump has astoundingly and stupidly put the world economy in crisis, headed down as 20% of its oil supply is gone from Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz. Gas hit 8 bucks a gallon in LA today. Every product using petroleum will soon cost more.

Trump is trapped. He cannot win but cannot withdraw from the war costing a billion dollars a day. His plan to prevail in 3 days has turned into a nightmare that will dog his remaining three years if he manages to survive in office that long.

Trump may physically reside in the plush quarters of the White House and the opulence of Mara logo. But his degraded brain and heartless soul reside in Iran’s version of Hotel California where Trump hears this refrain based the iconic 1976 rock song playing on an endless loop.

Last thing Trump remembered
He was running for the door
Trump had to find the passage back to the place he was before
"Relax," said the Ayatollah
"We are programmed to receive
You can check-out any time you like
But you can never leave!"

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition

 

Second Chicago Tribune Iran war editorial more tone deaf, detached from reality than first

The Trib’s editorial ‘The human cost of the war in Iran’ on Day 11 of Trump’s illegal, immoral war on Iran was astonishing in its detachment from the reality of Trump’s criminality blowing up the Middle East and possibly the world economy while killing untold thousands .

The editorial laments the suffering of the Iranians being blasted by the ghoulish US, Israeli bombardment without a hint of its criminality as a war of aggression, the most heinous of international crimes. Regarding he school bombing that killed 170 Iranian kids and their teachers, the Trib quotes Secretary of State Marco Rubio, an architect of this ghastly war, that “The United States would not deliberately target a school.” Rubio was a tad less deceitful than Trump who claimed Iran bombed their own school because “their missiles are wildly inaccurate. Rubio didn’t deny the US was liable because he knows, like everyone in the Trump administration from Trump on down, that the 170 school kids and their teachers were murdered by US bombs. The Trib disgraces itself floating Rubio and Trump’s deflection of their clear responsibility.

The editorial offers not a hint of the devastation being visited upon US military bases in the Gulf States. Not a hint of the devastation visited upon Israel. Not a hint of the fact that the US, Israel and Gulf States are running out of defensive interceptors to stop Iran’s seemingly endless supply of offensive missiles. Trump found out just yesterday how wildly he underestimated Iran’s missile stockpile.

Instead of calling for an end to this monstrous, criminal war, the Trib simply sighs, “we have to remember that our country is at war.” That’s a coy war of lending support to a criminal war that cannot be won because there is no measure of victory short of obliterating Iran

Stating “War is often debated in terms of strategy, deterrence and geopolitics” is a meaningless word salad when there is urgency to calling out Trump’s war as a monumental crime that must be ended forthwith.

Two Chicago Tribune editorials on the Iran war and two tone deaf takes detached from its grotesque, senseless reality. Either the Trib knows nothing about the war, or simply ignores the truth to curry favor with the Trump administrations descent into madness while claiming to lament its innocent victims.

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL