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Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Pakistan could set into motion a sequence of events that restores its role as the US’ top regional ally, returns US troops to Afghanistan’s Bagram Airbase if they later team up against the Taliban, and therefore build a new regional order at the geostrategic crossroads of South and Central Asia.

Saudi Arabia has been attacked multiple times by Iran on the pretext that the US military infrastructure on its territory has been used to some extent in the US campaign against Iran, which led to what can be described as the Third Gulf War, in spite of the Saudi-Pakistani Mutual Defense Pact from last September. Iran clearly wasn’t deterred, but Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar still reminded Iran about it in what seems to either be another attempt to deter an escalation or intimate impending involvement in the war.

In his words, “We have a defence pact with Saudi Arabia. I conveyed to the Iranian side about our defence pact, to which he asked me to ensure that KSA’s land was not used. Then I had shuttle communication, as a result of which, as you can compare, the least attacks from Iran are to Saudi Arabia and Oman.” Objectively speaking, it reflects poorly on Pakistan that Iran ignored Dar’s reminder and still attacked Saudi Arabia, hence why he coped that “the least attacks from Iran are to Saudi Arabia”.

Mutual defense pacts are supposed to deter attacks, not simply reduce the number and intensity thereof, which in any case didn’t even happen like Dar claimed since Iran continues to attack Saudi Arabia with gusto. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are now thrown into the dilemma of either activating their mutual defense pact to significantly escalate the conflict through their joint involvement therein, likely coordinated with their shared US ally if that happens, or tacitly admit that it’s militarily impotent.

The crushing reputational costs of failing to activate their previously hyped-up mutual defense pact place additional pressure upon their policymakers to do so, even if the decision is delayed till after the US and Israel destroy more of Iran’s air defenses and missile launchers to reduce the risks to them. Saudi Arabia hosts US bases and its economy is extremely vulnerable to large-scale disruptions from low-cost drone strikes alone, while Pakistan is a “Major Non-NATO Ally” with very close ties to Trump 2.0.

The aforesaid factors greatly raise the chances of them activating their mutual defense pact. In that case, Saudi Arabia might also lead some of the smaller Gulf Kingdoms that have also been attacked by Iran into battle against it as part of an even larger US-coordinated escalation, which could occur in parallel with Pakistani strikes and/or even limited ground ops on the anti-terrorist pretext of targeting Baloch separatists. Pakistan has three reasons to do this apart from the earlier-mentioned reputational one.

In brief, it wants to restore its role as the US’ top regional partner after India replaced it following the Indo-US trade deal, to which end doing the US a favor in Iran could also be the cover for destroying rival India’s port in Chabahar while improving the odds of them teaming up against the Taliban. Pakistan is actively destroying their leftover US stockpiles, which could facilitate Trump’s desired return of US troops to Bagram Airbase, thus possibly replacing Indian influence in Afghanistan with American and Pakistani.

Therefore, by activating its mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia after Iran’s attacks against its ally, Pakistan can set into motion a sequence of events for building a new regional order with the US at the geostrategic crossroads of South and Central Asia. This outcome could also see them aid their shared Turkish ally’s challenge to Russia in the latter region along its vulnerable southern periphery. These calculations are compelling enough that Pakistan’s involvement in the Third Gulf War can’t be ruled out.

In a move that's got America's energy bureaucrats finally moving at something approaching market speed, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has handed TerraPower - the Bill Gates-backed outfit pushing the Natrium advanced reactor - the first commercial nuclear construction permit issued in nearly a decade.

After years of regulatory theater and the usual alphabet-soup delays, the NRC unanimously approved the permit on March 4, 2026, for the Kemmerer Power Station Unit 1 in southwestern Wyoming. Construction on the actual reactor can now commence, with TerraPower signaling work will kick off "in the coming weeks."

When actual construction of the reactor breaks ground, the US will finally appear on this chart of countries which currently have nuclear reactors under construction, where China is at 38, Russia and India at 6... and the US is below Iran and Pakistan with 0.

For once, this isn't just another ribbon-cutting for legacy light-water tech that's been choking on paperwork since the Carter administration. The Natrium is a sodium-cooled fast reactor — pool-type design, paired with a molten-salt energy storage system that lets it ramp output like a gas peaker plant while running baseload clean. The reactor uses High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) fuel, which as we explained in our nuclear primer for investors, is enriched to around 15-20% U-235, and allows for smaller, more efficient reactor cores. Reactor capacity clocks in at 345 MWe, with the storage boost potentially pushing it higher for grid flexibility.

It's the kind of innovation that actually addresses intermittency complaints from the wind-and-solar crowd without pretending batteries the size of small cities are economically sane.

In a shocking reversal to its standard operating procedure (and we use the term loosely, since US nuclear regulators haven't really done anything in decades), the NRC's staff reviewed the application (filed back in March 2024) in just 18 months — a blistering pace compared to the initial 27-month estimate. Translation: even the regulators are now feeling the heat from exploding AI/data-center demand and the obvious reality that coal retirements + renewables alone won't keep the lights on.

This marks the first approval for a non-light-water commercial reactor in over 40 years. Historic? You bet. Overdue? Even more so.

TerraPower CEO Chris Levesque didn't mince words: "Today is a historic day for the United States’ nuclear industry." The company has already been moving dirt on non-nuclear portions since 2024 (thanks to earlier exemptions and state permits from Wyoming's Industrial Siting Council in 2025), including the "energy island" components. Full commercial operation targets 2030, with costs estimated up to $4 billion for this demo plant — backed by DOE's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program cost-share (up to $2 billion federal, matched by TerraPower and partners).

And the momentum isn't stopping at one unit. TerraPower inked a massive deal with Meta earlier this year for up to eight Natrium plants, potentially delivering gigawatts of firm, carbon-free power to feed the AI beast. Gates, ever the optimist on nuclear, has long positioned this as the scalable path forward — and with tech giants scrambling for reliable baseload to avoid blackouts or diesel generators at data centers, the economics are starting to look less speculative.

Critics will no doubt whine about sodium's reactivity (fire risks, anyone?), the first-of-a-kind premiums, or whatever regulatory bogeyman they can dredge up. But let's be real: the old paradigm delivered Vogtle-style overruns and decade-long builds. Advanced designs like Natrium promise modular construction, passive safety features, and actual cost/time discipline - exactly what the grid needs as electrification ramps and fossil plants retire. Small and mobile modular reactors like those built by Oklo and Nano Nuclear will be even more important for powering up the "behind the meter" data center revolution which at least check was short about 100 Gigawatts in the coming years . 

While the legacy nuclear lobby clings to 1970s tech and endless EIS reruns, TerraPower is proving that American innovation - backed by private capital and a (finally) cooperative regulator - can deliver. The Wyoming project isn't just replacing a retiring coal plant; it's a blueprint for weaning the grid off intermittent fantasies and toward dispatchable, high-density power that doesn't bankrupt ratepayers.

Nuclear's back, baby. And this time, it's not waiting for permission slips from the 20th century. And as the atoms are about to start splitting in Kemmerer, the energy establishment is feeling the ground shake.

Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Pentagon had been choreographing a prospective massive attack on Iran since 1980, but it wasn’t until December 2025 that U.S. President Donald Trump, after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, told military planners to give him that devastating option in case the fundamentalist Shia regime refused to end its uranium enrichment program.

With that request, the countdown to Operation Epic Fury kicked off.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine told reporters during a March 2 press conference that with the president’s December request, the Pentagon began “setting the force and setting the theater” and shifted forces into place over the previous 30 days to “provide the president with credible options should action be required.”

After U.S. negotiators, led by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, left Geneva on Feb. 26 without concessions from Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the die was cast.

The next day, the president called the Pentagon from Air Force One as it was en route to Corpus Christi, Texas, where he was scheduled to campaign for Republican primary candidates.

Caine recalled the exact moment he got the call: “H hour,” a military term for the time at which an operation begins, was 3:38 p.m. EST on Friday, Feb. 27, when the Pentagon “received the final go order from President Trump.”

“The president directed, and I quote: ‘Operation Epic Fury is approved. No aborts. Good luck,’” Caine said.

With that one call, he said, “across the globe, [U.S. military] operation centers came alive,” and Adm. Brad Cooper, Central Command commander at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, assumed operational command in the theater.

When Trump issued the “go order” at 3:38 p.m. Feb. 27, it was just after midnight Feb. 28 in Tehran. In the nearly 10 hours between H hour and the actual launch of the attack, Caine said, “in the region, every element of the joint force made their final preparations.”

“Air defense batteries readied themselves, checking their systems to respond to Iranian attacks,” he said. “Pilots and crews rehearsed their strike packages for the final time. Air crews began loading their final weapons, and two carrier strike groups began to move towards their launching point.”

“As dawn crept up, across the Central Command [area of operations], skies surged to life,” Caine said.

“More than 100 aircraft launched from land and sea—fighters, tankers, airborne early warning, electronic attack, bombers from the states, and unmanned platforms—forming a single synchronized wave.”

That wave arrived over Iran at 1:15 a.m. EST, 9:45 a.m. in Tehran.

That timeline was accelerated by “a trigger event conducted by the Israeli Defense Forces, enabled by the U.S. intelligence community” from the standard night attack to a mid-morning opening salvo that killed Iranian leader Ali Khamenei and up to 48 of the nation’s military leaders at a Tehran compound.

That was among more than 1,000 targets struck in the first 24 hours of the aerial, missile, and drone assault.

“The full strength of America’s armed forces came together in a unified purpose against a capable and determined adversary,” Caine said.

“This deployment included thousands of service members from all branches, hundreds of advanced fourth- and fifth-generation fighters, dozens of refueling tankers, the Lincoln and Ford carrier strike groups and their embarked air wings, sustained flow of munitions, fuel supplies ... all supported with command and control, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance network. And the flow of forces continues today.”

The nation’s highest-ranking military officer laid out the order of battle and what forces, as of March 2, were engaged in Operation Epic Fury, a rapid assembly of forces that “demonstrated the joint forces ability to adapt and project power at the time and place of [the United States’] choosing” that included “several combat firsts” to be made public “at some point in the future.”

Before the first missile struck, Caine said, “the first movers” were Space Force, Army, and Air Force electronics and cyber warfare technicians “layering non-kinetic effects, disrupting and degrading and blinding Iran’s ability to see, communicate, and respond.”

With Iranian communications disrupted and its air defenses “without the ability to see, coordinate, or respond effectively,” U.S. and Israeli air forces, with “swift, precise, and overwhelming strikes,” established local air superiority immediately, he said, setting the stage for a campaign the Pentagon maintains it can sustain, and expand if needed, for weeks.

Combat Firsts

With Iranian air defenses hacked or blinded before the opening salvo, the assault began with waves of Tomahawk cruise missiles—long-range precision weapons capable of striking targets hundreds of miles inland—launched by the aircraft carriers USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea and USS Gerald R. Ford in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and their battlegroup destroyers.

The USS Gerald R. Ford, which had been deployed to the region in June 2025 during the 12-Day War that badly damaged, but did not destroy, Iran’s uranium enrichment program and was then dispatched to the southern Caribbean to lead Operation Southern Spear off Venezuela, was ordered back to the Sixth Fleet in January and is now in its eighth month of sustained operations.

It is to be relieved eventually by the USS George H.W. Bush, a Nimitz-class carrier undergoing post-overhaul sea trials.

With missiles outbound, hundreds of Air Force F-15s, F-16s, and stealth F-22 Raptors merged with carrier-launched F/A-18 Hornets, stealth F-35s, and EA-18G electronic warfare jets in the massive aerial attack against Iranian air defenses and missile-launch sites.

The fighters were later joined by Air Force stealth B-2 Spirit bombers that flew 17 hours from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, which had struck suspected nuclear complexes with 30,000-pound “penetrator” munitions in June 2025.

In the opening phases of the Feb. 28 assault, they targeted ballistic missile sites with 2,000-pound precision-guided bombs, confirming that the focus was on degrading Iran’s air defenses and communications.

Ground-based Army precision strike missiles from the M142 high-mobility artillery rocket system mounted on “shoot and scoot” mobile launchers added to the fray, lobbing short-range ballistics into Iran from bases in the Gulf states, the first time the short-range ballistic missile system was used in combat.

The Pentagon has acknowledged that Operation Epic Fury is also the debut of a new low-cost ?uncrewed combat attack system (LUCAS) drone—a one-way “suicide” drone reverse-engineered to mimic Iran’s Shahed 136 drone, which it has exported en masse to Russia for use in Ukraine.

Among the forces participating in the attack are Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drones carrying Hellfire missiles and guided bombs, twin-engine A-10 attack aircraft directed by E-3 Sentry and E-2 Hawkeye airborne surveillance and EA-11A BACN “Wi-Fi in the sky” reconnaissance jets, and KC-135 and KC-46 aerial refueling tankers.

Under attack from Iranian and Shia militias, there are about 2,400 U.S. soldiers in Syria and Iraq, including in Erbil, Iraq.

About 2,000 are from the Iowa National Guard, who are to be relieved by a unit from the 10th Mountain Division this spring.

At least 250 guardsmen left Iraq in mid-February, and on Feb. 27—before the attack was launched—the Iowa National Guard announced that 650 more were headed home.

It is uncertain what their status is now.

The U.S. base in Erbil is among installations across the region under sporadic Iranian and militia attacks.

Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth have not ruled out dispatching “boots on the ground,” although there is no indication that Army and Marine infantry forces have been ordered to deploy.

Read the rest here...

Historically, the party in power almost always loses seats in midterm elections. There are only two exceptions to this rule. In 1934, under Franklin D. Roosevelt, and then in 2002, under George W. Bush. Are there signs that 2026 could be another precedent-shattering year? A new Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey conducted late last month suggests it could be. 

The poll has the generic congressional ballot tied at 50-50. Not only are these numbers on their face bad for the Democratic Party, but they also represent a significant shift from the Harvard CAPS/Harris January poll, when Republicans trailed Democrats by eight points.

The shift in the horse race is striking on its own. Perhaps the real question is why the GOP appears to have a fighting chance this year of defying precedent.

Pollsters handed respondents sample messages from both parties and asked whether they found them believable. 54% called the Republican pitch credible: "Republicans say that they are returning responsibility to government by arresting criminals, closing the borders, keeping taxes low, and lowering energy costs. We can't go back to the Democrats, who were allowing our cities and way of life to deteriorate and prices on energy and food to soar while fraud took billions and billions of dollars of their giveaway programs." 

Only 48% said the same of the Democratic counter, which promised free housing, free transportation, healthcare for all, free student loan relief, and a shakedown of billionaires to pay for it. Among likely midterm voters, the GOP message drives a 46-37 advantage in vote intent. The Democratic freebie platform produces a net one-point edge for Democrats among the same group — a rounding error.

Does that mean things can’t change? Not all at. In fact, 61% of respondents said they'd be receptive to the message that "we need to stop Donald Trump. He is a runaway dictator, and we need a check on his power by returning the Congress to the Democrats. His tariffs are increasing prices, and he is off on foreign adventures." That certainly implies that Democrat messaging can work; however, after both parties' full messaging was laid out to poll respondents, Republicans moved to a 51-49 lead on the ballot, a two-point GOP shift.

Trump's approval also gives the GOP signs of hope. His net approval improved from -6 points in January to -3 in February. Among likely midterm voters, he's net positive at 50-47. The trajectory matters as much as the snapshot, and it’s up.

Beneath the horse race, the structural terrain looks even less hospitable for Democrats. 

On economic management, voters trust the Trump administration over congressional Democrats 53-47. On whether today's economy reflects Biden-era or Trump-era policy, 59% say Trump, yet 52% say things are better now than under Biden. Republicans are credited and rewarded for that, a double-win for the GOP. While both parties’ approval ratings are underwater, the GOP edges out the Democratic Party by three points. 

The policy map reinforces the GOP’s positioning for the midterms. Lowering prescription drug prices commands a staggering 80% support. Deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes earns 75%. A full-scale crackdown on federal fraud comes in at 71%. Capping credit-card interest rates at 10% pulls 69%, and strengthening border security to close the border draws 67%. The same pattern showed up with President Trump’s State of the Union proposals. Banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks garnered 72% support, while federal retirement matching accounts attracted 70%.

On the issue of election integrity, it’s all great numbers for the GOP. Support for national voter ID gets 81% support. Removing non-citizens from voter rolls comes in at 80%. Requiring proof of citizenship to vote earns 75%. The SAVE America Act, which packages those provisions together, wins 71% overall support, including backing from half of Democrats and 69% of independents. When voters are asked to choose what matters more, 54% say preventing fraud outweighs maximizing access. Democrats have bet heavily that voter-integrity legislation is a political loser. This poll says otherwise.

The ideological fundamentals aren't moving in the left's direction either. Capitalism beats socialism 59-41 as voters' preferred economic system, with 76% saying America should run mostly as a free-enterprise country. 91% say people should own their own homes and private property. 84% want grocery stores to be private, not state-run. This is not good news for the party of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Zohran Mamdani.

None of this means November is a lock for the GOP. Eight months is a lifetime in American politics. But the picture that emerges from this data is of a Republican Party whose core arguments are resonating with a majority of the public, giving them a real chance to defy precedent.

Keep in mind that the poll was taken before Iran... so the next one should be interesting. 

In the most dramatic escalation yet involving shipping in the Persian Gulf, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), a British naval authority responsible for monitoring shipping safety in high-risk areas, said it received a report that around 1040pm UTC, a "large explosion" took place on a tanker 30 nautical miles south east off Mubarak Al Kebeer, on the coast of Kuwait. "There is oil in the water coming from a cargo tank", which could have a disastrous environmental impact, especially if its reaches the desalinization plants that keep much of the Gulf population alive.

The tanker, which was at anchor in the Khor al-Zubair lightering zone - a critical area for loading Iraqi heavy fuel oil exports - began taking on water following the blast. Oil was seen leaking from a damaged cargo tank into the surrounding waters, prompting concerns over potential environmental impacts. Despite the severity, no fires were reported, and all crew members remained safe and accounted for. Kuwait's interior ministry later clarified that the incident took place outside the country's territorial waters, at least 60 kilometers from the port

BREAKING A tanker was hit by a "large explosion" in the waters off Kuwait, causing an oil spill, British maritime security agency UKMTO said Thursday pic.twitter.com/i8mLJVn9bs

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) March 5, 2026

The targeted area off Kuwait is particularly significant as it lies within Iraq's primary oil export corridor, a zone previously considered outside the main conflict perimeter. Iraq, not directly involved in the US-Iran war, has already reduced oil production due to storage shortages and loading delays caused by the broader disruptions. No group or nation has claimed responsibility for the Kuwait incident, but analysts suggest it could be linked to Iranian proxies or other actors exploiting the chaos.

The report, which was sourced to the Master of a tanker at anchor, comes as the fifth day of the conflict draw to a close, but no near end is in sight after Israel and the US hit Iran in joint strikes on several key sites on Saturday, February 28. Iran has retaliated by striking sites across the Middle East, and hitting several ships in the gulf as part of its blockade of the Straits of Hormuz. 

UKMTO WARNING INCIDENT 014-026

Click here to view the full warning ?? https://t.co/ygKSBOCLZi#MaritimeSecurity #MarSec pic.twitter.com/RPZXtz6RU7

— UKMTO Operations Centre (@UK_MTO) March 5, 2026

UKMTO said vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to the maritime operation.

This incident is hardly isolated, and is part of a widening conflict in the Middle East. The Persian Gulf has become increasingly volatile since the outbreak of hostilities between the United States and Iran, with multiple attacks on commercial and military vessels reported in recent days. For instance, prior to the explosion, a US submarine sank an Iranian frigate near Sri Lanka, an Iranian corvette was set ablaze at Bandar Abbas, and Qatar's LNG terminals suffered outages. These events have stranded hundreds of ships, including oil tankers, outside the Strait of Hormuz—a chokepoint for about 20% of global oil supplies.

Other recent maritime attacks in the region include a seafarer killed in an explosion off Oman on March 1 and a Russian-flagged LNG tanker sinking in the Mediterranean, blamed by Moscow on Ukrainian sea drones. These incidents underscore the expanding scope of the conflict, turning once-safe waters into high-risk zones for global trade.

The attack has immediate ramifications for energy markets. With Iraqi exports potentially hampered, oil prices could face upward pressure, exacerbating the disruptions already pricing in closures rather than mere interruptions. Shipping insurers and commodity traders are on high alert, as the Gulf's transformation into a "hunting ground" without clear boundaries threatens further escalations.

Environmentally, the oil spill poses risks to marine life and coastal ecosystems in the Persian Gulf, a region already vulnerable to pollution from decades of oil activities. Cleanup efforts will likely be complicated by the ongoing security threats.

As investigations continue, the international community watches closely, with calls for enhanced maritime security to protect vital trade routes. This event serves as a stark reminder of how regional conflicts can ripple into global economic and environmental challenges.

Maritime tracking data shows a China-linked bulk carrier exiting the Strait of Hormuz without incident, a notable development that comes just hours after a report stated Tehran would permit Chinese vessels to transit the critical maritime chokepoint, despite much of the narrow waterway being paralyzed.

Bloomberg data shows the bulk carrier Iron Maiden has successfully transited the narrowest part of the waterway without incident.

MarineTraffic data indicates the ship has a "China Owner" and has a port call in China.

Earlier, New Delhi Television reported:

Iran has said it will allow only Chinese vessels to pass through the Strait of Hormuz as an expression of gratitude for Beijing's stance toward Tehran since the war in the Middle East began, sources have said. This is significant because the Strait, which provides Persian Gulf ports access to the open sea, is a key chokepoint that Iran has blocked since the conflict in the region began, threatening global supply chains.

Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday had plunged around 90% compared with levels seen just before Operation Epic Fury began on Saturday, according to MarineTraffic.

Tanker traffic through Strait of Hormuz down by 90%

Analysis of vessel activity indicates tanker transits are now around 90% lower than last week. Matt Wright, Principal Freight Analyst at Kpler, explains: "Unlike several other vessel segments where movements have largely… pic.twitter.com/JIhFoAkQKO

— MarineTraffic (@MarineTraffic) March 4, 2026

Iran has so far targeted ten vessels in or around the Strait. A senior IRGC official said earlier this week that the Strait is closed and that IRGC forces will fire on any ships attempting to pass.

"The Strait (of Hormuz) is closed. If anyone tries to pass, the heroes of the Revolutionary Guards and the regular navy will set those ships ablaze," Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the Guards commander-in-chief, said in remarks published by local media.

By midweek, Chinese officials had called for an immediate ceasefire in the U.S.-Iran conflict, as China's energy imports are highly exposed to the region.

The key question now is whether the Trump administration can reopen the Strait while the IRGC's drone threat may persist for months.

Authored by Ryan McMaken  via MisesInstitute,

The Trump administration has unilaterally—without any Congressional debate or vote, of course—forced Americans into yet another war. This time, the war is a large-scale military campaign against Iran. Was there any groundswell of public support for this war? Did the Congress vote to spend more American tax dollars on another war? Apparently not. According to a March 1 poll from Reuters, only 27 percent of Americans polled said they support the US’s new war on Iran. Needless to say, few Americans have been calling their representatives in Congress asking for yet another Middle Eastern war. 

So, why is the US now at war with Iran? Not even the administration appears to know for sure. After the war had already begun, the White House repeatedly changed its stated rationale for opening hostilities against Iran. At the beginning the US regime had been claiming it wanted regime change in Iran to “liberate” Iranians. Yet, by Monday, when Trump listed his reasons for starting the war, he didn’t mention regime change at all. Rather, the administration now seems to have settled on claims that the Iran regime was creating a missile program that, somehow, endangers the United States. Yet, virtually no one believes that the Iranian regime has ever had long-range missiles capable of getting anywhere near US territory. Rather, the only “threat” to the United States is a threat to US bases which the US government has insisted on building 10,000 miles from US territory, and which have nothing to do with the safety of Americans in the United States. 

On Monday, Rubio said that the United States began the war because the State of Israel planned to attack Iran, and that this would lead to Iranian reprisals against US bases. Rubio was essentially stating that Tel Aviv forced the US into the war. Trump today directly contradicted his Secretary of State—as well as the GOP Speaker of the House and GOP Senator Tom Cotton—and claimed “I might’ve forced their hand.”

Completely absent from all these confused and retroactive attempts to justify the war is any mention of the American people, their tax dollars, their freedoms, or even their alleged representatives in Congress. Nor is this surprising. The current war is a timely reminder that the US ruling elites regard the US taxpayers and ordinary Americans as little more than inconvenient afterthoughts in the formation of US foreign policy. At the same time, the US regime also claims to have the moral high ground precisely because the American regime is supposedly “democratic” with the support of “the people.” 

Indeed, the Trump administration overall has helped make it abundantly clear that US elections and public opinion are almost completely irrelevant to the foreign policy. Throughout his campaigns, Donald Trump repeatedly claimed to be the peace candidate, announcing in his speeches that he would end wars, rather than start them. In the days before the 2024 election, the GOP posted this image in social media, clearly presenting the Trump administration as “the pro-peace ticket”: 

Yet, less than a year into his second term, Donald Trump’s foreign policy looks largely indistinguishable from that of the foreign policy of Barack Obama or Joe Biden. Indeed, if the current war drags on, we’ll be able to say Trump’s foreign policy is reminiscent of the George W. Bush administration. 

It was clear during the campaign that the Trump ticket was trying to take advantage of public sentiment which favored less US involvement in foreign wars. With American foreign policy, however, elections don’t matter. This was recently emphasized by the bumbling US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson. Carlson began with a simple question for Huckabee: 

Carlson: How much does it matter what Americans think? 

Huckabee: Well, it matters every bit what Americans think.

Carlson then points out that about 21% of Americans support war with Iran. He asks Huckabee if that’s enough for the US regime to start a war with Iran. Huckabee states “We don’t live in a world where you have a poll taken to find out whether our policy should be in a particular direction...”

Carlson then points out that Huckabee had just said public opinion matters a lot and Huckabee says “we care deeply about it...”

Carlson: “If we’re ignoring it, in what sense to we ‘care deeply about it?’” 

Huckabee then offers a non sequitur: “I think we care deeply when we see there’s a threat.” Huckabee then continued with more word salad in a desperate attempt to make a connection between public opinion and his preferred policy of repeatedly starting elective wars with Middle Eastern regimes that are no threat to the US population. 

The reality, of course, is closer to Rubio’s explanation for the US’s involvement in the war: following the lead of the State of Israel. 

This is apparently fine with Ambassador Huckabee, of course, who in his Carlson interview, was asked if Huckabee thinks the State of Israel has a “right” to take over most of the Middle East. Carslon stated: ”Does Israel have the right to that land?” Huckabee responded ”It would be fine if they took it all.”

And what if most Americans don’t share this opinion? Clearly, the US regime doesn’t care, and neither does Huckabee, or Donald Trump. 

Meanwhile, Donald Trump says he doesn’t care about polling so he won’t rule out deploying American troops on the ground in Iran. 

In spite of all the US regime’s posturing about “the will of the people” and “representation” in Congress, what really matters in Washington is serving powerful interest groups. The taxpaying public simply exists as a resource to be bled dry in favor of wars, protectionism, and federal spending which serves the ruling elite’s complex system of patrons and clients that keeps the elite in power. 

When it comes to US foreign policy in the middle east, the dominant interest group is the State of Israel. This is executed through the American-Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) and other elements of what foreign-policy scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen walt call “the Israel lobby.” When Mearsheimer and Walt released their book The Israel Lobby in 2007, they were predictably accused of anti-semitism. Yet, the book was ahead of its time in describing how pro-Israel interest groups have been extremely successful in gaining financial, military, and strategic favors for Israel from US policymakers. It has all been done at the expense of American taxpayers. The result has been an American foreign policy elite that overwhelmingly favors incessant foreign intervention to favor a foreign state—the State of Israel—regardless of any concern for the cost borne by Americans or the potential for drawing the US into broader conflicts that do not in any way increase the security of the United States. 

In 2007, The Israel Lobby seemed controversial to many. In 2026, it is merely a statement of the obvious—that US foreign policy is tailored to favor certain interest group, rather than the interests of ordinary voters.  This, however, is how all interest group politics works. The voting public doesn’t matter, and it hasn’t mattered for a long time. 

This is shown in empirical studies that have tried to find a connection between public opinion and actual policies favored in Washington. The connection is tenuous at best. 

For example, in a 2014 study by Martin Gilens and Benajmin Page, the authors note that when it comes to “impacts on U.S. government policy ...  average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.” Gilens and page note that “the preferences of economic elites ... have far more independent impact upon policy change than the preferences of average citizens do.” 

This can be seen in Trump’s own fundraising given how one of his biggest donors, billionaire Miriam Adelson, is notable for an extreme pro-Israel position. This is, not surprisingly, reflected in Trump’s foreign policy. 

The final conclusions of Gilens and Page are clear: 

In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it. 

Perhaps no group of “economic elites” is more influential in foreign policy than those who control campaign funds distributed through pro-Israel interest groups like AIPAC, or through the spending of wealthy individuals like Adelson. 

Other studies have come to similar conclusions. For example, in a 2017 paper on voter preferences, John Matsusake concluded that legislator preferences don’t correlate with voter preferences:

[W]hen legislator preferences differed from district opinion on an issue, legislators voted congruent with district opinion only 29 percent of the time. The data do not show a reliable connection between congruence and competitive election, term limits, campaign contributions, or media attention. The evidence is most consistent with the assumption of a citizen-candidate model that legislators vote their own preferences.

There is, of course, no such thing as a “district opinion,” but the general idea is clear enough: if a legislator’s campaign war chest depends on pleasing a specific interest group, then the preferences of the voters don’t really matter. 

Similarly, in a 2016 study from Michael Barber, he writes on how votes in the US Senate bear little relation to public opinion: “[S]enators’ preferences diverge dramatically from the preference of the average voter in their state. The degree of divergence is nearly as large as if voters were randomly assigned to a senator.”

So, if policymakers are largely independent of the voters who the policymakers ostensibly “represent,” then what determines federal policy? 

The current war is just the latest reminder that pluralism is wrong and elite theory is right. There is no “we the people.” There is no “representative democracy.” And, when it comes to the big stuff like war, federal spending, and the central bank, elections don’t matter. It’s why, no matter who gets elected, US foreign policy proceeds more or less as usual, year after year after year. 

This is why it doesn’t matter that only about one in four Americans is interested in being on the hook for yet another Middle Eastern war with no apparent benefits for any average American. This is why the administration continues to engage in shifting claims about the origins of this conflict. The administration knows that claims about Iran being a threat to the American people are not tenable, and are on the same level as claims about Iraqi WMDs. Nor can the regime just come right out at say “our pro-Israel funders told us to fight Iran.” So, we have Rubio telling us the war was a “preemptive strike” against the potential blowback from US-funded Israeli strikes on Iran. This explanation is already falling apart, which is why Trump now denies it. 

In the end, the regime doesn’t even really need to come up with a plausible explanation. The political fallout will settle largely on the current administration, and this will have little effect on the real governing elite which remains in control regardless which party is ostensibly “in power.”