There is little doubt that the U.S. and Israeli strikes on military targets inside Iran have dealt a severe blow to the country’s capacity to wage war. The campaign has eliminated the first and second tiers of Iran’s leadership, destroyed most of its naval fleet, degraded its weapons stockpiles, dismantled key air-defense systems, and left its leadership in complete disarray.
With its military options dwindling, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has turned increasingly to another weapon: information warfare — and it has found no shortage of useful idiots in the Democratic Party and the U.S. legacy media to help amplify their messages.
Instead of supporting the commander in chief’s decision to confront a brutal and dangerous regime — one responsible for the deaths of countless citizens, the killing of American soldiers, and decades of instability throughout the Middle East — Democrats, joined by a handful of Republicans who reflexively oppose the president, moved to shut down the war effort. They promoted the narrative that Trump lacked the authority to strike Iran and that the war itself was unlawful. They drafted a war powers resolution and forced votes in both the House and the Senate. But even with the full-throated support of a complicit media, the measure failed in both chambers.
Since then, the Left has bombarded the Trump administration with a steady stream of inane attacks: the war has dragged on too long, it’s too expensive, and — most scandalous of all — why did Secretary of War Pete Hegseth approve steak and lobster dinners for our troops?
In short, they’ve left little doubt that denying Trump a victory matters more to them than securing one for America.
Their criticisms have grown pettier by the day. Among the most preposterous claims is that Trump administration officials were somehow blindsided when Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz — as though the possibility, and the resulting spike in oil prices, had never occurred to them.
Of course, they expected a temporary surge in oil prices. It was a calculated risk, and a necessary one, if the aim was to topple this evil regime.
The following tweet captures the life cycle of this unbelievably stupid allegation. It also negates the Democratic talking point that Trump went to war against Iran because Israel demanded it. In 2012, he suggested on social media that the U.S. should send aircraft carriers to the Strait of Hormuz.
[Note: Trump has publicly supported U.S. action against Iran since at least 1989.]
During a Friday press briefing, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said. “We will keep pressing, we will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.” [Emphasis mine.]
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) — both members of the so-called “Seditious Six,” a group of lawmakers who released a video warning service members not to follow unlawful orders — along with Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA), claimed that Hegseth’s use of the phrase “no quarter” constituted an illegal order, a war crime.
The social media post below sums up the Left’s line of attack. “He just ordered our military to give ‘no quarter’ during an active war against Iran. Just giving this order constitutes a war crime. Trump must fire him immediately, & retract this order.”
The next broadside came from CNN’s Natasha Bertrand, formerly a reporter for Politico, who is best known for publishing the pivotal and now-discredited letter signed by 51 former top intelligence officials claiming the Hunter Biden laptop story showed “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” in October 2020.
Bertrand rebuked Hegseth on X over what she claimed was his minimization of the deaths of six U.S. troops killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq last week. She posted, “Hegseth says ‘when tragic things happen it’s front page news’ to make POTUS’ look bad.’ Six U.S. service members died Sunday.”
During a joint briefing, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan “Razin” Caine spoke first. He honored the six service members and expressed regret for the tragic accident that had taken their lives.
Next, Hegseth spoke: “War is hell. War is chaos. And as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen.”
He then pivoted to the “fake news” coverage of the war:
This is what the fake news misses: We’ve taken control of Iran’s airspace and waterways without boots on the ground … But when a few drones get through, or tragic things happen, it’s front page news. I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad, but try for once to report the reality.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) piled on:
The media gleefully repeats propaganda reported by Iran’s state media. The false story that four ballistic missiles had struck the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln comes to mind. U.S. Central Command quickly dismissed the claim, stating on March 1: “The Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn’t even come close.”
The media also reported that a U.S. F-15 fighter jet had been shot down over Tehran on March 4. NewsGuard later determined the footage had been misrepresented. The video, originally released by the Israeli air force, actually “showed an Iranian Yak-130 being shot down over Tehran” by an Israeli F-35.
Yet both claims and others like them circulated widely in American media before they were exposed as fake news.
Remarkably, The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg suggested last week that Trump ordered the strikes to distract from the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie and the Epstein files controversy. Co-host Sunny Hostin agreed, saying the situation had a “wag-the-dog” feel.
One might reasonably ask which political party has been most affected by the release of the Epstein files. As for why Trump would supposedly want to draw attention away from the Guthrie case, I haven’t a clue.
When Democrats and the media fixate on petty criticisms like those above, aid and abet the propaganda of an enemy regime, and ignore the very real progress the U.S. military has made in the war, they have abdicated their responsibility as journalists.
In the end, the increasing triviality of these attacks tells us far more about Trump’s critics than it does about the war itself. When opponents are reduced to nitpicking menu choices, mischaracterizing common military language, and amplifying propaganda from an enemy regime, it is usually a sign that the underlying case against the policy has collapsed. The reality is that the U.S. and its allies have dealt Iran a devastating strategic blow. Unable to challenge that fact, the president’s critics have chosen instead to argue about everything else.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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