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First Thoughts on the New Iran War

On 28 February 2026, Commentary magazine published First Thoughts on the New Iran War. John Podhoretz wrote it. He dates the column to that day, which he calls the start of the war. An American family should care because he draws a line between a bombing campaign and a regime-change war. In his account, the second kind would mean US forces on the ground in Tehran, the capital, to remove the clerical rulers. He says President Donald Trump did not announce that kind of war.

Evidence rating: MODERATE. This rates a named columnist's first-day reading in Commentary: that a true regime-change war "would effectively require us to go in on the ground in Tehran." Trump's address that night, quoted below from a transcript post, set out the military aims and told Iranians to "take over your government."

What the article says

Podhoretz says that for weeks he had been unsure how the war came about. One possibility, he writes, was that Trump stumbled into it after unrest in Iran in late December. He notes that talk of regime change in early January shifted, after a mass killing of protesters from 8 January to 10 January, toward talk of making a deal. He asks whether that shift was a way to avoid a fight. The other possibility, he writes, is that Trump had already decided in early January to strike, and that the diplomacy was a public show while the United States moved ships and aircraft into place.

He writes that the aims the president stated as the war began were military. He lists them as ending the ballistic missile program, finishing off the nuclear program, and destroying the navy and other offensive forces. He says Trump did not say the war was for regime change. He says Trump told Iranians that, once those military aims were met, they should use the chance to free themselves from the government that had ruled them for 47 years. Podhoretz says there is a distinction.

A regime-change war would effectively require us to go in on the ground in Tehran, take out the mullahs, and announce that a regency of some sort that would then lead to a new republic.

John Podhoretz, Commentary, 28 February 2026. "Us" is the United States. "The mullahs" is his name for the clerical rulers. A regency, as he uses the word, means a temporary stand-in government that would then lead to a new republic. He is saying what he thinks a true regime-change war would require.

He writes that this war is designed, instead, to strip the regime of command, communications, and military power, and to leave the rulers too weak to survive. He says Iranians themselves could then remove them quickly. He concludes that the weeks of diplomacy after the January killings were temporizing, meaning a deliberate delay. He says that pause also, as he puts it, "presumably" gave Israel time to help locate targets inside Iran, so strikes could hit the people he calls the bad guys and largely spare the general population. That "presumably" is his own label, a guess about Israeli help with targets for bombing.

He closes by calling 28 February 2026 possibly the most important day of the century so far, and by asking a blessing on US forces going into harm's way.

What other reporting and posts add

The president's words that night. Trump's 28 February address, as transcribed in a post, set out the military aims Podhoretz lists ("We're going to destroy their missiles," "We're going to annihilate their navy") and warned: "The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties." To Iranians, he said: "When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations." @TheLastRefuge2, 28 February 2026. (capture: twitter/t42__v501.md) That matches Podhoretz's reading: the speech handed regime change to Iranians.

Podhoretz later, as a critic quoted him. In June, after a pause in the fighting, a hostile account posted a clip of Podhoretz with this caption quote: "Trump, who doesn't care about life, could not bear the idea of putting boots on the ground in Iran and could not bear the idea of an American being taken hostage." The poster also said Podhoretz argued "there 'had to be sacrifices'" because the military is voluntary. This is the poster's rendering of a video that was not transcribed for this page. @phantompain1984, 15 June 2026. (capture: twitter/t13__v153.md)

Who pushed for the war, in two official accounts. Trump said on 3 March, "If anything, I might have forced Israel's hand," as the Jerusalem Journal quoted him. A State Department legal opinion later said the United States entered the war "at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally," a finding Snopes rated True. Jerusalem Journal, 16 April 2026; Snopes, 30 April 2026. (capture: twitter/t13__v146.md)

What it shows

On day one, a Commentary columnist spelled out what the war's larger aim would take: "go in on the ground in Tehran, take out the mullahs." The bombing was designed to leave the rulers too weak to survive and let Iranians finish the job. They did not. Within three weeks Netanyahu was saying "there has to be a ground component," Israel's press was reporting its infantry would stay home, and the Pentagon was preparing weeks of American ground operations. By June, as a critic quoted him, Podhoretz himself was faulting Trump for not "putting boots on the ground in Iran." The column shows the gap between the air war that was announced and the ground war its supporters understood it would need (see Air War Is Not Enough and Israeli Leaders on a Ground War).

Check it yourself

• First Thoughts on the New Iran War, John Podhoretz, Commentary, 28 February 2026.

No second source was opened for this page. The president's announcement, as Podhoretz summarizes it, was not opened separately.

Status: John Podhoretz is alive. Donald Trump is alive. This page reports a column. It does not accuse either man of a crime.

For a newcomer: Commentary is a conservative American monthly magazine, long associated with neoconservative foreign policy and strong support for Israel; John Podhoretz is its editor. He wrote this on 28 February 2026, the day the United States and Israel began bombing Iran. His distinction between a bombing war and a "regime-change war" that would need American soldiers in Tehran is the same line the whole debate about ground troops has run along since.

Research captures: twitter/t42__v501.md, twitter/t13__v153.md, twitter/t13__v146.md

Last Updated: 2026-09-26