Skip to main content

← The Jerusalem Post Column

Who Answered the Column

Evidence rating: CONFIRMED that Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman answered the Jerusalem Post column publicly on 4–5 September 2026 (Tehran Times, Middle East Eye). CONFIRMED that when Blaze Media asked the White House about the plan, it referred the question to the Department of War, which declined to address "hypotheticals."

A newspaper column that proposed recruiting up to 1.5 million young Americans for a ground war drew a formal answer from one government. It was not the American one.

Tehran: "Why should your sons and daughters..."​

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, addressed Americans directly. As quoted by the Tehran Times on 5 September 2026:

"Why should your sons and daughters be offered debt forgiveness in exchange for fighting and dying in a war Israel wants continued & expanded?"

He described the column as "openly floating exactly that idea: using student-loan and credit-card debt to recruit Americans for war with Iran," and ended: "Do not let anyone turn you into the cannon fodder — and the bill — for a war you never chose" (Tehran Times, 5 September 2026). Middle East Eye carried his line: "Do not let anyone turn your children into mercenaries for their illegal 'war of choice'" (Middle East Eye, 5 September 2026).

Baghaei speaks for a government at war with the United States, and his motives are his own. But his description of the column is accurate. It did propose using debt to recruit Americans for a ground war with Iran, and it did describe the war as one the American public connects to Israel's wars.

Washington: "hypotheticals"​

Blaze Media asked the White House about the plan to raise 750,000 to 1.5 million troops through debt forgiveness. The White House referred the question to the Department of War, which declined to address "hypotheticals" (Blaze Media, 2 September 2026).

It would have cost nothing to say "The United States will never send a million Americans into Iran." No one said it. "Hypotheticals" is the word an institution uses when it will not rule something out. It matches the White House's answer on the draft in March, "It's not part of the current plan right now, but the president, again, wisely keeps his options on the table" (see No Boots on the Ground).

The author's own account​

On 15 September the column's author, writing on X as AJ Signal (@aj_geo_analysis), said that his article "went viral," that "the Pentagon would likely need somewhere around 750,000 to 1,500,000 American soldiers (or mercenaries) to launch its next phase which would likely be a ground invasion by Q3 2027," and that "Iran's Foreign Ministry responded to my article directly in a public statement as did the @WhiteHouse" (AJ Signal on X, 15 September 2026). The Iranian response is documented above. The White House response on record is the referral and the refusal to address "hypotheticals." "Q3 2027," the third quarter of 2027, is his timetable, stated in his post.

Why it matters​

An American family learned about a published plan to recruit their indebted children for a ground war in Iran from an Israeli newspaper, and learned that a government took it seriously from Iran's foreign ministry. Their own government declined to say it would never happen. That silence is part of the story this investigation calls Nothing Is Happening: the public is told nothing is planned while the plans are printed in the open.

Status: Esmaeil Baghaei is alive. AJ Jaff is alive.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

Last updated on