Trump Opens Pandora's Box: For the First Time in its History the US has Gone to War with Iran

We've had minor skirmishes, such as a coup in the 50s and a hostage crisis decades ago, but this time the US used its most potent conventional weapons to destroy Iran's prize nuclear facilities.

Jun 24, 2025

US president gives the ayatollah his famously fierce handshake.

As I wrote when the attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear facilities began, that attack was NOT the start of Word War III. That may have just been proven already today when Trump, even in Netanyahu’s words, went where no US president has gone before, and everyone waited for Iran’s fierce response. Almost crickets. Trump not only dropped our largest conventional bombs on Iran, but he also immediately started directly agitating for regime change:

"It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???" he wrote. "MIGA!!!"
…"The damage to the Nuclear sites in Iran is said to be 'monumental,'" he wrote in a separate post. "The hits were hard and accurate. Great skill was shown by our military. Thank you!"

And, yet, Iran’s response was carefully measured and highly ineffective. It was perhaps ineffective because Iran diplomatically warned the US that missiles were on their way, recommending the US get military personnel out of harm’s way, almost as if signaling the reprisal was for show and not intended to cause harm to US soldiers, and certainly making it easier to be ready to shoot the missiles down. And there were so few missiles sent.

Given the United State’s historic penchant for making all wars in the Middle East about regime change—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, to name a few—there is no way Iran’s government could not have heard Trump’s baiting of their citizens to overthrow the government and not believe the US was now hell-bent on regime change in Iran.

In my view, Trump left no reason for Iran to hold back on anything, especially when Trump went on to intensify his threat by alluding to much worse that might be coming if Iran did not return to negotiating its “unconditional surrender.” While I had written that the war was not World War III when it began, Trump’s choice to get involved by directly attacking Iran was the kind of move I labelled as likely stupid, if it were to happen, which could easily turn the tables since any war CAN be escalated into WWIII, if someone does something dumb enough.

So, when I read words like the following from stock-market mongers early this morning, I could not help but shake my head at the greed that I thought must drive such incredible naiveté:

Earlier on Sunday before premarket trading began, Wedbush Securities Managing Director Dan Ives had a bullish take for Wall Street in the wake of the U.S. attack on Iran.
“The market will view this Iran threat as now gone and that is a positive for growth in the broader Middle East and ultimately the tech sector,” he posted on X. “It will take some time for this conflict to settle, but the market will view the worst is now in the rear-view mirror. Expect stocks up.”

I did figure in the early morning this financial writer might be right that the lunatic market will, indeed, be that stupid, but it sounds as if his own view is also that “the worst is in the rear-view mirror.” Sure, we finally got (or the US claims it got) Iran’s nuclear program disabled for years to come (but I doubt we can actually know how badly damaged the facilities deep under ground are at this point because the wreckage through the blast hole would likely be impenetrable). In my view, it seems more likely that the worst is not behind us, but that Trump’s hyuge, bold move may put the worst ahead of us.

With the president now openly agitating to foment regime change in Iran, in addition to starting a direct US war against Iran with our heaviest ordinance and threatening to broaden the scale of the war much more if Iran does not immediately negotiate (by which, he’s already told us he means “unconditional surrender”), it seemed to me Iran had little reason left to hold back on anything. And, yet, as I waited for more clarity to come throughout the day before stating a case, it seems that is exactly the restrained posture the Supreme Leader has chosen, even though many of his underlings threatened the US with the starkest revenge against America if it dared attack these facilities, and even though the US has upped security threat levels in its major cities after attacking those facilities.

With Trump carrying on about regime change, the ayatollah’s regime would easily conclude its days are numbered, so I thought it would be likely to try to score whatever successes it can to make good while it can on decades of threats against “The Great Satan.” It had been focusing solely on Israel in order to try to keep from broadening its troubles to attacks from the US, but Trump just crossed that Rubicon. Iran may be holding back because the Ayatollah fears worse reprisals, such as bombed palaces and a total effort to remove the regime militarily, but when have we seen those fears cause the despots of the Middle East to surrender unconditionally?

Then I read even more of what sounded like market foolishness:

“Expect oil to open with a sharp 7–10% gap up as risk premiums surge. But don’t be fooled, this may not last,” it posted on X.
Iran’s ability to retaliate is constrained, Kpler noted, saying a shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz is unlikely.

It not only didn’t last, but oil did the opposite today and plunged 7%, ostensibly because Trump said Israel and Iran were ready to negotiate a cease fire and because Iran’s tepid response makes that appear to be true. However, neither Israel nor Iran would confirm Trump’s claim, and how many times have we heard Trump say other nations were ringing his phone off the hook to make a deal when it turned out no deal was in the works at all according to those nations? Nevertheless, by the end of the day Trump declared Israel and Iran had agreed to a cease fire as soon as Israel finishes its latest planned raid, already in action.

I had to wonder why the writer thought a shutdown of the Hormuz Strait was unlikely. Did he think Iran is afraid the US might attack them worse if they shut down the strait? Given US history on regime change, why would they now doubt that he will attack the worse, given how the president started talking right away about regime change?

Prior to Sunday, they could have always hoped Trump might actually be the different kind of president he said he was—someone who might actually be against getting the US involved in foreign wars, as he long tried to pound home on the campaign trail; but now he’s gone way beyond anything Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama, Trump I or Biden were ever willing to do against Iran.

And, yet, Iran seems to be standing down—even warning us to get our personnel out of harm’s way due to arriving missiles, for which the president actually thanked them, saying it averted human deaths.

Yemen didn’t have any problem shutting down the Red Sea for months, even with the US military firing at them. Why would far more powerful Iran have a problem shutting down a narrower passage that’s right on its coastline? All you have to do is trouble a few ships so no others are willing to risk the adventure.

Now that the US is directly bombing Iran with the biggest munitions it has used since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the US president is advocating for regime change, it seemed to me this morning that Trump just made a move that actually could place the possibilities of WWIII on the game board.

The attack was so successful in Israel’s eyes that Netanyahu is thrilled and lavished praise on the US president for actions bolder than any other president has ever taken with Iran:

Oddly, the people needing to buy oil became very happy, too:

Oil prices fell sharply [7%] Monday after a missile strike by Iran on a U.S. airbase in Qatar left no reported casualties, raising investors’ hopes that there might be a path to de-escalate the conflict in the Middle East….
Prices are now at the lowest levels since Israel started bombing Iran on June 13….
Iran launched a missile strike on the Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar….
Qatar confirmed that the Iranian strike did not cause any casualties…. Qatar’s air defenses intercepted the Iranian missiles….
The oil market sell-off shows that investors believe the conflict will de-escalate after President Donald Trump hit Iran over the weekend, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC in an interview on Monday.

That seemed a foolish bet to me in the first half of the day. However, by the end of the day that is exactly the bet the oil market placed.

There is a corner of the market that believes Trump has successfully escalated to de-escalate, Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, told CNBC.
“Essentially, the peace through strength strategy,” Croft said. “If we get nothing more from Iran, President Trump will take a big win on this.”
Trump thanked Iran in a social media post “for giving us early notice” about the strike, “which made it possible for no lives to be lost.” The president called on the Islamic Republic to move toward peace and said he would encourage Israel to do the same.
The oil market appears to have avoided its worst-case scenario for now in which Iran attempts to close the Strait of Hormuz.

So, the day went more peacefully than I thought likely. I would point out, however, that, back when Iran said it was going to retaliate against some of Israel’s former missile attacks, the counter-attack took more than a day to finally show up. Iran could be using Trump’s own tactics to buy time—the tactics where Trump talked about the need for Iran to negotiate and said he was giving it two weeks to do so, even as the Pentagon was carefully putting the finishing touches on a plan that would torch Iran’s nuke plants in just a couple of days. They could be trying to get us to lower our guard a little and aiming for a serious surprise.

I claimed Putin and China would not get directly involved in any kind of WWIII military action with Iran when Israel launched its attacks, and they have so far shown their resolve no to do so, even now that the US greatly stepped up the risk from when I said that. Iran and possibly its allies could be playing things low key, as if there is room to negotiate, just like Trump did, and they may have even been clever enough to deliver a low-impact blow against a US base to lull the president into believing that was it—that’s the finale!

If this is not just the calm before the real storm, I’ll have to concede the president’s bold approach paid off in a big way that I would have thought was a foolish risk to add to this conflagration. Even though I stated from the outset that I didn’t think this war was going to be WWIII, I did add that it could escalate as any war can in that direction if someone did something incredibly stupid, and the president’s attack is the kind of thing I said MIGHT be stupid enough to escalate into that kind of apocalyptic war. If it doesn’t, I’ll have to hand it to him that bold action against a bully nation worked … but, for a few more days anyway, I’m still looking and listening for the Trojan horse to roll up to the gate.