73 Years of Choices:
How America Built This War

On August 19, 1953, CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt Jr. — grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt — directed mobs, bribed newspapers, and funded a coup that overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. The official reason was communist influence. The actual reason was oil. Mossadegh had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company — known today as BP — and the British couldn't reverse it without American help.

The operation was called AJAX. Between 200 and 300 people died in the streets. The Shah was restored to power. As a token of gratitude, American oil companies were handed 40 percent of Iran's oil fields. The Wilson Center: "The 1953 coup marked one of the first times the United States used covert operatives to overthrow a foreign government."

For the next 26 years, the Shah ruled Iran as a pro-Western autocrat. The CIA helped train his secret police — the SAVAK — in methods of interrogation and torture. American arms sales to Iran totaled billions. The Iranian people lived under a government installed by Washington, their resentment compounding with every year.

The pressure burst in 1979. The Islamic Revolution swept Ayatollah Khomeini to power. In November, Iranian students held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. For Americans, that was the beginning of the conflict. For Iranians, it was chapter twenty-six.

What followed was 47 more years of escalation: the Iran-Iraq War, in which the Reagan administration provided Saddam Hussein with intelligence used to target Iranian troops with chemical weapons; the 1988 shootdown of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes, killing all 290 passengers; American support for Saudi Arabia's proxy wars against Iranian-backed forces; and the Khobar Towers bombing, the roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan — a 47-year back-and-forth between two countries that never stopped bleeding each other.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the nuclear deal — was imperfect. But it had IAEA inspectors inside Iranian facilities. It had Iran's enriched uranium shipped out of the country. It had a verifiable restraint on the nuclear program. Iran was enriching at 3.6 percent — far below weapons grade. The deal was the product of years of diplomacy across multiple administrations.

Trump withdrew from it in May 2018 without a replacement strategy, without an alternative framework, and without a plan for what comes next. By February 2026, Iran had accumulated 55 kilograms of uranium enriched to 90 percent — weapons grade — enough for two to three nuclear weapons. The administration then launched a war to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, a weapon Iran had been driven toward by the destruction of the diplomatic framework designed to prevent exactly that.

In February 2026, three rounds of nuclear talks took place in Muscat and Geneva. By Round 2 (February 17), both sides were agreeing to draft deals. By Round 3 (February 26), Oman's Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi declared a "major breakthrough" — Iran had agreed to never stockpile enriched uranium and to full IAEA verification. Peace was, he said, "within reach." Talks were scheduled to resume March 2.

Diplomats with knowledge of the talks later told Reuters that US envoy Steve Witkoff had undermined the negotiations by misrepresenting the key exchanges — claiming Iran had insisted on its "inalienable right" to enrich when the record showed Iran had agreed to restrain enrichment. Saudi Crown Prince MBS had multiple phone calls with Trump urging an attack. Israel lobbied the same. Senator Lindsey Graham made "the most compelling case" to Trump for strikes, per the Wall Street Journal.

On February 27, Trump walked away from the negotiations. On February 28 at 1:15 AM, the bombs fell. Senator Tim Kaine, with access to classified intelligence briefings: "There was no imminent threat from Iran to the United States that warrants sending our sons and daughters into yet another war."