By Retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson
The United States‑Israeli war on Iran has entered its second week, and the rhetoric coming from Washington and Tel Aviv grows increasingly detached from reality. President Trump offers contradictory assessments—declaring the war “very complete” one moment, then insisting it is merely the “beginning of building a new country” the next—while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have grasped the true nature of the conflict far more clearly than his American counterparts. As I warned on Democracy Now!, the only leader who has interpreted this war correctly is Netanyahu, and I believe he is prepared to use a nuclear weapon should the situation deteriorate as it appears poised to do, because Iran has not yet unleashed its most sophisticated missiles.
This assessment is not made lightly. It stems from a careful reading of the facts on the ground, the legal and moral implications of the campaign, and a sober appraisal of the strategic landscape that has been obscured by deliberate media blackouts and self‑serving narratives.
First, the conduct of the United States and Israel in Iran constitutes wanton war crimes. We have bombed civilians relentlessly, struck a school, hit a hospital, and attacked oil facilities that now spew “black poison” over ten‑plus million people. These actions are not precision strikes against military targets; they are indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure and populations, mirroring the tactics we have condemned when employed by others. The International Criminal Court’s founding principles prohibit such acts, yet they continue with impunity because the powerful nations involved shield themselves from accountability.
Second, the strategic misjudgment by the Trump administration is catastrophic. Iran is a nation the size of Western Europe, with a population of roughly 93 million, most of whom will resist to the bitter death. Its terrain—rugged, mountainous, and deeply entrenched in a history of repelling foreign invaders from Alexander the Great to the Soviets—is utterly inhospitable to conventional military operations. Trump’s talk of inserting ground forces into Iran is not a path to victory; it is a recipe for a quagmire that would drain American resources, lives, and global standing. The only way Trump could claim any semblance of victory would be to occupy Iranian territory, a scenario that would signal the final retreat of the American empire from the Levant and the Middle East.
Third, Israel’s ballistic missile defenses have proven ineffective against Iran’s retaliatory barrage. While we have not meaningfully degraded Iran’s ballistic missile capability, the second and third classes of Iranian missiles—Mach 3 and Mach 4 weapons carrying multiple warheads—are getting through almost unopposed. Imagine the devastation when these missiles, each potentially bearing a hundred sub‑munitions, rain down on Israeli cities. Iran has not yet fired its most sophisticated arsenal; once it does, the damage to Israel could be existential.
It is in this context that Netanyahu’s recent remarks, made in Hebrew to his inner circle and reliably translated for me, take on ominous significance. He said that if the war “went south,” if it went “bad,” he was prepared to show the Iranians “something they had never seen before.” I interpreted that as a reference to nuclear weapons, a conclusion reinforced by historical precedent. In 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, Prime Minister Golda Meir told a BBC reporter she would use a nuclear weapon if pressed, stating unequivocally, “Yes.” Today, faced with a far more dangerous scenario—an Iranian missile barrage capable of overwhelming Israel’s defenses and a U.S. administration that appears unwilling or unable to restrain its ally—Netanyahu may feel compelled to cross the nuclear threshold.
The media’s role in obscuring this danger cannot be overstated. Major U.S. outlets operate from Tel Aviv yet report little of the actual destruction inside Israel because military censors prohibit broadcasting images that reveal the location of interceptor missiles or struck military sites. This blackout leaves the American public unaware of the true cost to Israel and, consequently, unable to assess the recklessness of the war. As I told the senior editor of The Washington Post, the lies told by mainstream media—both video and print—put the American people in jeopardy by preventing them from judging how foolhardy, stupid, and violative of international law this conflict truly is.
Moreover, the war raises profound constitutional questions. Launching a war of choice against Iran, a country that posed no imminent threat to the United States, violates the War Powers Clause of the Constitution and mirrors the illegality of the 2003 Iraq War, which even Kofi Annan condemned. Trump’s actions constitute a further erosion of congressional authority and a drift toward presidential unilateralism in military matters—a trend that began long before his presidency but has accelerated under his watch.
The broader strategic implication is the accelerating retreat of American power from the region. The destruction of U.S. radar, missile‑loading cranes, and logistical hubs in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates has crippled our ability to project force from those bases. Ships must now detour to Diego Garcia to load weapons, and key installations like Al Udeid are under threat. If we persist in this war, particularly with ground forces, we will lack the troops and economic capacity to sustain a presence, hastening the end of the American empire’s footprint in the Levant and Middle East.
History offers a sobering lesson: when nuclear weapons are contemplated, the threshold for their use lowers as conventional options appear exhausted. Israel’s leadership, facing a potential barrage of advanced Iranian missiles and perceiving an unreliable partner in Washington, may conclude that a nuclear strike is the only way to deter further aggression or to retaliate for catastrophic damage. Such a decision would not only breach the non‑proliferation regime that has endured for decades but would also invite retaliation, potentially igniting a wider nuclear conflagration.
The American people deserve honesty about the risks we are running. We must ask: Why did we launch a war of choice against a non‑threatening nation? Are we fighting for Israel’s security or for broader geopolitical aims that remain undisclosed? And what assurances do we have that our leaders will not enable—or even encourage—the use of nuclear weapons in a conflict that could have been avoided through diplomacy?
In closing, I urge Congress, the media, and the public to confront the truth: the United States and Israel are committing war crimes, misjudging a formidable adversary, and edging toward a nuclear precipice. The only way to avert catastrophe is to halt the offensive, pursue genuine diplomatic engagement with Iran, and reassert constitutional oversight over war powers. Failure to do so will not only devastate the region but will also mark a tragic chapter in the decline of American republican values.
Retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005 and teaches national security affairs at George Washington University and the College of William and Mary.
This op-ed draws directly from Lawrence Wilkerson’s March 10, 2026 Democracy Now! interview, including his warning that Netanyahu is “ready to use a nuclear weapon” if the conflict deteriorates further, his account of Netanyahu’s private Hebrew remarks about showing Iran “something they had never seen before”, his historical parallel to Golda Meir’s 1973 nuclear threat, his assessment of Iran’s yet-to-be-deployed Mach 3 and Mach 4 missile arsenal, the destruction of U.S. military infrastructure across Bahrain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, and his characterization of the bombing campaign as war crimes comparable in scale to those of the Nazi era.
