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"This War Is Already Lost": Spencer Ackerman & Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi on Trump's Iran Debacle

2026-04-02 News & Politics
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Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-desc-yt President Donald Trump gave a primetime televised address Wednesday to discuss the war on Iran, his first since the United States and Israel launched attacks on February 28. Trump gave few clues about when or how the war could end, but he boasted about killing top Iranian leaders and degrading the country’s military. He threatened to bomb Iran “back to the stone ages, where they belong.” Despite the grandiose claims, built on “lies and delusions,” Trump “did not add anything new,” says Iranian American scholar Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, who calls Trump’s shifting justifications an admission of “defeat in the war of narratives.” We also speak with journalist Spencer Ackerman, who says the U.S. has already lost the war. “Iran has changed the entirety of this conflict,” he says. “It has pivoted this conflict onto its own territory and its own goals, and the United States does not have a military mechanism to redress that, primarily the throttling of the Strait of Hormuz.” Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe

Top Comments (10)

@ssb1056 2026-04-02

He is so tacky and all those imbecilic sycophants cheering him on…

221 9 replies
@roberthaile1210 2026-04-02

How did we end up here? It feels like a bad dream.

194 40 replies
@kheranihk2022 2026-04-02

Two old men Netanyahu, born in 1949 (76 years old), and Trump, born in 1946 (79 years old) have enjoyed every privilege this world has to offer. They've lived long lives. They've eaten well. They've slept in warm beds. They've held power. They've been celebrated, protected, and enriched beyond imagination. And now, in the final chapter of their lives, they have decided to destroy everything. Not just Iran. Not just the Middle East. Everything. Global economy. World peace. The future of millions of children. All of it burned to ash because two bitter old men couldn't stand the thought of leaving quietly. And here's the part that should terrify every human being on this planet: Nobody is stopping them. Not Congress. Not the media. Not the UN. Not the "international community." Not a single world leader with the courage to stand up and say: "Enough." We are watching two senile warmongers drag humanity toward the cliff and the world is just... watching. Taking notes. Writing analyses. Publishing "sources say" articles while the bombs fall and the children die. This is not leadership. This is not geopolitics. This is a nursing home escapees' revenge fantasy playing out in real time. And it proves something absolutely terrifying: The world is not built on a solid foundation. If two elderly men one hiding in a bunker, one tweeting from a golf course can bring the entire planet to the edge of destruction... then what was all of it for? The UN? Useless. International law? A joke. Human rights? A memory. Global cooperation? Dead. We have allowed the future of humanity to be placed in the hands of two evil, desperate, narcissistic old men who will be dead in a decade while the rest of us live with the consequences forever. Netanyahu wants "regime change"? The man can barely change his own diaper without consulting Washington. Trump wants to "weaken Iran"? He can't even weaken his own craving for attention. And yet here we are on the brink of World War III because nobody had the spine to stop them. This is what doom looks like, people. Not fire. Not brimstone. Just two senile psychopaths with access to bombs and zero accountability. The world is not in a solid foundation. It's built on the egos of men who should have retired decades ago. And unless humanity wakes up unless someone, somewhere, stands up and says NO MORE we will all pay the price for their final, desperate tantrum. History will record this moment with shame. Two old men. One planet. And nobody stopped them. We are doomed not because of Iran, not because of missiles, not because of oil prices. We are doomed because we let them get away with it. Shame on them. Shame on us. Shame on everyone who watches this madness in silence.

158 40 replies
@sahrtown 2026-04-02

Until someone has experienced war in their homeland, they will never truly appreciate peaceful ways to settle conflicts.

111 12 replies
@Sadhu1 2026-04-02

Amy my folks enjoyed watching you through the years. When you were hurt and jailed in Minneapolis my mother cried saying, “Look what they did to my Amy!” Good memories and I want to thank you for being a part of our lives. Smiling and loving you.

102 8 replies
@beautifuldetails 2026-04-02

Hey! Remember when he said he was doing this to "save" the Iranian civilians?

101 9 replies
@JS_Precision 2026-04-02

I am happy that the guest brought up the normalization of war crimes. It is one of the worst consequences of this era.

94 3 replies
@h.h.3102 2026-04-02

The American problem IS-RAEL They really said “let’s run the JFK model one more time” and expected nobody to notice.

49 3 replies
@ccspt-z2r 2026-04-02

They don’t hit the oil because he doesn’t want to damage his rich friends interests

25 4 replies
@KeithGeorgeSR 2026-04-02

The whole thing is criminal

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