Prediction: By the year 2050, “pulling an Iran” will be shorthand for “small victory that triggers a big, fatal defeat.” Future history teachers will tell kids how Iran’s mullahs assumed that October 7 would herald the destruction of Israel — and the death of the infidels. In their minds, they were on the cusp of their greatest victory ever.
But then the opposite happened: That “victory” sowed the seeds of Iran’s demise.
“Pulling an Iran” is different than a Pyrrhic victory, because a Pyrrhic victory has a transparently high cost; you know right away that the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. As King Pyrrhus of Epirus said in 279 BC, “One more such victory and Pyrrhus is undone.”
When you “pull an Iran,” you don’t realize you’re screwed, tattooed, and barbequed ‘til after the fact — and by then it’s too late: You’ve already dug your own grave.
In yesterday’s primer, we discussed Iran’s strategy to thwart the U.S.-Israeli attacks. On the American PR front, Iran is laser-focused on dividing MAGA yet ignoring the Democratic Party.
That’s because it’d be superfluous: The Dems are already in the mullahs’ pocket: 89% of Democrats already oppose the Iran War. Iran is depending on the American Left to threaten to withhold war funding, bash Trump as “literally Hitler,” and parrot the cruelest, most incendiary anti-Israel rhetoric imaginable, because American liberals loathe Israel.
Nearly 8 out of 10 Democrats — 77% — believe Israel is guilty of genocide. And as Gallup noted:
Just 18% of Democrats say they have a favorable opinion of the Israeli government, while 77% have an unfavorable view (almost half – 46% – say they have a very unfavorable view).
[…]
70% of Democrats say they have a favorable opinion of the Palestinian people, while a quarter have an unfavorable opinion.
Iran plans to co-opt the Democrats’ hatred of Israel for its own benefit.
Republicans, however, diametrically disagree: 82% have an unfavorable view of the Palestinian Authority — and perhaps more importantly, 83% of Republicans have a favorable view of Israel. (No country had a more partisan divide than the Jewish State.) And whereas 77% of Dems have an unfavorable view of the Israeli government, 67% of Republicans have a favorable view of Netanyahu — his highest total since 1999.
Unless Iran can find a way to divide the MAGA movement, its PR campaign will fall on deaf ears. It’s why Iranian officials keep parroting the “America First” versus “Israel First” canard:
TRUMP HAS BETRAYED “AMERICA FIRST” TO ADOPT “ISRAEL FIRST.”
— Ali Larijani | علی لاریجانی (@alilarijani_ir) March 2, 2026
Netanyahu and Trump’s war on Iran is wholly unprovoked, illegal, and illegitimate.
Trump has turned ‘America First’ into ‘Israel First’—which always means ‘America Last’.
Our Powerful Armed Forces are prepared for this day and will teach the aggressors the lesson they deserve pic.twitter.com/xhiWydMyXy
— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) February 28, 2026
But the good news is, Iran’s PR plan is failing miserably. As The Hill reported, Republicans are still firmly behind the president — with dissent not coming from the MAGA movement but from the Never Trump crowd:
The [NBC News poll] found that 77 percent of Republicans back the strikes compared to 15 percent who did not support them. Self-identified MAGA-aligned Republicans overwhelmingly support the strikes at 90 percent, with 5 percent who disagree. [emphasis added]
Furthermore, Republicans continue to support President Trump in record-setting numbers:
CNN: “Republicans love Donald Trump more than any president’s own party’s supporters loved them at this particular point.” pic.twitter.com/QYTlmQifEl
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 5, 2026
That’s certainly not the impression you’d get from the mainstream media. The anti-war 5% is the most overexposed, overrepresented group in America right now, with influencers like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate, and Marjorie Taylor Greene reaping more positive press than they’ve EVER received before.
But their criticism is all bark and no bite: A 5% attrition isn’t just stunningly low; it’s almost entirely within the poll’s margin of error!
The MAGAverse has rejected the arguments of Carlson, Owens, Fuentes, and Kelly — and rallied instead behind the president.
That’s remarkable, because when the media amplified their arguments, it also echoed their worst fears: “Tens of thousands of Americans will die! It’s another ‘forever war!’ This isn’t America First, it’s Israel First! It’ll be a disaster!”
This means that most of the media coverage has focused on EVERYTHING that could go wrong.
But with the MAGA movement holding tightly together and the war obliterating the mullahs, this also means we haven’t heard nearly enough about what will happen if everything goes right. Because if our current trajectory holds, we’re on the precipice of America’s greatest, most meaningful foreign policy victory since the end of the Cold War in December 1991.
So what happens if WHEN we win?
For starters, it’ll hobble our geopolitical rivals, China and Russia:
[Iran] is one-third of the China-Russia-Iran triumvirate that’s dedicated to opposing America. Up to 90% of Iran’s oil goes to China, and Iran supplies Putin with the drones Russia uses to kill Ukrainians. Taking Iran offline would derail China’s economy and stop Russia from reconstituting its drone parts and weapons — potentially a game-changer in the Ukraine War.
Russia and Ukraine are waging a war of attrition. That gave Russia an advantage, because it’s the larger country. But if Russia runs out of equipment before Ukraine, its edge in size and population is immaterial; wars aren’t just fought with people; they’re fought with weapons.
And without new drones to replace its old ones, Russia’s offensive capabilities are crippled.
As for China, it imports more oil than any other country in the world — and by a huge margin, too. But it lost access to Venezuela’s oil in January of 2026; losing Iran’s oil as well could annihilate China’s economy.
Almost all of Iran’s exported oil, and more than half of Venezuela’s, went last year to China, which remained one of the only purchasers of goods from the two heavily sanctioned nations.
[…]
Iran exported 520 million barrels of crude oil to China in 2025 — more than three times as much as Venezuela. Another 1.4 billion barrels came from the five other countries that rely on the Strait of Hormuz. In total, more than half of China’s crude oil imports come from countries that now face trade disruptions. [emphasis added]
Meanwhile, Iran’s stupid, self-destructive decision to attack its neighbors, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Bahrain, Kuwait, Syria, and the UAE, has gloriously backfired:
Most of the Sunni world wasn’t thrilled with Shiite-controlled Iran anyway, and after eating Iranian missiles (and burying dead civilians), it’s more likely they’ll join the American war effort than plead for it to end.
Which could lead to the ultimate PR disaster for Iran: The rest of the Arab world, plus Israel and America, united in war for the very first time!
We’re probably about 10 days away from Saudi pilots flying side-by-side with Israeli pilots, working together to defang Iran — which would have a transformational effect across the Middle East, likely culminating in official recognition between the two countries.
And that’s nightmarish for Iran. The purpose, after all, of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attacks was to derail Israeli-Saudi diplomatic normalization. But this would be even worse: Iran’s two biggest regional enemies wouldn’t just have diplomatic relationships — they’d actually become war allies!
Instead of starting another “forever war,” decapitating Iran’s leadership would accomplish the opposite: It’ll end wars — hot and cold; today and tomorrow; official and by proxy — bringing peace and stability to the war-torn region. (For someone like Tucker Carlson, who considers himself a “peacemaker,” this is a generational opportunity for peace.)
Because, without the Iranians spending $16 billion annually on terrorism, everything changes.
It won’t be easy or devoid of risk, but there’s an excellent chance America could — at long last — extricate itself from the Middle East, refocusing our resources on the Western Hemisphere. Our interest in the region could revert to what it ought to be: economic, not military.
And if Iran flips from an anti-American, radical Islamic cesspool to a pro-American government, the Iran-Israel-Saudi alliance would be more than sufficient to eradicate Middle East terrorist threats on their own — which means that America’s servicemen could return home — the looming threat of a nuclear holocaust dramatically diminished.
Which would lead to a real, lasting peace.
Memo to Carlson: Peace isn’t just defined by the absence of war. It also requires the absence of oppression.
That’s a concept so painfully obvious, even a fictional robot understood it:
Thor: But if you believe in peace, then let us keep it.
Ultron: I think you’re confusing peace with quiet.
Post-war, the U.S. could turn off the Chi-Com’s lights on a whim. Between Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of our allies, we’d have China by the short hairs, because their energy supply is now fully controlled by pro-American nations.
Russia can’t help China because we’re now targeting its shadow fleet. China’s back is against a (Great) wall.
And that’s another future war that our children and grandchildren wouldn’t have to fight: China can’t invade Taiwan if its oil supply can be cut off, which takes a military invasion off the table.
That’s the upside of winning the Iran War. It’ll bring peace and prosperity to the American people, create swaths of new economic opportunities, allow us to reorient our national priorities, and put our most dangerous adversaries in a box.
The upside is extraordinary: Every patriotic American ought to be praying for an American victory!
But I must include this final caveat, because there’s an important thing victory will NOT do:
Win the 2026 midterms for the Republican Party.
By the first Tuesday of November, Nicolás Maduro won’t matter. The Ayatollah won’t matter. Even the collapse of Cuba won’t matter. The 2026 midterms will be decided by pocketbook issues: affordability, inflation, housing, and jobs.
Even a spectacularly one-sided, utterly unambiguous U.S. victory would likely matter as much as President George H. W. Bush’s 1991 victory in the first Gulf War meant in 1992.
The war’s coattails won’t carry the GOP atop the midterms, so don’t expect it to. (We’ll need a different strategy for that.)
But the upside is, it just might do everything else.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First: It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battlelines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
We need your help to succeed!
As a PJ Media VIP member, you’ll receive exclusive access to our behind-the-paywall content, commentating privileges, and an ad-free experience. VIP Gold gets you the same level of “insider access” across our entire family of sites (PJ Media, Townhall, RedState, twitchy, Hot Air, and Bearing Arms). That means: More stories, more videos, more content, more fun, more conservatism, more EVERYTHING!
And if you CLICK HERE and use the promo code FIGHT you’ll receive a Trumpian 60% discount!
Thank you for your consideration.
