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Israel and the US just killed Iran’s leader in a massive joint missile strike operation, ushering massive change into the Middle East. Why? How do Iranians feel? What happens now, and what does it mean for Americans?
- Should the US have attacked Iran?
- How likely is a wider war?
- How are people in Iran reacting?
- Was it morally justified?
- Is Trump a neoconservative?
- What's the precedent for killing the leaders of nations which we're not at war with?
- What is the War Powers Resolution?
- How has media bias played a role in the story?
Should the US have attacked Iran?
YES: US strikes were carried out to neutralize Iranian nuclear capabilities and Iran-backed terror groups.
- The strikes were necessary to eliminate potential ballistic missile threats, weaken Iran’s military, and hamper the regime’s regional influence and support of proxy groups that have killed and kidnapped Americans. .
NO: The strikes risk destabilizing the region beyond US control.
- Iran’s established capacity for asymmetric warfare means higher risks of protracted, hard‑to‑predict conflict, potentially becoming a repeat of the Iraq‑style quagmire with heavy casualties and blowback.
YES: The US must strengthen the US-Israel alliance by providing direct support to Israel’s military agenda.
- Israel is an indispensable ally to the US for their technology and surveillance capabilities, their expansion of American/western influence in the Middle East, and their economic collaboration with the US.
NO: The strikes were illegal and undermine democracy.
- The attacks are illegal under both international law and U.S. constitutional norms, which erodes trust and accountability in the US democratic system.
YES: Iran’s human rights violations demanded immediate intervention to prevent further abuse.
- The strikes are a human-rights-driven pressure tactic aimed at weakening a regime that has killed and imprisoned protestors and suppressed basic freedoms.
NO: Conflict with Iran is not worth the cost.
Direct military operations against Iran could cost tens of billions, burdening U.S. taxpayers and squeezing domestic priorities.
How likely is a wider war, and what are the potential escalation paths?
Middle East
Several outlets reported concerns that Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, and various Shiite militias in Iraq could be called on to target US service members, civilians, ships, embassies, and tourist destinations in the Middle East.
Hezbollah already targeted northern Israel with a barrage of missiles, and US military bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, may also be targeted by Iran as attacks expand.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has reportedly considered arming Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq and northwestern Iran to help topple the Iranian regime. A US official told CNN (Lean Left) this could offer a good boots-on-the-ground strategy and stretch Iranian resources, while another CNN report said the move could lead to a civil war between those who support the regime and those who don’t.
European Involvement
Any escalation across Europe would likely be driven by direct attacks from Iran on European bases, as European partners have expressed limited appetite for involvement.
The UK, France, and Germany have said they’d work with the US to stop Iranian attacks, but wouldn’t directly join the war. The UK, after initially turning down requests, said it will allow US forces to use British bases to attack Iran’s missiles and launch sites.
Meanwhile, Spain pushed back against US requests to use its military bases against Iran, despite facing threats from Trump to sever trade.
On Wednesday, NATO was close to being drawn into the conflict after its air defense systems intercepted and destroyed an Iranian ballistic missile that Turkish officials said was headed toward Turkey. France24 (Not Rated) quoted a Turkish official saying the missile was headed toward a base in Cyprus but veered off course.
China & Russia
So far, both have limited their response to diplomatic criticism and calls for de-escalation, but both countries may pursue indirect military support and economic backing.
With the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Russian forces are limited, but could return the favor of sending drones and other weapons to Iran for support. Forbes (Center) reported that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz poses a strategic problem for China, which receives 37% of the oil that passes through the strait.
How is Khamenei being remembered across Iran, by media and the public?
Khamenei’s 36 years of rule have prompted mixed responses to his death from Iranians in the Middle East and the West.
As shown above, most Iranians opposed his regime. Many Iranians across the world were shown celebrating in the wake of the news, cheering an end to what they see as a violent and oppressive dictatorship. At the same time, there are mixed feelings; many didn’t want the US and Israel to intervene.
Fox News (Right) highlighted celebrations across Iran, Madrid, London, Berlin, and Armenia. It quoted an Iranian American journalist who said, "I grew up in a country where I was brainwashed to say, 'Death to America,' the same country… that saved my life three times and is now helping my people in Iran."
Others, particularly older people and religious communities, mourned Khamenei’s death, remembering his leadership within the context of a post-revolutionary Iran that stood up against colonialism, Western ideology, and a push for modernization.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission, a London-based nonprofit that some have accused of supporting extremist and terrorist groups, said Khamenei died “standing on the right side of history” and that the world has lost a “rare role model” who fought for his nation’s independence while it was “besieged by enemies.”
Several western outlets, including NPR (Lean Left) and The New York Times (Lean Left), also characterized Khamenei as a regional power and “devoted revolutionary.” NPR described Khamenei during his first years of reign as a nervous newcomer with quiet confidence, whose “cunning” and ability to “outwit” other senior political officials helped him form formidable ties with powerful people. It also suggested his use of proxies across the region eventually “led to [his] downfall.”
Was the operation morally justified?
Via YouGov
Israel and some US officials have long maintained that Iran’s nuclear program could become successful if left unchecked and that military action was necessary to destroy or delay key nuclear facilities before Iran crossed that threshold.
Per FactCheck.org (Lean Left):
“In his Feb. 28 comments, Trump said the U.S. ‘will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon’ and that after the June 2025 U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, ‘they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program.’ Arms control experts told us that last year’s bombing set back Iran’s nuclear program and there’s a lack of evidence that the country was rebuilding it.”
For many Iranians who have experienced Khamenei’s history of human rights abuses and suppression, his death may be considered morally justified. As recently as the last few months, between 5,000 and 36,500 Iranians have been killed and at least 52 executed in anti-regime protests, according to multiple reports.
That follows decades of large-scale executions and other abuses under Khamenei.
Many opposed to the strikes argue about the human cost and the potential for a broader regional war. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said over 1,000 civilians have already been killed since the conflict began. Six US troops were also killed in a retaliatory drone strike by Iran in Kuwait, and Trump has said there will “likely” be more American casualties as operations continue.
With recent interventions, has the Trump administration shifted towards neoconservativism?
Though President Trump has long campaigned on a platform of opposing more foreign wars, he has since begun US military actions against Venezuela and Iran.
So, has neoconservatism prevailed in the administration?
From the moment he was nominated to be Secretary of State, some commentators flagged Marco Rubio as a neoconservative whose views seemed out of step with Trump’s stated “America First” ambitions.
A Bloomberg (Lean Left) opinion, published weeks after the US capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, called Rubio one of the most influential voices within Trump’s administration. And as this UnHerd (Center) column points out, Vice President JD Vance, who during the campaign represented a more non-interventionist attitude taking hold of the right, appears to have taken a back seat on foreign policy.
Still, some commentators who support Trump’s strikes against Iran, primarily those on the right, have argued Iran poses a danger to the US, and that Trump’s military action is in fact defensive.
Lisa Daftari, a frequent TV guest of Fox News (Right) wrote for the publication, “Let me be very clear: America did not start a war with the Islamic Republic. The regime declared war on us in 1979, when militants stormed our embassy in Tehran… Yes, this campaign is strategic, and yes, it serves US interests.”
How unprecedented is it for the US to take action against a head of state without formally being at war with a country?
The last time the US formally declared a state of war, according to Wikipedia, was in 1942 against Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.
The US strikes on Iran, in their early stages at least, feel unprecedented. But they bear quite a bit of resemblance to US military action against Venezuela.
For starters, both countries are heavily sanctioned, oil-rich states with political regimes that have taken strongly adversarial stances toward the United States and Israel.
Latin America-based journalist Joseph Bouchard linked the two operations in an analysis for Responsible Statecraft (Center).
“One could argue that the Venezuela coup was a precondition to the expansion of Israel’s own multi-front war against Iran,” Bouchard wrote, citing the general alignment of the two states in terms of energy and arms.
But Congress has approved other US military engagements since then, like the War on Terror in 2001, and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In 2011, during President Obama’s first term, the US-led NATO operations against Libya were approved by the United Nations and funded with congressional approval, but drew criticism for not receiving a congressional vote.
Libya’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was killed during the conflict after American and French NATO forces bombed a convoy he was traveling in, and NATO-backed rebels hunted him down.
Between then and Maduro, the US has not directly removed a head of state from the chessboard, though it has supported similar operations.
In 2014, the US diplomatically supported the Euromaidan protests which saw Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych ousted. And in 2024, US-backed rebels successfully overthrew Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Both leaders were not killed and subsequently fled to Russia.
In 2019, under Trump, the US military assassinated Islamic State head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, though the caliphate was both then and currently not a formally recognized state.
How does the War Powers Resolution work?
Passed in 1973, The War Powers Resolution (also called the War Powers Act) is a federal law designed to restrict the president’s ability to send armed forces to hostile foreign conflicts without prior Congressional approval.
It requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying troops and also mandates their withdrawal within 60-90 days unless Congress authorizes the action, declares war, or is unable to meet. A president can be impeached for violating the War Powers Resolution under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution.
On March 4, the Senate voted 53-47 against a war powers resolution, which would have limited Trump’s ability to continue military strikes in Iran. The vote fell along party lines, with the exceptions of Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voting “no” and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voting “yes”. On March 5, the House also voted against it.
How are media outlets distorting reports surrounding the operations?
One of the biggest storylines to come out of the strikes so far has been a claim by Iranian state media that a girls’ school was struck with a rocket, resulting in over 175 casualties.
The story circulated quickly on social media and online, though many Western outlets were slower to cover the story. The US and Israel have denied responsibility.
Media across the spectrum painted the story quite differently and at times even offered different truths.
For instance, The New Republic (Left) suggested President Trump himself ordered the strike as part of “the US and Israel’s blatantly illegal bombing campaign.” Qatar-funded Al Jazeera (Lean Left) also labelled it as a “US-Israel strike.”
Conversely, The Blaze (Right) said it “does not appear to be intentional,” and noted that it occurred “adjacent to a naval base of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps” and “was once connected to the naval base and was only disconnected from it in 2016.”
One particularly confusing piece of reporting came from NBC News (Lean Left), which played to readers’ emotions and reported on a mother who dropped her son off at school and “never saw him again.”
Not all sources reported that the school was a girls’ school. Some just referred to it as a “school” or “elementary school.” But being as though Iran is a strict Islamic theocracy, schools are not coeducational. An AllSides team member who attended elementary school for one year in Iran was actually the one to point out this inconsistency in reporting.
You can read more from AllSides about how biased media spun the school bombing story here.
On a separate matter, while outlets across the spectrum reported on celebrations from Iranian diaspora in the US and across the globe, mourning for the fallen Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran was treated a bit differently by Western media.
While getting a fair and concrete approval rating for a regime as totalitarian as the Iranian one can be difficult, Western polling has shown the Islamic regime is deeply unpopular within Iran. Still, several outlets, including a few Western ones, reported that there were thousands of pro-regime Iranians out in the streets to mourn the death of their leader.
Associated Press (Left) and Turkish state outlet Anadolu Agency (Center) played up the level of demonstrations within Iran. Anadolu wrote in its headline that “protests erupt[ed]” and reported “widespread public reaction.” AP didn't publish written news coverage but shared a video and described “protests” with “death to America” and “death to Israel” chants. Al Jazeera claimed in its headline that there were “tens of thousands” of mourners. NBC News (Lean Left) also covered the story but offered softer framing.
Most Western outlets, however, did not pay mind to the mourning within Iran, ostensibly not seeing it as a worthy enough development for coverage.
