The Michael Knowles Show
Ep. 1922 - "I Got Him First" Trump's War In Iran Explained In 5 Mins
02 Mar 2026
Chapter 1: What is the significance of the U.S. and Israel's actions in Iran?
The United States has launched a preemptive war in the Middle East based on the threat of weapons of mass destruction and the desire to liberate a people from a regime that we wish to change in a country whose name starts with the letters IRA. And then one more, does that sound familiar? Are you having deja vu? Yes, hold on, two things here and they kind of oppose each other.
But let's just get this straight right off the bat. Yes, it seems crazy that the president who ran specifically against the Bush era regime change wars is now launching perhaps the biggest Middle East regime change war that we've ever seen. Yes, Right off the bat, that's crazy. Here's the second part, though. The craziest part of all of it is that this time it might actually work.
I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. The Michael Knowles Show Welcome back to the show. There's a lot of Iran to talk about. A lot of Iran. We're going to be running. At the end of this show, you'll say, I ran a marathon today talking about this conflict. However, I hope we have time to get to Shia LaBeouf's
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Chapter 2: How does Trump's strategy differ from past U.S. interventions?
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This is approved not only by Mr. Davies, who has sworn by colostrum for a long time, but also by sweet little Alisa, okay? Those are big endorsements. You go to cowboycolostrum.com slash Knowles. Get 25% off when you use code Knowles at checkout. I want to get into what happened in Iran. I want to get into the political calculation leading up to it.
I want to get into the three different camps that you can find yourself in. People seem to think there are only two camps, pro-war in Iran, anti-war. I think there are really three, and I think it tells you a lot about Trump's thinking. I want to get into the grand strategy of it all, Were we dragged into this war? Did we lead this war? What's this war even for? Is it about regime change?
Is it about nukes? Is it about freedom? Is it about American interest? I want to get into all of that. However, the first thing I have to touch on is the liberal media's reaction. Because the U.S. and Israel launched the strikes on Saturday, Friday night. No, I guess it would be early Saturday morning, Iran. But we wake up in the United States on Saturday. This has happened. And- It worked.
It took out the whole top of the Iranian regime, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, People are saying Ayatollah Khomeini, like the first Supreme Leader of Iran, but it's Khomeini. Even I mispronounce it, and I've been saying this name for many years. Khomeini, Khomeini, whatever. Doesn't really matter now, you know, we're not gonna be talking about him too much longer.
Anyway, here is what the Washington Post said in their obituary of the Iranian Supreme Leader. Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, Iran's Supreme Leader, is dead at 86. Uh, Hold on, let me get to the... Hold on. No, it's not the first part. Here it is.
With his bushy white beard and easy smile, Ayatollah Khamenei cut a more avuncular figure in public than his perpetually scowling but much more revered mentor. And he was known to be fond of Persian poetry and classic Western novels, especially Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. They will never outdo this one.
We thought that the liberal media, I think it was the Washington Post actually, had reached the peak when the leader of ISIS was killed and they referred to him as an austere religious scholar. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an austere religious scholar, was struck down today. But this, this beats that one by a country mile.
With his bushy beard and easy smile, they turned the Ayatollah into Jihad Santa Claus. It's unbelievable. Bushy beard, easy smile. Oh, that affable Ayatollah. He was avuncular, wasn't he? That's a great word. I do love the word avuncular. He was avuncular, and he loved Persian poetry, and he loved Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. There were actually these tweets from the Ayatollah.
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Chapter 3: What are the three camps regarding U.S. involvement in Iran?
It remains to be seen. We are in the early days of this war, which President Trump says is going to go on for four weeks, maybe five weeks. You know, famous last words for some other presidents. However, we have to observe the first few days have been extremely effective, extremely successful, beyond most people's wildest imagination.
And President Trump has the best record on foreign policy practically in my lifetime. So even if some of us would have said, I don't think it's worth the risk, I think we should just deal with the Iranian regime, even though we've been at odds with them since 1979. Even if that's the art, really, there's not a disagreement on strategy here.
All the serious people want to get rid of the Iranian regime. in an ideal world. The only question is, can we actually pull this off? Thus far, President Trump is giving us a lot of reason to believe that. Now, what this means is that when we read President Trump's no stupid wars, no more stupid wars promise from 2016, we heard that. A lot of people heard that as no more wars.
The emphasis was on the word wars. But what President Trump is showing is, no, no, no, the emphasis was on the word stupid. When we say no more endless wars, we heard wars. The emphasis was on the word endless. I think Pete Hegseth just made that point. I think Pete made a statement maybe this morning. Here's the Secretary of War. To the media outlets and political left screaming endless wars.
Stop. This is not Iraq. This is not endless. I was there for both. Our generation knows better and so does this president. He called the last 20 years of nation building wars dumb and he's right. This is the opposite. This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission. Destroy the missile threat, destroy the Navy, no nukes. Israel has clear missions as well for which we are grateful.
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Chapter 4: What were the liberal media's reactions to the strikes on Iran?
Capable partners, as we've said since the beginning, capable partners are good partners. Unlike so many of our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force. There you have it. This will not be an endless war. This will not be, we're going fast.
I think what's confounding a lot of people about this, and again, a billion things could go wrong. But the fact that this worked so effectively, What's shocking to a lot of millennials, certainly to a lot of Zoomers, maybe even to a lot of Gen X, is that in our lifetimes, we have never seen the United States military truly unleashed. We've always put all these constraints around it.
I mean, under Bush, after the initial days of the global war on terror, the US military was told to function basically as an NGO, as some kind of UN nonprofit or something to hand out goodies to the locals. They were constrained. Under Obama, they were especially constrained. And so you saw these bungling missteps that were generated really by the political class in Washington, not by the U.S.
military. And I think looking at these operations, Venezuela and now Iran, I think a lot of people are just shocked to discover the amazing strength from the perspective of technology and personnel, the just amazing, awe-inspiring force of the United States military because we hadn't seen that unleashed. And that changes the calculation. So just to wrap up that bit, should we go to war in Iran?
Should we not? Obviously, aliyah iyaqta est, the die is cast. But everyone is debating this from the perspective of ideology. Well, I'm an interventionist and you're an isolationist. Isolationist, which is always a term of derision, always a term of insult. No, I'm a non-interventionist and I'm a liberty-loving America first and you're a warmonger. It's all from ideology.
That's not what this is about. The questions... that we don't have answers to, frankly, outside of the government, maybe the government doesn't have answers either, but we certainly do not outside the government, is was the threat posed by Iran really that great? We don't really know. The government could be lying about it. The government might not even know, but we certainly do not know.
Was the threat posed by Iran really that great? And two, can we really effectively and efficiently install a friendly regime in Iran? Those are the two questions. Not should America ever intervene or not should we spread democracy or should none of it has nothing to do with any of that. I think from Trump's perspective, certainly from my perspective, those are the two questions.
What really was the threat? How effectively really can we install a pro-Western regime? If the threat was high and we can easily install a pro-Western regime, then obviously this was awesome. This was like the greatest thing ever. Trump will go down as one of the greatest presidents in American history. Replacing this regime in Iran has been a pretty high American priority since 1979.
If the threat was not that high and we get bogged down in an endless war, Trump will have destroyed his legacy and he will go down in much the same way as George W. Bush. That is serious risk that this guy is taking based on his confidence in the United States military and his confidence in his own statesmanship. Say what you will, that takes serious gullions. Okay, we will get into...
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