Demonstrators burn a poster of US President Donald Trump during an anti-US and Israel protest in Peshawar on March 2, 2026 after the death of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei amid US-Israel strikes.
(Photo by Abdul Majeed / AFP via Getty Images)
Trump Guns for Peace Prize
It’s obvious that Trump loves the feel of power. It no doubt gives him a rush more intoxicating than any drug.
Mar 02, 2026
Since resuming power 13 months ago, President Trump has declared he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. At the same time, he has attacked civilian boats in the Caribbean, abducted the head of Venezuela, blockaded Cuba, conducted air strikes in Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, and even threatened to invade Greenland. He bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities last June, and now is waging war to achieve regime change, not an easy task in a country of 90 million people.
What is common to all these strikes is that the target was weak. Note that Trump is not trying to topple North Korea, or force Russia out of Ukraine, or threaten China’s economic domination. His targets can’t do much harm to the US, at least in the short run, which makes it easy to score what he calls “victories.”
It’s obvious that Trump loves the feel of power. It no doubt gives him a rush more intoxicating than any drug. He is the ruler of the strongest nation in the history of the world, but he doesn’t have the freedom to unilaterally act on domestic affairs, although he constantly tries. The courts are in the way, as is popular dissent. Judges and citizens are preventing him from exerting his will, even making him change course by removing troops and immigration forces. And it will, he surely knows, get even worse if the Democrats gain control of either house of Congress.
But he has a free hand in foreign affairs. The Supreme Court won’t stop him and there is no international court that the US recognizes, nor does he believe he is morally bound by international law. He couldn’t care less about the United Nations, and he hopes that military engagement against the weak makes him look strong to the American public. Also, in Iran’s case, a war with a quick victory has the added benefit of possibly improving his paltry approval ratings by diverting public attention away from “affordability” and the Epstein files. Already the joke is that they should have called the Iran adventure, “Operation Epic Epstein.”
Just think what the total freedom to attack means for Trump. For starters he gets to deploy his toys—the trillion-dollar arsenal of US warships and fighter planes. It’s the ultimate video game for power-hungry adults. And no one can stop him abroad, and while the Republicans in Congress could, they certainly won’t.
Trump seems to believe that these military attacks will secure his place in history as the greatest president of all time. He and only he had the guts to get rid of the Iranian theocracy that has bedeviled the US since the 1979 hostage crisis. And only he will end communism in Cuba, that pesky island of resistance only 90 miles from shore. Most importantly, he is remaking the Middle East into a US-Israeli safe zone. He is showing the world that the US means business and that whatever it wants, it should get—of course in the name of protecting the US and securing world peace.
As Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Steven Miller, put it, “We live in a world , in the real world…that is governed by strength, this governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.”
Before claiming all this aggression demonstrates Trump truly is a Hitler-like dictator, we should recall that he is not the first Commander-in-Chief to follow these “iron laws of the world.” Truman sent troops to fight in Korea (1950), Eisenhower sent them to Lebanon (1958), Kennedy to the Bay of Pigs in Cuba (1961), Johnson to Vietnam (1964), Nixon bombed Cambodia (1969), Reagan invaded Grenada (1983), George H. Bush invaded Panama (1989), Clinton bombed Kosovo (1999), Obama bombed Libya (2011), Trump sent missiles to Syria (2017,2018), and Biden ordered airstrikes in Syria (2021), and Yemen (2024)—all without a declaration of war by Congress.
This is what US presidents do because they can. But no president has been quite as overtly aggressive as Trump. Even when he tries, he can’t hide his desire to dominate. He doesn’t spend time building alliances or forming a consensus at home. He just acts as if the weaker countries of the world are his playthings. He can push them around at will, first with tariffs then with bombs, and his sycophantic enablers will cheer him on. From Trump’s perspective, what’s not to like?
Nothing, unless it doesn’t end well. And there are dozens of ways his current path in Iran could lead to his own destruction. The American public is not likely to approve of these adventures, especially if prices rise because global trade is severely disrupted. More ominously, it’s possible that a war with Iran could spiral out of control, sucking the US in with ground troops and leading to yet another forever war and American casualties. That’s why MAGA isolationists also are having trouble with Trump’s foreign interventions.
And there is a question of whether the Iranians who want regime change will trust the Americans. They are certainly aware that the Afghans who assisted US forces and the CIA in their (failed) war of liberation were awkwardly abandoned during our troop withdrawal, and those who were given safe haven have in many cases been unceremoniously kicked back to their dangerous homeland by Trump.
The upshot of all this adventurism is that we may again witness a moment in history when the universe actually bends towards justice. Debilitating hubris has a way of striking down the mighty: LBJ was driven from office by his Vietnam debacle and Nixon had to resign because of his secret dictatorial actions. Will Trump blow himself up as well?
Maybe, but let’s pray, with the nuclear button close at hand, he doesn’t take all the rest of us with him.
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Les Leopold is the executive director of the Labor Institute and author of the new book, “Wall Street’s War on Workers: How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do About It." (2024). Read more of his work on his substack here.
Since resuming power 13 months ago, President Trump has declared he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. At the same time, he has attacked civilian boats in the Caribbean, abducted the head of Venezuela, blockaded Cuba, conducted air strikes in Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, and even threatened to invade Greenland. He bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities last June, and now is waging war to achieve regime change, not an easy task in a country of 90 million people.
What is common to all these strikes is that the target was weak. Note that Trump is not trying to topple North Korea, or force Russia out of Ukraine, or threaten China’s economic domination. His targets can’t do much harm to the US, at least in the short run, which makes it easy to score what he calls “victories.”
It’s obvious that Trump loves the feel of power. It no doubt gives him a rush more intoxicating than any drug. He is the ruler of the strongest nation in the history of the world, but he doesn’t have the freedom to unilaterally act on domestic affairs, although he constantly tries. The courts are in the way, as is popular dissent. Judges and citizens are preventing him from exerting his will, even making him change course by removing troops and immigration forces. And it will, he surely knows, get even worse if the Democrats gain control of either house of Congress.
But he has a free hand in foreign affairs. The Supreme Court won’t stop him and there is no international court that the US recognizes, nor does he believe he is morally bound by international law. He couldn’t care less about the United Nations, and he hopes that military engagement against the weak makes him look strong to the American public. Also, in Iran’s case, a war with a quick victory has the added benefit of possibly improving his paltry approval ratings by diverting public attention away from “affordability” and the Epstein files. Already the joke is that they should have called the Iran adventure, “Operation Epic Epstein.”
Just think what the total freedom to attack means for Trump. For starters he gets to deploy his toys—the trillion-dollar arsenal of US warships and fighter planes. It’s the ultimate video game for power-hungry adults. And no one can stop him abroad, and while the Republicans in Congress could, they certainly won’t.
Trump seems to believe that these military attacks will secure his place in history as the greatest president of all time. He and only he had the guts to get rid of the Iranian theocracy that has bedeviled the US since the 1979 hostage crisis. And only he will end communism in Cuba, that pesky island of resistance only 90 miles from shore. Most importantly, he is remaking the Middle East into a US-Israeli safe zone. He is showing the world that the US means business and that whatever it wants, it should get—of course in the name of protecting the US and securing world peace.
As Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Steven Miller, put it, “We live in a world , in the real world…that is governed by strength, this governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.”
Before claiming all this aggression demonstrates Trump truly is a Hitler-like dictator, we should recall that he is not the first Commander-in-Chief to follow these “iron laws of the world.” Truman sent troops to fight in Korea (1950), Eisenhower sent them to Lebanon (1958), Kennedy to the Bay of Pigs in Cuba (1961), Johnson to Vietnam (1964), Nixon bombed Cambodia (1969), Reagan invaded Grenada (1983), George H. Bush invaded Panama (1989), Clinton bombed Kosovo (1999), Obama bombed Libya (2011), Trump sent missiles to Syria (2017,2018), and Biden ordered airstrikes in Syria (2021), and Yemen (2024)—all without a declaration of war by Congress.
This is what US presidents do because they can. But no president has been quite as overtly aggressive as Trump. Even when he tries, he can’t hide his desire to dominate. He doesn’t spend time building alliances or forming a consensus at home. He just acts as if the weaker countries of the world are his playthings. He can push them around at will, first with tariffs then with bombs, and his sycophantic enablers will cheer him on. From Trump’s perspective, what’s not to like?
Nothing, unless it doesn’t end well. And there are dozens of ways his current path in Iran could lead to his own destruction. The American public is not likely to approve of these adventures, especially if prices rise because global trade is severely disrupted. More ominously, it’s possible that a war with Iran could spiral out of control, sucking the US in with ground troops and leading to yet another forever war and American casualties. That’s why MAGA isolationists also are having trouble with Trump’s foreign interventions.
And there is a question of whether the Iranians who want regime change will trust the Americans. They are certainly aware that the Afghans who assisted US forces and the CIA in their (failed) war of liberation were awkwardly abandoned during our troop withdrawal, and those who were given safe haven have in many cases been unceremoniously kicked back to their dangerous homeland by Trump.
The upshot of all this adventurism is that we may again witness a moment in history when the universe actually bends towards justice. Debilitating hubris has a way of striking down the mighty: LBJ was driven from office by his Vietnam debacle and Nixon had to resign because of his secret dictatorial actions. Will Trump blow himself up as well?
Maybe, but let’s pray, with the nuclear button close at hand, he doesn’t take all the rest of us with him.
Les Leopold is the executive director of the Labor Institute and author of the new book, “Wall Street’s War on Workers: How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do About It." (2024). Read more of his work on his substack here.
Since resuming power 13 months ago, President Trump has declared he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. At the same time, he has attacked civilian boats in the Caribbean, abducted the head of Venezuela, blockaded Cuba, conducted air strikes in Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, and even threatened to invade Greenland. He bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities last June, and now is waging war to achieve regime change, not an easy task in a country of 90 million people.
What is common to all these strikes is that the target was weak. Note that Trump is not trying to topple North Korea, or force Russia out of Ukraine, or threaten China’s economic domination. His targets can’t do much harm to the US, at least in the short run, which makes it easy to score what he calls “victories.”
It’s obvious that Trump loves the feel of power. It no doubt gives him a rush more intoxicating than any drug. He is the ruler of the strongest nation in the history of the world, but he doesn’t have the freedom to unilaterally act on domestic affairs, although he constantly tries. The courts are in the way, as is popular dissent. Judges and citizens are preventing him from exerting his will, even making him change course by removing troops and immigration forces. And it will, he surely knows, get even worse if the Democrats gain control of either house of Congress.
But he has a free hand in foreign affairs. The Supreme Court won’t stop him and there is no international court that the US recognizes, nor does he believe he is morally bound by international law. He couldn’t care less about the United Nations, and he hopes that military engagement against the weak makes him look strong to the American public. Also, in Iran’s case, a war with a quick victory has the added benefit of possibly improving his paltry approval ratings by diverting public attention away from “affordability” and the Epstein files. Already the joke is that they should have called the Iran adventure, “Operation Epic Epstein.”
Just think what the total freedom to attack means for Trump. For starters he gets to deploy his toys—the trillion-dollar arsenal of US warships and fighter planes. It’s the ultimate video game for power-hungry adults. And no one can stop him abroad, and while the Republicans in Congress could, they certainly won’t.
Trump seems to believe that these military attacks will secure his place in history as the greatest president of all time. He and only he had the guts to get rid of the Iranian theocracy that has bedeviled the US since the 1979 hostage crisis. And only he will end communism in Cuba, that pesky island of resistance only 90 miles from shore. Most importantly, he is remaking the Middle East into a US-Israeli safe zone. He is showing the world that the US means business and that whatever it wants, it should get—of course in the name of protecting the US and securing world peace.
As Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Steven Miller, put it, “We live in a world , in the real world…that is governed by strength, this governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.”
Before claiming all this aggression demonstrates Trump truly is a Hitler-like dictator, we should recall that he is not the first Commander-in-Chief to follow these “iron laws of the world.” Truman sent troops to fight in Korea (1950), Eisenhower sent them to Lebanon (1958), Kennedy to the Bay of Pigs in Cuba (1961), Johnson to Vietnam (1964), Nixon bombed Cambodia (1969), Reagan invaded Grenada (1983), George H. Bush invaded Panama (1989), Clinton bombed Kosovo (1999), Obama bombed Libya (2011), Trump sent missiles to Syria (2017,2018), and Biden ordered airstrikes in Syria (2021), and Yemen (2024)—all without a declaration of war by Congress.
This is what US presidents do because they can. But no president has been quite as overtly aggressive as Trump. Even when he tries, he can’t hide his desire to dominate. He doesn’t spend time building alliances or forming a consensus at home. He just acts as if the weaker countries of the world are his playthings. He can push them around at will, first with tariffs then with bombs, and his sycophantic enablers will cheer him on. From Trump’s perspective, what’s not to like?
Nothing, unless it doesn’t end well. And there are dozens of ways his current path in Iran could lead to his own destruction. The American public is not likely to approve of these adventures, especially if prices rise because global trade is severely disrupted. More ominously, it’s possible that a war with Iran could spiral out of control, sucking the US in with ground troops and leading to yet another forever war and American casualties. That’s why MAGA isolationists also are having trouble with Trump’s foreign interventions.
And there is a question of whether the Iranians who want regime change will trust the Americans. They are certainly aware that the Afghans who assisted US forces and the CIA in their (failed) war of liberation were awkwardly abandoned during our troop withdrawal, and those who were given safe haven have in many cases been unceremoniously kicked back to their dangerous homeland by Trump.
The upshot of all this adventurism is that we may again witness a moment in history when the universe actually bends towards justice. Debilitating hubris has a way of striking down the mighty: LBJ was driven from office by his Vietnam debacle and Nixon had to resign because of his secret dictatorial actions. Will Trump blow himself up as well?
Maybe, but let’s pray, with the nuclear button close at hand, he doesn’t take all the rest of us with him.
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