The New York Times has criticized the way Donald Trump has waged the war against Iran—while, at the same time, the “Times” insists that it is wrong to hope that Trump fails in this war, because that would supposedly make things worse! Let’s get this straight: The launching of this unprovoked and unjust war against Iran, by the U.S., as well as Israel, is—according to international law, and by any meaningful definition—a major war crime. (Among other outrages, the U.S. and Israel launched this war against Iran while Iran was engaged in negotiations with the U.S., and “neutral forces” involved in these negotiations had made clear that progress was being made). In the waging of this war, the U.S. and Israel have committed further war crimes on a massive scale, with the deliberate bombing of civilian targets (and, on top of this, Trump has committed yet another, depraved war crime with clearly genocidal implications: threatening to wipe out Iranian civilization). 

Yet, according to the New York Times, it is somehow wrong to want these war crimes to fail!

Because, you see, these monstrous war crimes are carried out by “us”—that is, by U.S. imperialism. This is yet another graphic illustration of what, in a speech in 2017 (“The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!”), I referred to as the GTF—the Great Tautological Fallacy—the round in a circle argument which claims that the U.S. is a force for good in the world, and therefore whatever the U.S. does in the world (even committing massive war crimes) is good, or at least is something that has to be supported, because... because America is a force for good (and, anyway, it is being opposed by forces that are supposedly far worse). Trapped within this logic, what crimes, no matter how monstrous and even genocidal, should not be supported, so long as they are carried out by U.S. “good guys?!”

This is a New York Times which expresses grave concern that (in the words of its Sunday, May 3, 2026 editorial): “The U.S. Is In A Stalemate With A Second-Rate-Power” [Iran].

A New York Times that at the same time insists that 

The picture for the American military is not entirely grim. The Iran war has shown that it has an astonishing ability to find and destroy enemy targets.

A New York Times that has repeatedly called for further building up the U.S. military, in order to make it an even more terrible destructive force—all in the service of what is, objectively, the most monstrously predatory power in the world: U.S. imperialism.

A New York Times that is a major propaganda instrument of this U.S. imperialism—a representative of the “mainstream” section of the capitalist-imperialist ruling class—which, after all, shares much in common with, and even echoes the trumpeting of, the fascist Trump regime about the awesome destructive power of the U.S. military, and the need for it to be even more powerfully destructive.

Oppression Will Not Be Ended by the Most Terrible Oppressive Force in the World

This U.S. war on Iran can’t be justified with the excuse that the Islamic regime in Iran is itself a terribly oppressive force. Yes, that is true—it is a barbaric regime that we revcoms have been vigorously exposing and opposing while firmly supporting the Iranian people’s struggle against this regime, over the four decades and more that this regime has been in power. But this is also true: The U.S. has, since its beginning and down to today, committed war crimes, and crimes against humanity, far beyond what the Iranian regime could even realistically think of committing.

As part of its ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity, the U.S. has continued to support tyrannical, murderous regimes—including, in the Middle East, the dark ages reactionary government of Saudi Arabia and the viciously repressive government of Egypt, as well as Israel, with its genocide against the Palestinian people. (The American Crime series at revcom.us, chronicles and analyzes in depth the war crimes and crimes against humanity continually committed by the U.S., throughout its history and throughout the world, as well as “at home.”) 

And what does it say that, in this war against Iran, the U.S. is aligned with, and working in overall unity with, the apartheid and genocidal state of Israel?!

The U.S. crimes include orchestrating a coup that overthrew the legitimate, popular government of Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran, in 1953: a coup that brought to power the Shah of Iran—who, with U.S. backing, carried out a reign of terror and torture over the Iran people, until he was overthrown through a massive uprising of the Iranian people in the late 1970s (an uprising to which the Shah responded by slaughtering thousands). This long and terrible reign of the U.S.-imposed regime of the Shah also created favorable conditions for the rise to power of the Islamic fundamentalist tyrants who now rule Iran. The reality of these actions by the U.S.—which is part of a whole long history of colonial and neo-colonial imperialist oppression of the Iranian people, going back centuries—is the answer to the argument, by Trump and other fascists, about how, “for 47 years,” Iran has “waged war” against the U.S.—and the astoundingly hypocritical words of the mass murderer Trump that Iran must be further punished for the terrible things this Iranian regime has done to humanity! (The actual history of all this is gone into in further depth at revcom.us.)

To return to international law—which the Trump fascist regime is determined to ignore and trample on—it is a war crime to attack another country because you don’t like the government of that country. By this perverted logic, any country could wage war on any other country whose government it condemned as “oppressive.”

The U.S. and Wakanda

To bring this “home,” let’s think about the mythical African country of Wakanda in the “Black Panther” movies, which contained the basis to create a military force that could conquer any foe, even the most powerful. If the argument is that one country can attack another because it considers that country’s government oppressive, then what if Wakanda actually existed and took the position that, because of the horrific ways in which the U.S. has oppressed people of African descent, going back centuries and up to the present day, it is going to invade and overthrow the government of the U.S.? How could the “logic” of this argument by “Wakanda” be denied?

“Wakanda” may not actually exist—but masses of people, suffering terribly under the rule of imperialism and related oppressors, do exist.

In conclusion: No, New York Times, it is not wrong—it is an expression of revolutionary, or at least basic positive, morality—to oppose war crimes, rather than hoping for them to succeed, especially when those war crimes are being carried out by the world’s number one imperialist predator, the U.S., and this is being done in the name of the people of this country.

And be careful, fascists and other imperialists, with your insistence that it is right and necessary to overthrow oppressors!

COMING SOON: A series on The Declaration of Independence (and related questions): Inventions and Distortions of Reality and History—in the Service of Real and Repeated Atrocity.

After That: Why Black People Flooded into the Union Army in the Civil War... And What That Has to do with Now.