Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report.
The bipartisan consensus for regime change against Iran hit the wall of Iranian resistance.
But Trump is forced into talks while democrats attack him from the right and expose themselves as partners in crime.
The United States began its latest attempt at regime change against the Islamic Republic of Iran on February 28, 2026. The Trump administration bragged about torpedoing an Iranian ship returning from a naval exercise in India and killing more than 80 sailors. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth released a video of the act of war and added, “They thought they were safe in international waters,” an admission of a U.S. violation of international law. The killing of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and some of his family members and the bombing of an elementary school in the city of Minab were also war crimes.
Fortunately, Iran was able to defend itself against the aggression and responded against U.S. assets located in vassal states in the region. Iran restricted traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and disrupted oil supplies to nations around the world. The waterway was open and accessible before the U.S. attack. It is now controlled by the Islamic Republic of Iran and it decides the price of the toll and in what currency it will be paid.
The end result of Iran’s successful self-defense is that the U.S. has been forced to the table to negotiate and treat the country it designated an enemy as an equal that must be treated with respect. Even at the very moment that the Pakistan/Qatar mediated talks began in Switzerland, Iranian officials still had to make the point that they were not to be trifled with.
Donald Trump’s unhinged threats on his Truth Social platform did not go unnoticed by the Iranian delegation. “Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble. If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
The Iranians arrived in Switzerland but refused to pose for the usually obligatory photo opportunity or greet Vice President JD Vance and delayed the beginning of talks by several hours. They made their point. Trump managed to control his impulses and keep his thoughts about Iran to himself and now the talks go on.
The U.S. and Iran had already agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). One provision was especially difficult for the U.S. political class to accept: “The United States of America undertakes, with regional partners, to develop a definitive mutually agreed plan with at least USD 300 Billion, for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The complainers were not just among those who are thought of as republican neo-conservative firebrands, but democrats too, including those claiming to be liberals. They chimed in with commentary worthy of the right wing because, despite labels of conservative and liberals, they are all right wing. The democrats’ leader in the Senate, Charles Schumer, has long been in favor of regime change against Iran and has made that point publicly many times. In 2025 he used the moniker “TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out) to refer to Trump as he attacked him for not achieving regime change. “If TACO Trump is already folding on Iran, the American people need to know about it. No side deals. . . When it comes to negotiating with the terrorist government of Iran, Trump’s all over the lot. One day he sounds tough, the next day he’s backing off.”
Schumer did not disappoint with his comments about the end of Trump’s failed regime change effort. “Trump’s ‘memo of understanding’ reads like an Iranian wish list. After Trump’s war, Iran gets to keep backing its terrorist proxies, to keep building ballistic missiles, to maintain its stranglehold on the global economy, and to rake in hundreds of billions of dollars in reconstruction aid and maritime tolls. Trump got taken to the cleaners by Iran.”
Another Senate Democrat, Cory Booker, also excoriated Trump but like Schumer, not for the reasons he should have. “We have surrendered our power. We have capitulated to the enemy. And they now are mocking us. Look at everything that’s coming out of that country from their internal dialogue all the way to what they’re saying publicly. They know that they’ve won this.”
Senator Chris Murphy followed in the same vein as his Democratic Party colleagues. “President Trump’s goals shifted, but they seemed to be to get a regime that was more friendly to the United States and Israel. We have a harder line regime now in charge of the country than we did before. We had a doddering 80 year old Ayatollah. We now have a, frankly, much more capable and much more provocative hardline regime.”
Susan Rice, who served as Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser, joined the fake condemnation. “This is a jaw-dropping, horrific surrender document complete with hundreds of billions in reparations.” Iran is entitled to reparations under international law. Perhaps Rice should be condemning the plethora of U.S. plots against Iran. Of course, she wouldn’t have the positions she has held if she were truthful about international law.
There are no congressional democrats or their pundit spokespeople who will state the simplest facts about Iran. They will not say that the U.S. had no right to attack Iran. They will not say that Iran has the right to self-defense under international law and that it has the right to demand compensation for damage done to their country.
They will refer to Trump’s “mistake” or “blunder” and accuse him of incompetence, but they make the charges only because he failed at the regime change they also want to see enacted. Who is Chris Murphy to judge Iran’s leadership or to refer to their leaders as “doddering?” He says nothing about the assassination of Khamenei because he actually sees nothing wrong with it. Trump is not alone in his belief that the United States can and should decide how Iran is run and by whom.
The belief in U.S. exceptionalism is a mainstay of politics in this country. The doctrine of Manifest Destiny still guides the thinking of political leadership and the average citizen too. Anyone who wants to see the U.S. engage in peaceful coexistence with the rest of the world will not be elected to high office. Senate seats don’t come cheaply. They require raising millions of dollars and the people who can give and raise that kind of cash are not looking to send peacemakers to Washington.
The end result is fake outrage from people who claimed they wanted to vote on a war resolution but didn’t really want to and finally did when the game was up and the U.S. was forced to stand down. No one should be impressed by the last minute, symbolic, non-binding vote taking place at the eleventh hour.
The U.S. has definitely lost this battle but will not stop the war for hegemony. Iran is not the only target. Multipolarity is the target. Cutting off China’s supply of Iranian oil is the goal. The U.S. cannot be trusted because its interests haven’t changed and neither have the duopoly parties. True peacemakers and anti-imperialists are rare and none of them can be found in congress.
Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley@blackagendareport.com.
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