This is not Iraq. For 118 years,
every government in Iran has served Britain's financial empire. Trump has spent
a year dismantling that architecture. The Mullahs were the last piece on the
board. As of this morning, he's clearing it.
Barbara Boyd argues that the U.S. and Israel’s major
combat operations against Iran, announced by President Trump as Operation Epic
Fury, are being miscast as “Iraq 2.0” and “regime change.” She cites Trump’s
message to Iranians to “take over your government” and JD Vance’s statement
that there is “no chance” of a years-long Middle East war, framing the strikes
as targeted to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions rather than an occupation. Barbara
shows Iran’s leadership has long served a British-centered financial system
rooted in the 1908 BP oil concession, reinforced by events such as the 1953
Mossadegh coup and the 1979 revolution. She says Trump’s recent
policies—Abraham Accords, the “Board of Peace,” Gulf investment redirection,
and designating the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorists—aim to dismantle that
system, with Iran as the final obstacle amid escalating retaliatory strikes
across the Gulf.
Susan Kokinda and the Lyndon
LaRouche network give their perspective on the British reaction to the U.S.
strikes against Iran. The analysis has value from a review of the
historic relationship of the British imperialist policy toward matters of
foreign entanglement and the control mechanisms that have historically flowed
from the U.K
As a consequence of British
government policy much of the Kokinda analysis accurately touches on the root
cause of U.K response. However, the emphasis on the modern UK government as the
lead of a global network is not always as severe or ¹complicated as the Lyndon LaRouche
network would espouse. WATCH:
The Monday Brief - BOLTON SCREAMS: It’s All Over for
Them - March 2, 2026
The neocons say Trump has no plan.
Chatham House says you can't do regime change from the air. Then Iran's new
leadership called Washington and Trump picked up. The special relationship is
cracking open — and the men who ran it are on the chopping block.
Susan Kokinda argues that John Bolton and the
foreign policy establishment are alarmed not by U.S. strikes on Iran, but by
President Trump’s refusal to commit to a managed regime-change architecture.
She contrasts Bolton, Anne Applebaum, and Chatham House criticizing a lack of
strategy with Trump telling The Atlantic he has agreed to talk with Tehran,
framing this as a break from “The Great Game” geopolitics. Kokinda says the
strikes publicly cracked the U.S.–UK “special relationship,” citing that
Britain was informed but not included, Starmer refused U.S. use of British
bases, and European leaders issued statements emphasizing non-participation.
She claims Tehran is calling Washington, not London, and links this shift to
arrests of former Prince Andrew and Lord Peter Mandelson, described as key operators
connected to Epstein-file allegations.
00:00 The Monday Brief - BOLTON SCREAMS: It’s All Over for Them - March 2, 2026
02:36 The Regime Changers Are Not in the Room
05:10 The Special Relationship Shatters
07:56 The Operative Gets Arrested
¹Great Britain has imported a large percentage of extreme Islamists.
As Iran is confronted, and as Israel is viewed as a significant beneficiary to
that confrontation, the leftist British government -represented by majority
base supporting Prime Minister Keir Starmer- is politically trying to retain
stability. Starmer does not want to upset the Muslim population within
the U.K. That is a significant political facet undiscussed in the Kokinda
review of British response.
Additionally, the Trump Doctrine in confronting totalitarian dictators, or
oppressive government systems, has always been to support the rise of the
authentic ‘nationalist’ voice of the nation in question. President Trump
has no personal or policy motive to drive the outcome when the authentic rise of
the voice happens. Instead, he seeks to remove the anti-American sentiment
carried by the former -hopefully replaced- regime.
In all of President Trump’s prior foreign policy examples we see he focuses
on creating opportunity for liberty and freedom, but he does not seek to
determine how that liberty and freedom are ultimately expressed – so long as
there is no negative outcome to American interests.
President Trump positions the United States to remain the biggest, most
powerful and influential nation in the world.
To the extent that Chinese tentacles need to be severed, Trump policy
delivers. (North Korea, Panama Canal, Canada, Venezuela, Iran)
To the extent that malicious actors in the world need to be removed, his
policy delivers. (Venezuela, Iran)
To the extent that American economic interests are represented in all of the
outcomes, he forces reciprocity. (Canada, EU, NATO, ASEAN, trade tariffs)
America-First. Let each nation compete on equal footing; but let there
be no doubt – America has the biggest footprint.
When pressed on how long the U.S.
military would remain focused on Iran, secretary of State Marco Rubio said as
long as it takes. “The hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military.
The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now,”
he told reporters at the U.S. Capitol.
“How long will it take? I don’t know
how long it will take,” Rubio said. “We have objectives. We will do this as
long as it takes to achieve those objectives.”
“We would love for there to be an
Iran that’s not governed by radical Shia clerics,” he said heading into a
classified briefing on Capitol Hill. “That’s not the objective.” … “The
objectives of this operation are to destroy their ballistic missile capability
and make sure they can’t rebuild it and make sure that they can’t hide behind
that to have a nuclear program,” he said. “That’s the objective of the
mission.” WATCH:
Top of
FormBottom of Form“Regime
Change Not the Mission, But Will Be Accepted” – Rubio on Iran | APT
Seeing how MSM and Trump opposition
outlets are twisting and contorting the words and explanations from Secretary
of State Marco Rubio it is worth posting the full transcript of his remarks from yesterday.
…” I’m not going to give away the
details of our tactical efforts, but the hardest hits are yet to come from the
U.S. military. The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it
is right now. Someone was screaming, “How long will it take?” I
don’t know how long it’ll take. We have objectives. We will do this
as long as it takes to achieve those objectives, and we will achieve those
objectives.”…
[Full Transcript] – SECRETARY RUBIO:
“The United States conducted this operation with a very clear goal in mind. I
haven’t gotten a chance to see a lot of reporting. I don’t understand what the
confusion is. Let me explain it to you, and I’ll do it once again as clearly as
possible. Perhaps you’ll report it that way.
The United States is conducting an operation to eliminate the threat of
Iran’s short-range ballistic missiles and the threat posed by their navy,
particularly to naval assets. That is what it is focused on doing right now and
it’s doing quite successfully. I’ll leave it to the Pentagon and the Department
of War to discuss the tactics behind that and the progress that’s being made.
That is the clear objective of this mission.
The second question I’ve been asked is: Why now? Well, there’s two reasons
why now. The first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by
anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and
respond against the United States. The orders had been delegated down to the
field commanders. It was automatic, and in fact it beared to be true because,
in fact, the – within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound,
the missile forces in the south and in the north for that matter had already
been activated to launch. In fact, those had already been pre-positioned.
The third is the assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for
that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher
casualties. And so the President made the very wise decision. We knew that
there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an
attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go
after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher
casualties and perhaps even higher those killed, and then we would all be here
answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act.
Going back to the purpose, the purpose of this is to destroy that missile
capability. Why does Iran want that ballistic missile capability? What they are
trying to do and have been trying to do for a very long time is build a
conventional weapons capability as a shield where they can hide behind, meaning
there would come a point where they have so many conventional missiles, so many
drones, and can inflict so much damage, that no one can do anything about their
nuclear program. That is what they were trying to do, is put themselves in a
place of immunity where the damage they can inflict on the region would be so
high that no one can do anything about their nuclear program or their nuclear
ambitions.
They are producing, by some estimates, over 100 of these missiles a month. Compare
that to the six or seven interceptors that can be built a month. They can build
a hundred of these a month, not to mention the thousands of one-way attack
drones that they also have. They’ve been doing this for a very long time. And
by the way, they’ve been doing it under sanction. You see the attacks they’re
conducting right now. They’re attacking airports. They’re attacking hotels.
They are hitting, not just military bases; they’re attacking our embassies
directly. They’re attacking facilities that have nothing to do with war or with
military.
And that’s a weakened Iran. That’s an Iran despite years of sanction.
Imagine a year from now or a year and a half from now the capabilities they
would have to inflict damage on us. It’s an unacceptable risk, especially in
the hands of a regime that’s run by radical clerics. The ayatollah is a radical
– was a radical cleric. That entire regime is led by radical clerics who don’t
make geopolitical decisions; they make decisions on the basis of theology –
their view of theology, which is an apocalyptic one. That has to be taken very
seriously as well.
So that was the purpose for what this operation is all about. That’s what
it’s focused on. As the President said earlier today, it is on or ahead of
schedule. I will defer to the Department of War to discuss the progress being
made at a tactical level. But it was the right decision and an important
decision for the safety and security of the world.
QUESTION: Does Congress have to weigh in? Does Congress have to weigh in? Is
the President declaring war, and does Congress have to weigh in?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No. Well, what —
QUESTION: And was there an imminent threat? Did you tell lawmakers that
there was an imminent threat?
SECRETARY RUBIO: There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent
threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked – and we believe they would
be attacked – that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going
to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded because the Department of
War assessed that if we did that, if we waited for them to hit us first after
they were attacked – and by someone else, Israel attacked them, they hit us
first, and we waited for them to hit us – we would suffer more casualties and
more deaths. We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from
inflicting higher damage. Had we not done so, there would have been hearings on
Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen and we didn’t act
preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life.
QUESTION: Are you saying the U.S. was forced to strike because of an
impending Israeli action?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, first – well, two things I would say. Number one is: no
matter what, ultimately this operation needed to happen. That’s the question of
why now. But this operation needed to happen because Iran in about a year or a
year and a half would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so
many short-range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about
it because they could hold the whole world hostage.
Look at the damage they’re doing now. And this is a weakened Iran. Imagine a
year from now. So that had to happen. Obviously, we were aware of Israeli
intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and we had to be
prepared to act as a result of it. But this had to happen no matter what.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, President Trump said overnight that his top choices
to now run Iran were killed in the strikes. Does the United States have a firm
plan for how they intend to handle this power vacuum in Iran to ensure that an
IRG hardliner does not take power?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, so two things, and two things can be true. Number one
is our mission and our focus is the destruction of their ballistic missile capabilities
and their ability to manufacture them, as well as the threat posed by their
navy to global shipping. That’s our objective.
That said, we would not mind, we would not be heartbroken, and we hope that
the Iranian people can overthrow this government and establish a new future for
that country. We would love for that to be possible. But the objective of this
mission is the destruction of their ballistic missile capabilities and of their
naval capabilities.
Yeah.
QUESTION: Are you saying – based on that, are you saying that there is no
responsibility, no plan for the U.S. to at least play a role in whatever
government comes next?
SECRETARY RUBIO: I mean, we might. We’ll see how circumstances play out, but
you – I’m telling you what the objectives of this operation are. The objectives
of this operation are to destroy their ballistic missile capability and make
sure they can’t rebuild it, and make sure that they can’t hide behind that to
have a nuclear program. That’s the objective of the mission.
That said – abundantly clear – we would love for there to be an Iran that’s
not governed by radical Shia clerics. As I’ve said myself repeatedly for years,
the leadership of that country does not reflect the people of Iran, and I think
that’s been pretty apparent in the protests that you’ve seen. If there’s
something we can do to help them down the road, we’d obviously be open to it,
but that’s not the objective. The objective of this mission is the destruction
of their ballistic missile capability.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, regime change has not gone well for the United
States.
SECRETARY RUBIO: The what now?
QUESTION: Regime change has not gone well for the United States for many,
many decades. How do you assure the American public that things will not get
worse for the next regime that comes in there and replaces the ayatollah?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we would love to see this regime be replaced. And
ultimately, as the President has said because —
QUESTION: But how do you know that?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, no, but let me finish my answer. As the President has
said, he would love for the people of Iran to use this as an opportunity to
rise up and remove these leaders. They’ve been wanting to remove them for a
long time. We’ve successive waves of protests, and we’ve seen them slaughter
people. Okay? But the objective of this mission is to make sure they don’t have
these weapons that can threaten us and our allies in the region. That’s why
we’re doing what we’re doing now.
And while we would love to see a new regime, the bottom line is no matter
who governs that country a year from now, they’re not going to have these
ballistic missiles and they’re not going to have these drones to threaten us.
That’s the objective of this mission, is to deny them the ability to use ballistic
missiles to threaten their neighbors, to threaten our bases, to threaten our
presence in the region, and ultimately as a shield behind which they can do
whatever they want with their nuclear weapons ambition. We were not going to
let them hide behind that, and that’s why this was such a critical mission to
undertake now, while they were at their weakest point, and not a year from now,
where they could inflict even more damage and perhaps already be behind that
point of immunity.
Right here behind – you and then you. Yes.
QUESTION: Your critics in Congress have said that they should have a role,
they should be able to weigh in here, and that there are going to be war powers
resolutions votes in Congress later this week.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Okay.
QUESTION: Why not notify Congress ahead of this? And does Congress still
have —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we did. We notified Congress. I mean, we notified the
Gang of Eight. We notified the congressional leadership. There’s no law that
requires us to do that; the law says we have to notify them 48 hours after
beginning hostilities. We’ve done that. I think the notification went today.
But we did notify members of Congress in advance. But we can’t notify 535
members of Congress, and —
QUESTION: They vote to authorize the war, though.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, the Congress can vote on whatever they want. But
there’s no law that requires us to do that. And I want to say something because
I see people on TV. Look, that is fine if they want to take a war powers vote.
They can do that. They’ve done that. They’ve done that a bunch of times. But
there’s no – people keep saying that we have – there’s no law that requires the
President to have done anything with regards to this. To begin with, no
presidential administration has ever accepted the War Powers Act as
constitutional – not Republican presidents, not Democratic presidents.
That said, we have followed the notification at 48 hours, and we’re here
today – I’ve done more Gang of Eight briefings than I got in the four years
that Biden was president and I was a member of the Gang of Eight. All of that
said, we have complied with the law 100 percent, and we’re going to continue to
comply with it. We’ve done the notification and we – officially to Congress,
but we did notify members of Congress. We just can’t notify 535 people. That’s
not possible. But we did the Gang of Eight, twice. I briefed them last week and
then I called them the night before the operation.
QUESTION: Can you tell us what you know, Mr. Secretary, what the administration
knows about the strike on a building in southern Iran? The Iranians are saying
it’s a school. There are reports of large numbers of civilians, including
children, killed?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah. I’ve seen those reports. I don’t have – I would refer
you – not because I’m not trying to answer your question, but I don’t want to
get it wrong. The Department of War would be investigating that, if that was
our strike. And I would refer your question to them, and I’ll make sure they’re
aware that you have that question. But we’d like to know.
QUESTION: The Iranians say it was an American — an American missile.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, clearly, the United States would not deliberately
target a school. Our objectives are missiles, both the ability to manufacture them
and the ability to launch them, and the one-way attack drones. That would be
our focus, and that’s what we would be focused on. We would have no interest,
and frankly no incentive, to target civilian infrastructure. The Iranians are,
on the other hand, targeting civilian infrastructure. You guys have seen it.
I’m sure you’ve seen it. They’re hitting hotels. They’re hitting embassies.
They’re hitting airports. They’re hitting oil infrastructure.
QUESTION: But if these are children killed, what would your response be?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, it’d be very tragic, but I can’t speak to the details
behind it because I’m not – I just don’t have it. It would be a tragic outcome
if it’s happened. I don’t have the details as to what led to it. But what is
clear, that the United States would not target, deliberately target a school.
They are, on the other hand, deliberately targeting civilians, as you’ve seen,
because you know why? They are a terroristic regime. They sponsor terrorism and
they participate in terrorism.
QUESTION: Mr. Rubio, what’s your message to Americans who are concerned
about rising energy prices given the spiking of oil prices today?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes. And we – we’ve – we knew that going in would be a
factor. And so we have a program in place that will begin to be implemented by
Secretary Wright, Secretary Bessent. We talked about it last night, again,
about this program. We talked this morning. And starting tomorrow you will see
us rolling out those phases to try to mitigate against that. Obviously, markets
are going to be reacting to news about what’s happening. And again, a reminder
– think about it, okay? This terroristic regime, led by radical clerics, has
the ability potentially to shut off 20 percent of global energy. That’s the
kind of leverage they have because of their navy. We’re going to destroy their
navy.
But there is a plan in place. We anticipated this could be an issue. And
Secretary Wright and Bessent will begin to roll out those steps starting
tomorrow to mitigate – to mitigate – against the impact that could have.
I’ve got to do this briefing, so I’ve got a couple more. Yeah.
QUESTION: Do you anticipate putting boots on the ground? And how long do you
anticipate the conflict to last?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we don’t – let me say two things about it. Number
one, I’m – the President always has the options to undertake whatever
operations he decides to do as the Commander-in-Chief. That said, the – we
believe the objective that we have set for this mission, which is the
destruction of their ballistic missile capabilities, both launch capability and
manufacturing, can be achieved without ground forces. Right now we’re not
postured for ground forces. But obviously, the President has those options.
He’s never going to rule out anything. But right now our focus is on the
destruction of their ballistic missile launchers, their ballistic missile
stockpiles, and their ballistic missile manufacturing capability, as well as
their one-way attack drones and their navy because of the threat it poses to
global shipping.
All right, I’ve got – I got – can only do one more. Right there, right there
in the middle. Yes, sir.
QUESTION: Is there a diplomatic exchange going on right now between the U.S.
and Iran? Any exchanges whatsoever outside of —
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, not at this time. I mean, look, we always have people
that reach out from inside of governments. You don’t know if they’re authorized
to reach out or not. They’re suffering a tremendous amount of damage. Honestly
– again, I’m not going to give away the details of our tactical efforts, but
the hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military. The next phase will be
even more punishing on Iran than it is right now. Someone was screaming, “How
long will it take?” I don’t know how long it’ll take. We have objectives. We
will do this as long as it takes to achieve those objectives, and we will
achieve those objectives. The world will be a safer place when we’re done with
this operation.
