The Michael Knowles Show - February 28, 2026


U.S. Bombs Iran： Michael Knowles INSTANT REACTION


Episode Stats

Length

7 minutes

Words per Minute

156.58485

Word Count

1,208

Sentence Count

100

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary


Transcript

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00:00:30.200 The United States has launched a major attack on Iran.
00:00:34.620 This targeting not just some periphery sites,
00:00:38.040 but the very center of government.
00:00:40.440 The explicit goal of the strike is regime change in Iran,
00:00:45.160 not merely the setting back of a nuclear program
00:00:48.600 or other weapons programs.
00:00:50.260 This is the real deal.
00:00:52.180 No one is particularly surprised by this,
00:00:54.840 especially after the strike on Venezuela,
00:00:57.060 because in the lead-up to Venezuela,
00:01:00.180 you saw this huge, gradual buildup of military assets in the region.
00:01:04.200 You saw the extension from the White House
00:01:06.300 of all sorts of diplomatic olive branches.
00:01:09.320 Maduro refused the olive branches.
00:01:11.620 Then the U.S. went in and took him out.
00:01:13.580 So you saw the same thing building up here.
00:01:15.120 A few weeks ago, people were waiting for the United States
00:01:17.440 to launch a strike on Iran.
00:01:18.640 But I remember I was on with Hugh Hewitt,
00:01:20.620 and we agreed, no, probably we were seeing the same playbook play out,
00:01:25.260 which is there was going to be this buildup of military assets.
00:01:28.120 There were going to be more diplomatic olive branches.
00:01:30.240 And then when that was not going to work,
00:01:32.920 Trump was going to strike.
00:01:34.500 Here is the political issue for the White House.
00:01:37.320 Iran is not Venezuela.
00:01:41.140 Iran is not Venezuela.
00:01:43.320 Iran is not Afghanistan.
00:01:46.240 Iran is not Iraq,
00:01:47.780 though there are way more parallels with Iraq.
00:01:51.640 Iran is a real country with a real solid regime.
00:01:56.160 And so changing out that regime
00:01:59.060 is going to be a little bit more difficult.
00:02:02.040 Obviously, there are a lot of people who are elated by the strike on Iran.
00:02:06.480 Iran, notably the Iranian-Americans
00:02:09.080 whose families fled from Iran after the revolution in 1979,
00:02:14.160 but also plenty of the Iranian people
00:02:16.500 who have been waiting for some kind of regime change.
00:02:20.800 And the only way that regime change was going to come about
00:02:22.860 was very likely with regional strikes from Israel
00:02:26.440 and ultimately with strikes from the global empire,
00:02:29.560 which is the United States.
00:02:31.520 So what does it all mean?
00:02:35.440 We have intervened in Iran before.
00:02:38.160 We've intervened in Iran a number of times.
00:02:39.860 The clearest example would be 1953
00:02:42.000 when the CIA and MI6 out of the UK
00:02:44.960 helped lead a coup
00:02:46.660 that threw out Mossadegh the Socialist
00:02:49.100 and consolidated the power of the Shah of Iran.
00:02:52.760 Now it looks like the Shah's son,
00:02:54.440 the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi,
00:02:56.080 is going to try to unify the Iranian people
00:02:58.220 and bring some political stability to Iran
00:03:01.680 if the regime is actually displaced.
00:03:04.520 However, all of that remains a little bit dubious
00:03:08.160 because let's not forget,
00:03:09.240 after the CIA coup in 1953,
00:03:11.680 the Islamic Revolution happened in 1979.
00:03:14.220 So the pro-Western U.S.-backed regime
00:03:17.760 only lasted for about 26 years.
00:03:20.100 The mullahs, the ayatollah, the Islamic regime,
00:03:23.220 has now lasted almost double that.
00:03:25.460 So I'm a little skeptical of regime change in Iran.
00:03:32.460 The reason that this strike was launched now
00:03:35.140 was the opportunity.
00:03:38.320 And this creates a little bit of a problem
00:03:41.620 for the argument for war
00:03:43.320 because we were told, what, just weeks ago
00:03:47.420 that the United States had totally wiped out
00:03:50.640 Iran's nuclear program,
00:03:52.800 just obliterated it in the strikes on Fordow
00:03:55.040 and the other nuclear sites.
00:03:56.660 So if the argument for war right now
00:03:59.200 is that Iran was on the brink of a nuclear weapon,
00:04:01.880 it creates a little tension
00:04:03.520 with the arguments we were making about Fordow
00:04:05.400 just weeks ago.
00:04:06.280 Really, I think, the reason the U.S. struck now
00:04:09.340 is we had the opportunity.
00:04:11.400 Iran is weak economically.
00:04:12.920 The regime is weak in terms of popular support.
00:04:15.040 The regime in Iran just slaughtered
00:04:17.240 tens of thousands of people
00:04:18.480 and is extremely unpopular.
00:04:20.460 So this was the opportunity to do it.
00:04:21.960 President Trump laid that out.
00:04:22.920 He said that if the Iranian people want their freedom,
00:04:27.280 this is their last chance probably for generations.
00:04:29.900 So, where does this leave President Trump?
00:04:34.060 A lot of people care a lot more
00:04:35.280 about the Trump administration in the United States
00:04:37.100 than they do about anything happening in Iran.
00:04:38.920 What's amazing is, with this strike,
00:04:43.460 President Trump has put himself
00:04:45.820 in a very similar position to George Bush in Iraq.
00:04:49.440 It was the same justification for going to war.
00:04:52.420 Same justification was weapons of mass destruction
00:04:54.780 that pose an imminent threat to America.
00:04:56.520 America, and it was backed up
00:04:59.360 by the same ideological justification,
00:05:01.480 which is that the people want freedom.
00:05:04.040 So, what's so amazing is,
00:05:06.140 President Trump launched
00:05:07.380 his political presidential career in 2015,
00:05:11.900 in many ways running against the Bushes
00:05:13.960 and against the stupid wars
00:05:14.980 and against all of that.
00:05:15.640 Now, President Trump is putting himself
00:05:21.080 in a similar position to Bush.
00:05:23.780 However, I guess his argument is,
00:05:26.640 we're going to do it well.
00:05:28.760 So, initially it was,
00:05:30.240 Bush had the wrong idea.
00:05:32.240 Now the argument would be,
00:05:33.940 Bush might have had the right idea,
00:05:35.420 but he did it poorly.
00:05:36.520 And the one thing I've got to say
00:05:37.780 with Trump on foreign policy is,
00:05:39.480 don't bet against Trump on foreign policy.
00:05:42.260 He has the best record on foreign policy
00:05:44.400 of any president in my lifetime,
00:05:45.600 including George H.W. Bush.
00:05:47.080 But this is a much higher risk.
00:05:49.460 Because by putting himself
00:05:50.620 in the same position as George W. Bush,
00:05:52.540 President Trump will either
00:05:54.520 wind up with the legacy
00:05:56.720 that George W. Bush had,
00:05:57.900 which is to say,
00:05:58.600 not a great one,
00:05:59.480 in his own party or in the other party.
00:06:01.920 Or, President Trump could correct
00:06:04.020 the errors of a quarter century ago.
00:06:06.420 President Trump could reinvigorate
00:06:08.660 a muscular U.S. foreign policy
00:06:10.420 that corrects the entire Bush era.
00:06:12.560 All of which is to say,
00:06:13.980 the stakes are very, very, very high.
00:06:17.340 This is not just dropping the Moab.
00:06:18.740 This is not just taking out
00:06:19.720 a dictator in Latin America.
00:06:21.420 The stakes are as high as can be
00:06:23.680 for foreign policy.
00:06:25.240 This is going to be a longer operation.
00:06:27.760 There's going to be a lot more
00:06:28.740 negative images already.
00:06:30.180 There's the school that was struck in Iran,
00:06:32.120 death toll reportedly around 53.
00:06:34.820 The stakes are much, much higher.
00:06:36.740 President Trump is taking a risk
00:06:38.680 with his entire foreign policy
00:06:41.660 and potentially his entire
00:06:43.080 presidential legacy.
00:06:45.080 More on that when I'm back
00:06:46.940 in the studio on Monday.
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