Padraig Martin (@PadraigMartin)

Why We Lost in Iran- Part One: Misunderstanding the American Zeitgeist It is abundantly clear to anyone paying attention that the United States lost the Iran (non) War. Even if you would like to call it some kind of draw – whereby the US destroyed significant portions of Iran while Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz – the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) makes it clear that we are breaking off hostilities and offering significant commercial concessions to Tehran. The Israelis and neoconservatives understandably hate the deal. Many Dispensationalist religious leaders seem genuinely confused as to why Trump has abandoned a “Godly obligation.” Some outwardly stated that God saved Trump for exactly this moment – crush an enemy of Israel – and now it seems Trump has given up. Regardless, the US is now leaving the war in such a way that the Iranians have established regional hegemony over the most critical waterway in the world. How did this happen? I hope to explain this in a few parts: the American Zeitgeist, the Iranian Cultural and Political Framework, The Economic Landscape, and The Reality of Logistics. Let’s begin with the United States, itself. To begin, I am happy we are leaving while we can. The war will have long term consequences on the United States that will be felt for decades. The most impactful will be felt in the political landscape. For the first time since 1980, when younger Baby Boomer males bucked the leftist trend of their own generation to support Ronald Reagan, young males – especially younger Millennials and older GenZers – bucked the leftist trends of their own age cohorts and voted overwhelmingly for Trump. They needed Trump to get back to the economic prosperity that had been unfairly denied them during the Biden years due to DEI and other racially and gender-based discrimination. The 1980 “Boomer Bet” worked for millions of Americans, and Reagan ushered in a decade of American prestige and wealth. (I will get into the failures of Reagan in a moment.) Trump was supposed to do the same. Instead, the war – that he promised not to do – led to higher inflation driven by higher fuel costs, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) boon that threatens the long-term economic opportunities of young Americans, and Trump still has not addressed the systemic, anti-White hostility in corporate hiring. These young men now feel betrayed. They are not like Boomers. They do not see the political landscape through an “either-or” lens. They demand results and will not reward betrayal on the basis of a “lesser of two evils” type political choice. Rather, they simply will not trust the system and stop voting altogether. No one thinks that a 28-year-old White male conservative will vote Democrat in November. They simply will not vote at all – no matter how mad you get at them – and they will not trust the next Republican candidate that makes Trumpesque populist promises. That is devastating for a United States on the ropes. For all of his faults (illegal immigration by far the biggest), Ronald Reagan and his team intrinsically knew that the post-Vietnam United States was in no shape to take on the Soviet Union. They did not start training for the next big world war by heading into a major regional conflagration – of which there were many between 1981 – 1989. Instead, the Reagan team hyper focused on reinvigorating American pride and militancy through an eight-year propaganda campaign. Generation X was not raised on anti-war M*A*S*H (even though their parents watched the show every week). GenX was raised on Top Gun, Iron Eagle, Heartbreak Ridge, Rambo, Commando, and a slew of other movies or television programs that hyped militancy. If you were younger, you watched G.I. Joe cartoons. Schools emphasized physical fitness, led by Arnold Schwartneggar. Music was not focused on pollical messages; it was primarily male-female sexual relations and partying. By the time GenX left the 1980s, the United States had militarily engaged small patsies around the world – Grenada, Panama, Libya - much like a boxer getting back in shape. In effect, GenX – the fighting age cohort of the 1990s – exited the 1980s designed to fight and have sex. George H. Bush inherited a generation of American teenagers who were groomed for combat. To put this in perspective, military studies after the Gulf War showed that only 10% of American soldiers during World War II were willing to use their guns in anger. By the 1960s, that number climbed to approximately 40%. By 1990, that number was near 95%. One Council of Foreign Relations article that stays with me indicated that Combat Arms enlisted personnel told surveyors in 1989 that the number one reason they joined the military was to “kill America’s enemies.” Correspondingly, the First Persian Gulf War ended in less than four days. Whereas there are many reasons why the First Gulf War ended so quickly, including air superiority and a limited military-political objective, there were other factors, as well. Most forget that Iraq held the fourth largest military at that time. It had recently experienced a bloody eight-year war with Iran. While many Iraqis were hastily conscripted recruits, many more of their leadership had legitimate combat experience. Iraq was no Grenada – which is likely the reason we did not go into Baghdad in 1991. Still, a fired-up GenX would provide a fifteen-year supply of military options for George H. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, to include operations in Somalia, Bosnia, Serbia, the early (largely successful) years of Afghan operations, and the opening of the 2003 Iraq War – among others. All of that said, twenty years of wasting that zeal on ill conceived nation building began to unravel a sense of American invincibility. As the wars were handed off from GenX senior enlisted to Millennials, the men who were fighting still fought well. But the pool began to shrink. Many older Americans disparage Millennials unfairly. They forget that this generation was volunteering to go directly into war. It was not a possibility, like it had been for GenX in 1988 or 1995. Both the Iraq and Afghan operations were ongoing as Millennials graduated high school and entered the Marines or the Army. Those same Millennials would fight in sustained firefights and battles that lasted longer than the entire First Gulf War. In Vietnam, the average firefight was approximately thirty seconds. In Afghanistan, the average firefight was approximately three hours. Still, a steady diet of propaganda had changed a broader Millennial perspective. Millennials were not raised on G.I. Joe or Rambo movies. They were raised on Teletubbies, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Harry Potter, and a surge in pro-LGBT propaganda. An “effeminization” program was clearly visible to many casual observers. George W. Bush wasted American militancy and patriotism. Barack Obama intentionally destroyed it. The average Millennial was not fighting in Kirkuk or out of FOB Salerno. They were at home watching effeminate nerds on The Big Bang Theory try to pick up women, making money in that which would become a real estate Ponzi scheme, or going to college to study imposed classes on deconstructing gender norms. In other words, Millennials became everything GenX was not. Enter GenZ. GenerationZ is deeply divided. They have some of the hardest right and hardest leftist elements in one demographic. Unlike Boomers, GenX, or older Millennials, the GenZ population is not getting its news from television. They are following alternative news sources on a myriad of platforms. Additionally, their parents, predominantly GenXers, feral latchkey kids in the 1980s, have imposed a sense of deep independence into GenZ. In other words, GenZ is neither leftist in the sense of Kumbaya Hippy Commune types or rightwing in the Ronald Reagan mold. Leftist GenZers are likely to gravitate to communism because they feel the current system sucks and it needs to be upended. Rightwing GenZers are likely to gravitate toward repackaged fascism because they also feel the current system sucks and it needs to be upended. Neither ideological wing was exposed to anti-communist propaganda like Cold War Boomers or GenXers. Even while exposed to heavy doses of socialism and cultural Marxist grooming, GenZ has always had either more conservative GenXers, someone on the internet, or in the social media sphere telling them, “Hey kid, they’re lying to you.” This is hard for many older generations to really understand because they simply were not raised this way. Television and newspapers were the dominant mediums of information for the Baby Boomers and a healthy portion of GenX. Millennials were raised as the internet was coming into its own and during the early years of social media. GenZ knows nothing but smart phones and the ability to question narratives with various searches. This is something that Donald Trump is simply incapable of understanding. In 2024, Trump famously went on the Joe Rogan show. It was a great episode. I personally believe he nailed it home on that show. But what is interesting is that Trump was not originally interested in doing podcasts. It was his GenZer son, Baron, who talked Trump into doing Rogan and Theo Von. According to himself, Trump really did not understand the appeal of podcasts or how popular they had become. To put this in perspective, Fox News has approximately 2 – 3 million viewers a night. Tucker Carlson (a major supporter of Trump until the Iran War)- a man famously fired by Fox News - gets an average of 40 million listeners per episode. When Trump decided to attack Carlson over his lack of support for the war, he still could not understand just how powerful Carlson and his type of media platform had become. GenZ is not watching Sean Hannity or Jesse Watters. They may be listening to Carlson, Sean Ryan, Tim Dillon, Theo Von, and/or Rogan. They are also listening to Nick Fuentes. What Ronald Reagan understood that Donald Trump and his advisors do not understand is that you need to get a generation on-board. Donald Trump had them, but he wasted it. Rather than building a GenZ empire that would have laid the foundation for GenAlpha, much like Reagan did with Boomers and GenXers respectively, he wasted a golden opportunity. He chose to placate the generation he understands the best – his own. That decision devastated the very rightwing populist coalition Trump had built. How this ties into the Iran War’s failure is simple: there was never the kind of political support or militant willingness to fight Iran except from those who were never going to fight the war (voters over 60 years old). Alternative media completely changed the landscape for information on the war and the Trump team never understood how to get ahead of it or direct the narrative. It was not “disinformation.” It was real time information coming in the form of a multitude of sites that GenZ – the most technically savvy demographic – was able to digest and easily disseminate. Correspondingly, GenZ, the age cohort that would be asked to fight Iran, was looking for the big payoff. There was none. Rather, because many of them are young and just entering the workforce, they immediately felt the worst elements of the economic impact of the war itself. You cannot build a military without having either (A) a generation willing to fight or (B) a draft – which no one really wants to do (except voters over 60, where the idea is most popular). If Trump really wanted to neutralize the Iran threat (I personally disagree there was one), he should have used these four years to build GenZ up and lay the groundwork for the next Republican President. His legacy would have likely continued with Vance, had Trump delivered on his economic promises – which his first term showed he was able to achieve. Going back to the GenX comparison, it is important to remember that the successful First Gulf War was not led by Reagan, it was led by his successor, George H. Bush. GenXers did not directly benefit from the Reagan economy; Baby Boomers did. But Reagan understood the media landscape of the 1980s and exploited it to give three future presidents a generation that became willing killers – Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. Trump should have done the same. He didn’t. Wednesday I will cover Misunderstanding Iran.