by Jacob G. Hornberger

March 10, 2026

Yes, I know that as an American citizen I’m expected to make Iran my enemy, given that after decades of brutal and deadly U.S. sanctions, the U.S. government has now launched a war of aggression on Iran. But that doesn’t make one whit of difference to me. Iran is still not my enemy, especially since the U.S. (and Israeli) war is immoral, illegal, and unconstitutional.

My enemy continues to be the U.S. government, specifically the U.S. national-security state and its deadly and destructive policy of foreign interventionism, which are responsible for bringing about this deadly, destructive, immoral, illegal, and unconstitutional war.

I remind myself of what one of my heroes, Muhammad Ali, stated when the Pentagon tried to seize him and train him to kill or die in the national-security state’s intervention into Vietnam’s civil war. He said, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me [the n-word].”

His statement, needless to say, was considered heresy by those who had come to view the national-security state (i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA) as their god. It would have been considered bad enough if a white man had said that. He would have been blasted for being disloyal and unpatriotic, accused of hating America, and accused of loving the Reds. The fact that it was a black man publicly making such a heretical statement made it significantly worse. Blacks were expected to be silent, supportive, and obedient. Moreover, blacks were expected to simply ignore the fact that the “freedom” they were expected to kill and die for in Vietnam was the “freedom” to live in a segregated society here at home. While U.S. officials saw no problem with that situation, lots of blacks, including Ali, certainly did.

Well, to paraphrase Mohammad Ali, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Iranians. No Iranian has ever destroyed my freedom. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the U.S. government. It has, in fact, destroyed my freedom, including through the national-security state and its policy of foreign interventionism (not to mention the drug war, the immigration police state, the socialism of the welfare state, and others).

Throughout all the hoopla surrounding these foreign interventions, when statists go through their periodic paroxysms of joy and glee over invasions, occupations, killings, torture, death, and destruction — and, in the process, rally ’round the flag in loyalty and patriotism — I maintain my focus on my enemy.

You see, when the U.S. national-security state succeeds in getting Americans to focus on the glorious military battles in Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, or other places around the world, it knows that people will avoid focusing on what their government is doing to further the destruction of liberty here at home, including, in fact, through its policy of foreign interventions. That’s exactly the way they want it.

Consider the U.S. (and Israeli) conquest of Iran, a decrepit, Third World country that has been hollowed out by decades of brutal U.S. economic sanctions. The conquest has already killed a very large number of Iranian people, including more than 150 little girls. That necessarily means that an entirely new group of people have now come to hate the United States, which in turn necessarily means the threat of more terrorist retaliation against Americans, which, if it materializes, will be said to prove that Iranians hate America for its “freedom and values” (like what we were told after the 9/11 attacks).

So, when we libertarians propose the abolition of the USA PATRIOT Act, or the fascist-sounding Homeland Security, or the TSA and its groin pat-downs of people at the airports, and the entire “war on terrorism,” what is the response of U.S. officials and their statist supporters? “Oh, no, Jacob, we can’t do that. We need them to protect us and keep us safe from the terrorists who are coming to get us in retaliation for what we did to their families in Iran.”

During the U.S. war on Afghanistan, when American statists were celebrating the killing, death, and destruction every day for some 20 years, I was pointing out that that war was the greatest terrorist-producing machine in history. Every day when they would kill more Afghans, there were family members and friends who were being converted into potential terrorists. It was one fantastic racket to keep the national-security state in existence and, even better, enable it to reap ever-increasing budgets — all with the ostensible aim of keeping us safe from the terrorist threats it was producing.

Consider the federal government’s debt, which is now approaching $39 trillion. Who’s paying attention to it? Certainly nobody within the statist community cares about that problem anymore. They’re too preoccupied with focusing on the grandiose military conquest of Iran and the massive death toll being inflicted on the Iranian people. So what if the conquest costs billions of more dollars — why should we care? Anyway, doesn’t it mean more jobs and prosperity for the “defense” industry? What matters is that “we” are easily winning the illegal and unconstitutional immoral, deadly, and destructive war that “we” launched against a weak, impoverished Third World country.

One of the justifications cited for launching this war of aggression against Iran is that the Iranian regime is evil. That’s might well be true. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the conquerer is good. It’s entirely possible to have evil fighting evil. Don’t forget, for example, that Nazi Germany fought the Soviet Union in World War II.

As I am pointing out in my video series “The Evil Within,” there are evil systems that have attached themselves to the U.S. governmental structure that are taking our country down from within. Two of the three systems on which I have already focused are the national-security state and its policy of foreign intervention. Thus, in the case of Iran, we have evil fighting evil. Unfortunately, many Americans, including those who go to church every Sunday, are still unable to see this. They are able to easily see the specks in the eyes of foreign regimes but remain blind to the logs in their own regime. Thus, they continue to support evil here at home under the guise of opposing evil over there.