by Jacob G. Hornberger

April 24, 2026

As everyone can see, President Trump has acquired a tar baby with his illegal and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran. He desperately wants out of his war so that he can move onto other things, especially with the mid-terms looming ahead. But he can’t. The tar won’t let him. The tar baby, which now includes his own complete blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, has him trapped for the indefinite future.

In the meantime, statist supporters of Trump’s war are coming up with all sorts of statist plans for how Trump can extricate himself from this tar baby. When it comes to statist fiascoes, statists always have their plans for making statist programs succeed. The common mindset among frustrated pro-war supporters, who were convinced that Iran would “unconditionally surrender” after its massive military defeat, is perfectly reflected by columnist Marc A. Thiessen, whose plan calls for a continuation of the U.S. blockade, additional bombing, including the bombing of Iran’s oil industry, and, after issuing yet another ultimatum, kill more of Iran’s leadership. For his part, Trump appears to love Thiessen’s plan, given that he reposted it on his Truth Social website, calling it “Very true.”

I’ve got my own plan for resolving Trump’s war on Iran — a libertarian plan, one that I contend is the only real solution to all this death, destruction, and mayhem — one that would move America permanently in a different direction — away from empire, invasions, wars of aggression, coups, foreign aid, bombings, assassinations, torture, indefinite detention, alliances with brutal regimes, and foreign interventions — and toward a society based on our founding system of a limited-government republic and a society of liberty, peace, prosperity, and harmony.

The following is my libertarian plan for resolving the U.S. war on Iran:

1. Immediately lift all embargoes, sanctions, tariffs, and blockades against Iran — and against everyone else in the world.

2. Immediately withdraw all U.S. troops from the Middle East and the rest of the world, bring them home, and discharge them into the private sector.

3. Immediately withdraw from the old Cold War dinosaur known as NATO, as well as from all other alliances with foreign regimes.

4. Most important, dismantle the national-security state form of governmental structure that was imposed on the American people after World War II as part of the old Cold War racket (“The Russians/Reds are coming to get us!”). America’s national-security state is at the root of all of the forever wars, crises, and interventions that have come to besiege our nation. Restore our founding governmental system of a limited-government republic, which would include just a small, basic military force.

5. Use constitutional amendments to permanently end all foreign interventionism, invasions, wars of aggression, coups, alliances with foreign regimes, foreign aid, undeclared wars, state-sponsored assassinations, torture, indefinite detention, and other dark-side, totalitarian-like powers and measures that have come to characterize the U.S. government.

Of course, Americans can continue to focus their entire attention on how to resolve Trump’s tar baby in Iran. But we all know that even if Trump succeeds in extricating himself from his tar baby, the national-security establishment has more wars, coups, official enemies, invasions, wars of aggression, crises, and the like in its hopper. The crises, wars, official enemies, and fear-mongering just never end. Just look at how seamlessly the national-security state has taken America from the interventions in World War I and World War II, to the old Cold War racket, including the deadly and destructive Korean and Vietnam wars, to the Gulf War, to the war on terrorism, to the war on Afghanistan, to the war on Iraq, to the proxy Ukraine-Russia war, to the war on drugs, to the war on immigrants, to the war on Venezuela, and to the war on Iran. As long as the American people permit their government to continue being a national-security state, instead of a limited-government republic, there will be a never-ending stream of official enemies, opponents, adversaries, and competitors as well as perpetual crises and chaos to justify ever-increasing military budgets and out-of-control federal spending and debt.

The choice facing the American people is clear-cut: Do Americans wish to continue traveling down the same statist road we’ve been traveling all of our lives — the road to perpetual war for perpetual peace, along with the destruction of our own liberty and economic well-being? Or are Americans ready to lift their vision to a higher level and restore America to the road that leads to permanent liberty, peace, prosperity, and harmony?