Reason Roundup

Arm the Resistance?

Plus: Yes, it's a war; nuclear options; Texas' primary election; Bad Bunny's big show, and more...

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Iraqi Shiites shout slogans as they carry a portrait of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and wave Iranian flags during a protest near the US embassy in Baghdad against recent US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Bagdad, Iraq. 28 February 2026. | Ameer Al-Mohammedawi/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom
Iraqi Shiites shout slogans as they carry a portrait of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and wave Iranian flags during a protest near the US embassy in Baghdad against recent US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Bagdad, Iraq. 28 February 2026. (Ameer Al-Mohammedawi/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom)

Rebel fighters: Even before the strikes started, one of the biggest questions about the war in Iran has been: What's the endgame? 

The Trump administration has suggested a number of possibilities: Degrading and destroying Iran's military capacity; eliminating its nuclear program; regime change and freedom for Iranians; new leadership, perhaps from the old regime, that is more friendly to American power. 

Well, any plans for elevating new leadership from the old regime seem to have fallen apart because the options that had been considered have all been killed. After an Israeli strike, aided by CIA intelligence, killed Ayatollah Khamenei over the weekend, leaving a leadership vacuum, a council of Iranian clerics convened yesterday to appoint a new leader. That council meeting was also reportedly bombed. A public viewing of Khamenei's body has reportedly been delayed.

Khamenei's son is a possible successor, according to The New York Times. The Times quotes a Johns Hopkins professor on what the son's rise would mean: "If he is elected, it suggests it is a much more hard-line Revolutionary Guard side of the regime that is now in charge."

Trump himself admitted yesterday that one possible scenario is that regime change could bring in a new leader "as bad as the previous person….That could happen." Yes, that could indeed happen, which is why it's usually a good idea to think about that sort of thing before you start a war. 

In any case, Trump is now apparently mulling aiding the Iranian resistance. The CIA has been working to arm Kurdish resistance fighters, reports CNN. Officially, the White House is being coy about this. "President Trump has spoken with many regional partners," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. 

Trump has already spoken with Kurdish resistance leaders, The Wall Street Journal reports. Iran, meanwhile, is already attacking Kurdish bases in Iraq. Trump has yet to make a final decision about whether to "provide arms, training or intelligence support to antiregime groups." 

Again, these are things that probably should have been considered prior to starting a war. 

Yes, it's a war. President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have both used the word war to describe America's multiday strikes against Iran. And there are signs that it's a war that is escalating. Turkey said this morning that it downed an Iranian missile heading toward Turkish airspace. Turkey is a NATO ally. This conflict could expand, quickly. 

But the official White House position is that it's not actually a war. It's just "major combat operations." 

Well, that changes everything. 

These annoying semantic games just make Republican officials who support the strikes look even more confused.

What are we even doing here? No one in the administration's orbit seems to be able to answer that question with any sort of consistency or coherence. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spent part of yesterday disputing the implications of his own statements about the proximate cause for the start of the war.  Sen. Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) says Iran has been an imminent threat for 47 years. That…is not how the word imminent works. 

But. If these are major combat operations, then a reasonable follow-up question is: How major? 

Trump has suggested that operations could last four to five weeks. But it's early, and wars rarely go according to plan. And as I noted yesterday, Trump also said in a social media post that the war could, in theory, be fought "forever." Forever is not an exit plan. 

And both Republicans and Democrats in Congress see signs of a prolonged conflict. After a briefing yesterday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) said the conflict  appeared "quite large" and "sounded very open ended to me." This was no small thing. "What I took away is, it's rapidly evolving…the aims are very ambitious," Hawley said. 

We are less than a week into this conflict. But when Trump is using the word forever and a Republican senator is saying that things sound "very open ended," you have to wonder: Is this the "endless war" Trump warned us about?  

On the Democratic side, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said: "I'm more convinced now that this is going to be open ended and forever." And he acknowledged the war's obvious endgame problems: "They clearly seem fine with hard line elements being in control of the country because they plan to permanently run air operations…over the country in order to chase their missile making capability, drone making capability and nuclear capabilities." Endgames shouldn't just be for Marvel movies. 

Speaking of nukes: The current odds that a nuclear weapon detonates before June 30 are running at 17 percent on Polymarket.

Where's Christopher Reeve–era Superman when you need him?  

Scenes from Washington, D.C.: If you want to understand what Washington, D.C., is like, consider that one of the city's bar trivia programs just got purchased by a national organization—and local trivia geeks are apparently quite mad.

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