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Will Trump Pull the Trigger // Ron Paul
Will Trump Pull the Trigger? A Closer Look at the Danger of Escalation
In a recent episode of the Liberty Report, Daniel McAdams and Chris Rossini delivered a sobering breakdown of the current push toward U.S. military escalation in the Middle East, with former President Donald Trump at the potential helm. Their central question: Will Trump “pull the trigger” on a military strike—especially one on Iran—that could ignite a far-reaching and catastrophic war?
It’s not just a rhetorical question.
Over the past week, tensions have escalated dramatically following Israel’s surprise attack on Iran. Despite Trump’s erratic posts on Truth Social calling for “unconditional surrender” from Tehran, Iran—rightfully framed by McAdams as the victim of the initial aggression—is not expected to bend the knee. And neither should it.
Israel now finds itself in the very quagmire it helped create. The same hubris that has plagued U.S. neocon adventures—thinking regime change is quick, clean, and surgical—is now being repeated by a much smaller nation going toe-to-toe with a regional power of 90 million people with its own advanced arms industry. Unlike Israel, which depends heavily on U.S. weapons systems, Iran manufactures many of its own and has an expansive military infrastructure.
That leaves Israel in a precarious situation—and their answer, as always, is to beg for more American firepower.
The danger, as McAdams and Rossini warn, is that Trump could cave to this pressure. He hasn’t launched an attack yet, but he has left the door dangerously open. His “I may do it, I may not do it, nobody knows what I’ll do” posturing is a parody of constitutional process. War decisions aren’t supposed to be dictated by cryptic tweets or Truth Social tirades—they’re supposed to be authorized by Congress. But as Rossini notes, Congress won’t stop it. They’ll cheer it on, then distance themselves from the consequences.
The illusion of a “targeted airstrike”—sold to the public as a clean and limited action—is, in fact, the bait in the trap. McAdams reminds us: Pearl Harbor was a “targeted airstrike.” One that pulled America into World War II. If Trump authorizes a strike, Iran will retaliate, most likely hitting American troops stationed across the region. Thousands could die. The headlines will frame it as an Iranian attack on Americans—burying the fact that the U.S. struck first.
This isn’t just reckless—it’s deliberate.
Even among Trump’s supporters, the propaganda fog is thick. Figures like Charlie Kirk perform the anti-war dance, saying “keep the pressure on” while advocating for a strike that could lead to massive loss of life. It’s a false dialectic—pretending there’s a middle ground between all-out war and non-intervention, when in reality, the “middle” is still war.
Adding gasoline to the fire is the disturbing theology undergirding some of these decisions. The invocation of divine commands—from Bush’s “God told me to attack Iraq” to Mike Huckabee’s urging Trump to “listen to God”—reveals a dangerous messianic mindset that mirrors the very theocracies the U.S. claims to oppose.
This hypocrisy is not lost on the American people.
Rossini and McAdams point to growing anti-war sentiment among young conservatives, particularly 18–25-year-old Republicans. They are sick of watching older generations glued to Fox News while sending others’ kids off to die. This is the spark of hope in an otherwise bleak political landscape. Shows like Judge Napolitano’s and platforms like Redacted are keeping that spark alive.
The real tragedy, however, is that Trump was elected as a corrective. A bulwark against the endless wars of Bush and Obama. Instead, he’s treading the same path—talking like a king, ignoring constitutional limits, and surrounding himself with sycophants who whisper war.
If he launches this war, it won’t be a surprise—it’ll be the final confirmation that American foreign policy is no longer about strategy or defense, but about obedience to the war machine and its overseas allies.
And the consequences won’t just be foreign. As Rossini warns, Trump is building surveillance infrastructure—like a “master database”—that will soon fall into the hands of the very people his base fears most. The post-9/11 Patriot Act déjà vu is all too real.
There is one thin silver lining: the American people—left, right, and independent—are tired of war. If enough voices say no, if enough people resist the trap, if even some in Trump’s orbit grow a spine, it might stop before the match is lit.
But time is running out.
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