After launching a major military operation with Israel against Iran last night, President Donald Trump declared that the objective of Operation Epic Fury “is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.”
The President claimed Iran is rebuilding its nuclear program and developing long range missiles that “could soon reach the American homeland.”
[Note: While condemning the Iranian regime, The New York Times reports that Trump’s claims are “either false or unproven.”]
President Donald J. Trump on the United States military combat operations in Iran: pic.twitter.com/LimJmpLkgZ
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 28, 2026
Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul responded to the President’s video on social media: “What ‘imminent threat’ to the American people compelled this US attack tonight? Please post facts. I have an open mind. Maybe there are recent developments that I haven’t been tracking. But I’m interested in facts, not opinions.”
Mark Dubowski, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), replied to McFaul: “Recent satellite imagery shows construction underway at PixAxe Mountain where Iran is constructing a nuclear facility that goes deeper underground than Fordow, and reconstruction at SPND and at the Taleghan 2 facility inside the Parchin military complex where Tehran conducted weaponization activities.”
Note: Fordow was one of the three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran that the U.S. attacked in June 2025 in “Operation Midnight Hammer,” which Trump called “a spectacular military success.” After that attack Trump said, “Iran’s key enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”
U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who has clashed with the Trump administration over its bombing of boats in the Caribbean without following international law protocol, affording due process, and without seeking congressional approval, objected to Trump’s Iran attack also. Paul didn’t argue the specifics of Iran’s nuclear weaponry, but instead implied the attack, undertaken without congressional approval, was unconstitutional.
Paul emphasized his own duty as a lawmaker who has taken an oath to defend the Constitution.
As yet another preemptive war is begun in the Middle East, John Quincy Adam’s words of wisdom still ring true:
“Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.”
Like most Americans I…
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) February 28, 2026
Paul quoted President John Quincy Adams (a former Secretary of State) in his response criticizing “yet another preemptive war” in the Middle East.
Paul wrote: “Like most Americans I have sympathy for the plight of the Iranian people and all subjected people around the globe, from North Korea to Tibet. But as Adams wrote, America: ‘goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.’”
Note: Adams spoke those words in 1821 as a response to pressures for the U.S. to intervene in foreign revolutions, particularly the Greek War of Independence. According to the John Quincy Adams Society, “He believed foreign meddling would force the U.S. into ‘wars of interest and intrigue’ and destroy its own spirit.”
Paul added: “As with all war, my first and purest instinct is wish Americans soldiers safety and success in their mission. But my oath of office is to the Constitution, so with studied care, I must oppose another Presidential war.”