“Let’s think about the Iran war in the light of Donald Trump’s career to date,” writes New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. (Shannon Lin/The New York Times) By ROSS DOUTHAT Let’s think about the Iran war in the light of Donald Trump’s career to date. What has made him so historically significant, so effective as a politician in spite of all his sins and faults, so enduring and dominant in the American political landscape? One thing especially: an incredible instinct for the

A man holds a portrait of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as people mourn his killing at a rally in Tehran, Iran, on Sunday, March 1, 2026, a day after he was killed in coordinated U.S. and Israeli airstrikes. (Arash Khamooshi/The New York Times) By BRET STEPHENS President Donald Trump is being criticized from many quarters for his decision to join Israel in a war to topple the Iranian regime, which Saturday yielded the killing of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Al

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, arrives to vote in an election in Tehran, March 1, 2024. Khamenei, who in more than three decades as Iran’s supreme leader turned the Islamic Republic into a regional power, brutally crushing dissent at home, and maintaining unswerving hostility to the United States and Israel, died on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026, after U.S. and Israeli military strikes on his country. He was 86. (Arash Khamooshi/The New York Times) By THE EDITORIAL

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in Morristown, N.J., on Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025. In his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump promised voters that he would end wars, not start them. Over the past year, he has instead ordered military strikes in seven nations. (Eric Lee/The New York Times) By THE EDITORIAL BOARD In his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised voters that he would end wars, not start them. Over the past year, he has instead ordered military strik

A banner image of President Donald Trump hangs at the Department of Labor’s offices in Washington on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. (Aleksey Kondratyev/The New York Times) By JAMELLE BOUIE For President Donald Trump and his allies, the 2024 election was less a vote for a new administration than it was an enabling act for a new sovereign. The public had done more than give Trump the White House the way it might bless any candidate with presidential power. In their view, the vote was

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD The Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission were designed to be independent stewards of the public interest — guardians against monopolies, fraud and the misuse of public airwaves. Congress created the agencies in the first half of the 20th century, and they are led by commissioners serving fixed terms to insulate them from the political whims of the White House. The Trump administration has ruined that independence. President

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF As the world follows the drip-drip of sensational revelations about Jeffrey Epstein, here’s a number to ponder: Last year the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children received more than 113,000 reports of child sex trafficking. Yiota Souras, the center’s chief legal officer, says that while no one knows the actual number of children trafficked annually in the United States alone, “the real number is absolutely higher” than that. Most of the victims

People walk past a domestically built missile “Khaibarbuster,” and banners showing portraits of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center, and the late armed forces commanders, at Baharestan Square in Tehran, Iran, Oct. 1, 2025. (Arash Khamooshi/The New York Times) By BRET STEPHENS President Donald Trump appears poised to order strikes on Iran — indeed, by the time you read this column, he may already have done so — while barely bothering to spell out his reas

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he departs the White House in Washington, Feb. 13, 2026. (Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times) By MICHELLE GOLDBERG I never imagined I’d miss being lied to by George W. Bush and his henchmen. When the Bush administration wanted to go to war with Iraq, it undertook a full-court press to propagandize the American people. Administration officials leaked false information about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, which turne

Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times) By JAMELLE BOUIE Americans of the revolutionary generation did not think of themselves as direct heirs to Western civilization, a term that wouldn’t come into vogue until the 20th century. If anything, they saw their new nation as a break with the European past — a new civilization rooted in popular sovereignt