Mass deception is a cornerstone of the state’s ability to maintain total control. One of the main methods used by government to convince the population of their legitimacy is the tool of propaganda. This is nothing new, and states throughout the world have engaged in this practice for all of human history. What is new, however, is the mass awakening that is occurring in this moment of imperial decay.
I believe this decay is the direct result of an expansionist foreign policy, which is focused on expanding the global empire rather than furthering the values of liberty at home. The systems established by our founders are no longer the guidelines by which our government operates, and they haven’t been for a very long time. Consider the fact that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, is yet to receive Congressional approval for his reckless war of choice against Iran, launched on February 28th, 2026.
Under Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, it is stated that the Congress is the body with the authority “To declare War.” However, the United States hasn’t officially declared war since World War 2. The U.S. President swears an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” This oath, which these Presidents take with their hand on the Bible, is routinely broken.
As a result of this lack of respect for the founding documents, we have seen the United States engage in countless wars over the past century. Arguably the most disastrous of these wars was the second Iraq War, launched in March of 2003 by the George W. Bush administration.
This war was sold through a series of lies, which states that Iraq’s head of state, Saddam Hussein, had acquired weapons of mass destruction, and was collaborating with the jihadist terrorist group Al-Qaeda to use these weapons against America. This was a particularly engaging narrative because just a little over a year and a half prior, on September 11th, 2001, Al-Qaeda had hit the United States with a series of terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.
This narrative would go on to be proven false over the subsequent years. Saddam did not have WMDs and he was not aligned with Al-Qaeda. This war was the result of a group of people known as the neoconservatives hijacking the foreign policy wing of the Bush administration and using it to accomplish goals which they had already been pushing for before 9/11. The terrorist attacks simply served as their pretext for war.
Through a mixture of fake intelligence, foreign influence, and outright lies, the U.S. was led into a war that was against our interests.
This conflict started a chain of events that has resulted in catastrophe for our nation. The U.S. has never left Iraq, and between 2003 and 2023 the war resulted in anywhere from 200,000-600,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, roughly 4,598 American troops killed, and countless more American veterans having taken their own lives in the aftermath due to mental struggles. We spent, borrowed, and printed trillions of dollars over the course of this conflict, which has resulted in inflation here at home.
Every war is sold through a narrative, usually one which paints a picture of good vs. evil, light vs. dark, or hero vs. villain. The U.S. government is usually described as a “liberator,” whose goal is to free the people of foreign nations from their oppressive regimes. This line was used not only in Iraq, but is even being used today to justify the war in Iran. Donald Trump repeatedly expressed a goal to “help” the Iranian people free themselves from their regime, as if the bombing of Iranian major cities was rooted in humanitarian impulses. How kind.
In reality, this is merely fiction. The truth has much more to do with global power, foreign influence, and the ideological drive towards big government, masked as principled conservatism.
This fraudulent lie about the motives of the U.S. government has been the basis for the expansion of the American empire. This story, organized in the style of a superhero movie, is one of the core pillars serving as a justification for so much of what the state is able to get away with. By casting themselves as the “good guy,” whose only goal is the expansion of global liberalism, they are able to get the American people on board with endless war, also known as state-sanctioned mass murder.
Take this current war in Iran as an example. This war was not a war of necessity, and that is patently obvious. Nobody is buying the narrative that Iran was plotting to develop a deliverable nuclear weapon for the purpose of bombing the United States. This not only wouldn’t be possible for close to a decade, according to the Defense Department’s own 2025 report, titled, “Golden Dome for America: Current and Future Missile Threats to the U.S. Homeland,” but it is also a statement devoid of any context that could help us come to a negotiated solution.
When you assess these types of situations in a vacuum, you are more likely to conclude that military action is all that can be done. However, when you look at the history of these tensions, you can better judge the grievances of both sides, and it becomes more possible for diplomacy to work.
John Mearsheimer and his “Realist” school of foreign policy thought tells us that understanding the motives of the enemy, and the grievances they hold, is essential to having a holistic grasp on the conflict. This doesn’t mean we agree with them or justify actions they take as a result. As a libertarian, I am against essentially all states, especially oppressive theocracies. But this doesn’t mean there isn’t a history to these feuds that is worth assessing and understanding.
As it pertains to this current war, there is a history that I urge everyone reading this to look into. The CIA and MI6 orchestrated a coup in 1953, known as Operation Ajax, against Iran’s then-president Mohammed Mosaddegh. This led to the installation of the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, a brutal monarch. The tension against his rule culminated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Since then, the U.S. has overthrown all of Iran’s neighbors. Iraq, Syria and Libya have all been casualties of the United States’ “War on Terror,” which sought to overthrow regimes across the Middle East that were hostile to Israel. This was the direct result of neoconservatives, who explicitly prioritize the goals of the State of Israel over those of America, taking control over our foreign policy.
Now, after decades of advocating for this war, both the U.S. and Israel have launched a regime change operation against the IRGC. This is now a war of survival for Iran.
It does not take a foreign policy genius to understand how these dynamics could create the situation we see today. Clearly, there is much more to this story. This is not as simple as a childish “good vs. evil” narrative.
It is the failure to even consider the broader history that results in our leaders either being ignorant or intentionally dishonest in their assessment. However, more people than ever before are awake to the fact that they aren’t telling us the whole story. According to a new Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, 61% say that it was a “mistake” for the U.S. to take military action against Iran.
While they may not know the whole history, and they may not necessarily be against this conflict based on a principled anti-war stance, the majority of this country senses deep down that something is off. It becomes apparent that the entire story is not being told, especially when the holes in said story are so gaping.
What is to be done about this? Tell the truth. As the heroic Congressman Ron Paul said so wisely, “Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” That is the necessary first step to breaking down this facade. This has already begun, and if we are to guide our republic back to sanity, we must continue fearlessly.
Nolan Denaro is a paleolibertarian political commentator and host of “The Quest For Clarity” podcast, which can be found on YouTube and Spotify. He writes on Substack, and his work can be found at nolandenaro.substack.com. He can be reached for correspondence by email at nolansdenaro@icloud.com.
