 So on Friday, we talked about Donald Trump's reckless decision to assassinate Quds Force leader in Iran, Qasem Soleimani and predictably Iran has threatened to retaliate. But it's been days since this took place, and I don't think Donald Trump, even now, knowing what we know, grasps what he did. The gravity of the situation. I mean, he galvanized the entire country of Iran because this was someone who was iconic in Iran. And as you can see from this video footage here, courtesy of Amal Sad, thousands, possibly millions, came out to stand in solidarity in Iran with Qasem Soleimani and StayTV estimated that millions of people actually came out. Now, they're not necessarily the most reliable resource, obviously. But nonetheless, you can see for yourself here that there are a lot of people who are showing support for him. And, you know, even though Iranian citizens are not as theocratic as their government, they're more egalitarian and secular than I think most Americans realize. I mean, they still respect people like Soleimani because he was an icon in Iran because he was fighting a threat to Shia Muslims. And as Rani Akalic put it on Twitter, ISIS is a fascist death cold that sought to genocide Shias. The group was an existential threat to the region. Soleimani is viewed as a superhero for leading the fight against the Middle East version of Nazis. That's who Trump assassinated. Exactly. Trump doesn't understand the gravity of the situation. And The Daily Beast reported that just days before this happened, he was bragging to people at Mar-a-Lago that there was something big that was going to happen in Iran. So he's a child. He doesn't understand. And he assassinated the leader of the Quds Force who was a hero to Iranians. And now Iran is pressured to respond because if you do nothing in this instance after the United States just escalated, then, you know, you will lose legitimacy, right? So we don't know how they're going to respond. Maybe it's a cyber attack. Maybe it's proxy wars. We have no clue. But what we do know is that they're under pressure to respond and Donald Trump doesn't even fully comprehend the global ramifications that his action, that I'm assuming he took willy-nilly, caused. And predictably, you know, he threatened them again on Twitter, anticipating a response from them. But he didn't just do like the usual threat that he usually does to states and state leaders. He literally broadcasted that he is intending to commit war crimes in Iran if they do respond. Saying, let this serve as a warning that if Iran strikes any Americans or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago, some at a very high level and important to Iran and the Iranian culture. And those targets and Iran itself will be hit very fast and very hard. The USA wants no more threats. So I need you to really just pause and reflect on that. The president of the United States is telling Iran that he's going to violate international law. He's going to do literal war crimes. War crimes that the international community agrees would be war crimes. Things that Donald Trump and his administration agreed constitute war crimes, literally. Because as CNN's Eric Levinson reports, an attack on a cultural site would violate several international treaties and would likely be considered a war crime. In 2017, for example, a United Nations Security Council resolution condemns the unlawful destruction of cultural heritage, including the destruction of religious sites and artifacts. That resolution came as a response to the Islamic State's destruction of a number of major historic and cultural sites in Syria and Iraq in 2014 and 2015. The UN was clear then that actions targeting cultural locations constituted a war crime. The deliberate destruction of our common cultural heritage constitutes a war crime and represents an attack on humanity as a whole. So the spokesperson for then UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 2015, Nicholas Burns, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and Ambassador to NATO noted the Trump administration supported the 2017 UN resolution condemning destruction of cultural sites. So Trump can't fain ignorance here. He knows that this is a war crime. That's why he tweeted it because he's trying to tell people, look, I don't care about international law. I don't care about the global standards that the world has agreed to. I'm going to do what I want to do because I'm the leader of the United States and I, as well as the country that I run, we're above the law. So if you want to retaliate, try it because we're going to do war crimes. I mean, that's the message that this sends. It also communicates to the world that we are a lawless nation. We're not willing to follow international laws. So I mean, when we condemn other world leaders for violating human rights and not following international law, I mean, we have a president who's now broadcasting that he doesn't actually really care that much about the law and whatever world leaders agreed to would be a standard. He's going to do it anyway. He's going to do little war crimes to prove a point. Now the framing of this is still absurd to me because he attacked Qasem Salamani allegedly because there was an imminent attack which has not been proven and I think nobody believes. So therefore the killing was justified. And since we were acting in self-defense, well, any response is illegitimate and therefore an attack on us. That's not a retaliation. They're the ones who are instigating the attack. That's the mindset. It's delusional. I don't care how nationalistic or patriotic you are as an individual. If you don't see through this, you are delusional. We are the most narcissistic country in the world and we think that there are no consequences for our actions. And whenever we do something, well, if our, you know, action militarily provokes a response, we're still the victim even if we initiated that. There's just no standards. We can do whatever the fuck we want and that's that. I mean, is there much talk about this in the media? I mean, a little bit, some murmurings here and there. But I mean, the president just admitted he's willing to do a war crime. That should catalyze some type of response. I don't know what would be the appropriate response, but something other than fucking crickets. But thankfully, there are people who are trying to stop further escalation. Ro Khanna and Bernie Sanders predictably are being the leaders in the situation. And as talent Axelrod of the Hill explains, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna on Friday introduced legislation that would block funding for any offensive military force in or against Iran without prior congressional authorization. The legislation from the lawmakers, two of the most progressive members of their respective chambers came after the US launched an airstrike in Baghdad that killed Qasem Salamani, Iran's top general. The attack and Tehran's vows of retaliation sparked fears that the already combustible situation in the Middle East could lead to a war between the US and Iran. Today, we are seeing a dangerous escalation that brings us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East, the lawmakers said in a statement. A war with Iran could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars and lead to even more deaths, more conflict, more displacement in that already highly volatile region of the world. At a time when we faced the urgent need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, to build the housing we desperately need and to address the existential crisis of climate change, we as a nation must get our priorities right, they added. We must invest in the needs of the American people, not spend trillions more on endless wars. The legislation to restrict funds for military action against Iran was passed last year in the House but was later stripped from the national defense. Basically, what we have to do is tie down Trump's hands, right? And this isn't just on Congress. We as individuals, we have to take action as well. We have to have some type of anti-war resistance that is committed to putting pressure on the administration for further escalation. Because once John Bolton left the administration, it seemed like the prospect of war with Iran diminished exponentially. But now we're seeing individuals like Mike Pompeo in this administration and Mike Pence push Donald Trump to escalate further with Iran. With each Republican administration, it seems like they want to start at least one new war. And Donald Trump seems hell-bent on starting a war with Iran, even if he claimed that our leaders are stupid and they oftentimes get us involved in these never-ending wars, he's doing the same thing. And if you're still a Trump supporter who voted for him because he was a non-interventionist at times on a campaign trail, it's time for you to wake up and smell the fucking coffee. Donald Trump isn't on your side. Donald Trump, like all other Republicans, is a neocon. He is a neoconservative and he wants war with Iran, one, because I think he believes that will help him get reelected, and two, because he's taking money from the defense industry. So even if on one hand he likes to claim to be a non-interventionist, well, on another hand, he loves to boast about the strength of our military because he has an ego and that really helps fuel his ego, right? So we should be trying to tie Donald Trump's hands and, yes, pressing for more transparency. And also, the media should be doing their job here and also asking him, where are we going to get the money to pay for another war, right? Because we often ask progressives how they're going to pay for Medicare for all, but we never ask Republicans or Democrats, for that matter, how we're going to pay for more wars. We just live in a country that all of our priorities are asked backwards and it's getting to the point where it's comical, right? It's why comedy in the Trump era is dead, because reality in and of itself is a parody, it's so strange. So I'll leave that there. Kudos to Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna for being the leaders here. As they usually are, we just have to do what we can to sound the alarms and make as much noise as we possibly can, including taking to the streets, because a war with Iran is something that we cannot let happen under any circumstances.