Opinion > Opinions - White House The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill What will Democratic naysayers do if Trump’s Iran war ends well for the US? by Bernard Goldberg, opinion contributor - 03/13/26 11:30 AM ET by Bernard Goldberg, opinion contributor - 03/13/26 11:30 AM ET Share ✕ LinkedIn LinkedIn Email Email Allison Robbert, Associated Press Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) speaks to reporters following votes at the Capitol, Thursday, March 5, 2026, in Washington. So far, it looks like the execution of the military action in Iran has gone exceedingly well. But when it comes to war, the best laid plans of presidents and generals have a way of careening off the rails. Let’s hope that’s not the case this time around. But the undeniable fact is that nobody knows how this adventure will end. Still, that hasn’t stopped Democrats from predicting that it will all end very badly. “ It’s almost certain that Trump’s war against Iran is going to turn into a disaster,” says Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). You get the impression most Democrats feel the same way. But Democrats now have to face their own potential disaster. They’ve already declared the war a mistake and a failure along with a disaster. What if the war ends well for the U.S.? What then? “A savvier opposition than today’s Democrats would have practiced some circumspection in the early days of Epic Fury,” is how Barton Swain put it in the Wall Street Journal . “Now they’ll benefit only if America fails.” Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that Democrats are right about at least one of the reasons they oppose this war. President Trump has said Iran posed an imminent threat. Democrats say there’s no evidence of that. Okay, but consider this admittedly imperfect analogy: What if we could have eliminated Hitler before all the deaths he caused? Before the Holocaust? Would that have been a mistake just because he hadn’t yet begun his death march on Europe. Because war wasn’t imminent? And no, I’m not comparing the Iranian mullahs to Hitler. But what do Democrats consider an imminent threat? Should we have waited until the ayatollah’s finger was on the launch button before obliterating him and his top command? And then there’s the media, the Democrats’ reliable ally. They worry about how Trump is dragging us into a quagmire — like what happened, they say, in Iraq. They even wonder if our military has engaged in war crimes. Jake Tapper, an intelligent journalist at CNN, asked Murphy about the bomb that hit a girls school in southern Iran and reportedly killed at least 168 children and 14 teachers. When Tapper asked Murphy about it, the senator said the bombing was “unforgivable under any circumstances” but especially since it happened on the first day of the war. This prompted Tapper to ask, “Do you think the strike against the girls school is a war crime?” I winced when I heard him say that. For it to be a war crime, the U.S. military would have had to intentionally bomb the school. Does anyone believe that? Murphy, to his credit said, “I trust this was a mistake.” And then there are the journalists who demand to know when the war will end. They ask how many military deaths would be acceptable to the president. Yes, reporting on war deaths is legitimate news, no matter what Trump’s allies say. And every time an American in uniform is killed in action, it’s a tragedy — not only for their families, but for all of us. Still, it’s a good thing that today’s liberals weren’t around on June 6, 1944 — D Day, when 2,500 Americans and more than 4,400 allied troops were killed during the invasion of Normandy. Today’s Democrats, along with their friends in the media, might have called for President Franklin Roosevelt to be impeached. They might have even demanded that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower be removed from his command and hauled before Congress to answer a lot of nasty questions. Again, no one knows how this will end. Hoping for an armed uprising of the Iranian people is wishful thinking. They live in a police state. They don’t have weapons. Many years ago, when I was a CBS News correspondent, I covered a minor uprising in Argentina. When I was asked for my opinion on how it would turn out I said, “The side with the guns usually wins.” It was true then and it’s true today. So where does that leave us? Not in a secure place, I think. The old regime has been wiped out but the new leader, the son of the dead ayatollah, is said to be worse than his father. And that, Democrats say, is one more reason they believe that starting this war was a terrible miscalculation. However it ends, one thing seems certain: The new regime — if they’re not wiped out by Trump — will have less f