In a live debate over whether America should bomb Iran, one side brought facts and history; the other brought interruptions, patronizing lectures, and recycled empire talking points.
On Tuesday, I participated in a debate on whether the US should be bombing Iran with Naomi Wolf—a feminist author, journalist, former Rhodes Scholar, and CEO of Daily Clout. To say that the interaction was a disappointment is putting it mildly. The tactics she employed are tried-and-true methods of the old dying legacy media. Her attempts to use logical fallacies and ad hominem attacks against me revealed that she was either ill-prepared for the discussion or thought she would be able to distract me and the audience from the topic at hand. Neither worked.
I encourage all readers to watch the actual debate for yourselves. This analysis and breakdown of some of the debate’s finer points is intended to elaborate on some of the points I made and highlights her attempts to deflect from the subject of the debate. This isn’t about me or Ms. Wolf personally. This is about war propaganda being pushed in the mainstream corporate media, as well as the mainstream alternative media, where Ms. Wolf is firmly entrenched. This isn’t about our personal squabbles, but about destroying propaganda from the US empire, which hopes to convince the American public that yet another war is worth supporting and dying for.
This is especially relevant because Naomi Wolf is well-known in vaccine-skeptic circles for her work dissecting the COVID19 Pfizer documents released under a court order by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Wolf collaborated with former Trump advisor Steve Bannon and volunteers from his “War Room” website, leading to the publication of the book The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity.
I have never interacted with Wolf before last week, when I stumbled across a tweet in which she responded to critics calling her out for supporting the US military’s bombing of Iran on February 28th:
“I am not supporting “war.” In this case of Iran, regime change is necessary, just as it was with regime change in Germany post WW2,” she wrote. “The United States has a right to defend itself from serious national security threats; and as a woman, I do not think that anyone serious can be an apologist for a regime that enslaves half the population and that tortures and murders its own people en masse.”
I responded to her by stating, “Yes, you are just repeating state talking points and falling for the latest empire expansion.” She followed up by asking if I would debate her live and, if so, to email her. Thus began several days of back and forth emails attempting to come to an agreement on the terms of the debate.
Despite her inviting me to debate, she initially asked for my resume, my location, my “real name,” and my work history prior to journalism. While I was annoyed at the whole conversation, I play along in the interest of having a debate that I hoped would be educational.
For the last 2 days I’ve been emailing Naomi back and forth to set a date for this debate.
First, she doesn’t want a moderator. Second, she’s been asking for my resume, my age, etc - running a background check or something.
Third, she only wants it streamed on her channels,… https://t.co/8nNiS0OPA9
— Derrick Broze (@DBrozeLiveFree) March 3, 2026
Once she was satisfied that I was, indeed, who I said I was, we hit another snag: she refused to agree to a moderated debate. I’ve seen enough online debates devolve into shouting matches, so I was cautious about going forward without a moderator. She also didn’t want me streaming the debate to my own channels. Ultimately, she agreed to allow me to stream the debate, and I agreed to forgo a moderator. I also had to agree that I would not make clips of the conversation because she feared being taken out of context.
After all these negotiations, I wasn’t exactly optimistic—but I remained hopeful for an honest debate. I was unfortunately mistaken.
Are We Debating Iran or Where I Live?
I was still hopeful that the debate might be a fruitful discussion between two intelligent people with opposing views. I did my due diligence to understand Ms. Wolf’s positions on Iran and anticipate her arguments. When the debate finally began, she offered me the chance to make an opening statement. I stated:
“My basic position is that the US getting involved in this conflict really doesn’t represent—not only what Donald Trump and his administration claim to be, America First—I don’t think it’s about actually representing or defending American interests. Especially while there’s plenty of issues at home that Americans heard Trump campaign on and that are not being addressed.And I also think, in a broader picture, it really represents Israeli Zionist interests, not American interests.
I think we have to take into consideration the fact that there’s been no congressional, Constitutional approval for this conflict—as with every conflict for the last decades. Trump is continuing that same practice as Obama and Bush before him, Biden of course as well And that, generally, it’s not in the US interest.
There’s also a history of US interference in Iran going back to the 50s—Operation Ajax—which I think is relevant in terms of understanding why Iran is the way it is today. And, overall, I don’t think Americans need to be dying for this conflict, which, as I said, seems to be more about Israel’s desire for the Greater Israel Project and removing their claimed enemies than anything that represents American interest or America First.”
Almost immediately, it became clear she was not interested in a serious debate on the agreed topic—should the US be bombing Iran? Wolf thanked me for my statement and then said I hadn’t presented any evidence for my claims. Silly me—I thought it was just an opening statement, and that after her opening we would get into the details. After making it clear she believes the US bombing Iran is justified and that she is a “MAGA Trump voter,” she shifted to discussing my location and if I vote in US elections.
“I will note that you live in Mexico and I don’t know if you vote in US elections. Do you?”
For a moment this caught me off guard, because I certainly didn’t sign up to debate my choice to leave the US in 2020 or why I am a principled non-voter. Nevertheless, I told her the only time I voted was in 2004, when I was 18 and foolish enough to think voting would change the course of American politics. Her response?
“Well, if you don’t vote, why are we having this debate?”
I quickly informed her that the idea that one must vote or live within a country to have an informed opinion on policies that impact people worldwide is, respectfully, ridiculous. She repeated this silly framing for several minutes, bringing up my living in Mexico at least 8-9 times. Despite my efforts to redirect the conversation back to the topic at hand, it would take another eight more minutes before we actually heard her arguments for why the US should be bombing Iran.
Standing For Peace and Against Regime Change Wars
Her arguments were essentially that Iran has been the aggressor by directly or indirectly attacking Israel, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Qatar, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen, and ships in the Red Sea. Wolf noted these attacks have been criticized by Arab states, including those supporting Palestinians or opposing Israel. She repeated talking points about Iran’s nuclear program being a danger to the world. Finally, she said the US strikes on Iran are justified because they help counter a “murderous, insane, deranged, irrational” regime.
My initial response was to ask her how long Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed Iran was about to finish nuclear weapons. She said she didn’t know, so I informed her that Americans have heard such unsubstantiated claims from Netanyahu since 1992.
As a member of the Israeli Knesset, Netanyahu stated that Iran was three to five years away from being able to develop and produce a nuclear bomb. He repeated these claims with varying timelines in 1995, 2002, 2009, and onward to the present day. Wolf said she wasn’t concerned with Netanyahu but with the United States. However, it’s disingenuous to pretend Netanyahu’s statements have had no impact on US foreign policy toward Iran.
I also brought up the fact that in June 2025, Trump claimed US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities had “completely obliterated” all of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. In fact, on June 25, 2025, the White House released a statement titled “Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated—and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News.” Almost immediately, it was clear that Trump was, once again, exaggerating or outright lying. A leaked classified report indicated that the bombing set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months at best.
The point is that the Trump administration lied in 2025, so there’s no reason to trust similar claims now when we’re told Iran is once again close to nuclear weapons.
Before addressing her claims about Iran’s attacks on various nations, I reminded Ms. Wolf that I did not come to the debate to defend Iran, Israel or the United States. I do not stand in defense of any government. I stand for the people of Iran, the people of Israel, the people of America—all those opposed to these wars, who recognize that only the regular working-class people suffer from them.
Regarding Iran’s strikes, I noted that they were responses to preemptive US and Israeli attacks launched without provocation. I pointed out that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially stated that the US military needed to attack first because they knew Israel was planning to bomb Iran, and the US feared retaliation against American bases.
.@SecRubio: “The president made the very wise decision—we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we… pic.twitter.com/Jp5rqpRH4T
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 2, 2026
“The bottom line is this: The president determined we were not going to get hit first. It’s that simple, guys,” Rubio told the press.
REPORTER: Any evidence Iran was about to attack the United States ?
WHITE HOUSE: The president had a feeling.
REPORTER: The president launched a war on a feeling ?
WHITE HOUSE: That is what Jared Kushner told the president and it was final. pic.twitter.com/3lhb16Gu4E
— The Kremlin (@The_Kremlinn) March 11, 2026
I then asked Ms. Wolf how she can speak about violations of international law and national sovereignty when the US and Israel have proven time and again that they do not care about international law or national sovereignty. Instead of addressing my question, she pressed me on my statement about supporting the people of the world and not their governments, asking if I care about dead children in Cyprus or Saudi Arabia. This attempt at tugging on heart strings didn’t faze me. I told her I oppose any child dying—including those in Gaza killed by Israel or the children killed after the US dropped a Tomahawk missile on their school last week.
Unfortunately, I said, this is the result of people like her supporting war. As war expands, we see more death and injury. The US has acknowledged up to 140 troops have been injured and seven have died. Iran claims the number of dead American soldiers is actually much higher but getting accurate reports from either country is difficult—especially in wartime. We are also seeing deaths of innocent Iranians, Israelis, and civilians from nations caught in the crossfire of this senseless conflict.
I argued that the US bombing of Iran is illegal and unconstitutional because Trump has not sought Congressional approval for launching a new war—continuing the pattern of Biden, Obama, Baby Bush, Clinton, Senior Bush, and so on. Ms. Wolf claimed that the bombing of Iran was legal under the 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR).
I noted that the WPR does not grant the President the ability to launch wars indiscriminately without Congressional approval unless there is an immediate threat to the United States or responding to an attack. I also referenced the Supreme Court ruling in Marbury v. Madison which established the doctrine of judicial review, allowing courts to declare laws or executive/government actions unconstitutional, and therefore invalid, if “repugnant to the constitution”.
Ms. Wolf patronizingly explained how government works, as if to an elementary student: when a bad law passes, “we the people” pressure representatives to change it. I almost expected a Schoolhouse Rock video on how a bill becomes a law. Her response also entirely missed the point of why the War Powers Act requirements were not met.
Frankly, Ms. Wolf is naive to believe that the US political system currently functions as intended or even in the way she describes. Any American paying attention for 15 minutes understands that many forces are at play, corrupting the American Republic to such a degree that it’s laughable for Wolf to tell me, “If you don’t like bad laws change it from within the system!”
Additionally, her claims about the War Powers Resolution are also incorrect. As former US Representative Justin Amash outlined in a twitter post, the WPR does not allow the president to take military action for any reason for 60-90 days without congressional approval so long as the president notifies Congress within 48 hours. Section 1541(c) of the War Powers Resolution states clearly:
“The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”
The act does not grant the President power to take unilateral offensive military action. Thus, the US military’s offensive attack on Iran is not covered by the WPR and is unconstitutional.
One of the most frequently misrepresented federal statutes—often falsely used to justify unconstitutional presidential war powers—is the War Powers Resolution (or Act) (50 U.S.C. §§ 1541-1550).
If only more people would read it.
Contrary to what you may have heard about the War…
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) June 22, 2025
The History of US Intervention
While Ms. Wolf wanted to focus on what Iran is currently doing in response to the US/Israeli attack, I thought it important to remember the history of the US military and intelligence apparatus interfering in Iranian politics. If the advocates for war want to have a conversation about foreign policy, we must acknowledge that the US has a long-documented history of intervening in foreign nations, overthrowing their leaders, and funding counter-protest movements while stoking unrest.
The most prominent example of US intervention in Iran is 1953’s Operation Ajax. On August 19, 1953, then Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a coup funded by the UK’s MI6 and the CIA. Mosaddegh, a proud nationalist, sought to strengthen Iran and weaken foreign influence—especially British control over Iranian oil—by nationalizing the British controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC).
After Dwight D. Eisenhower’s election, he authorized Operation Ajax leading to the overthrow of Mosaddegh. The coup strengthened the power of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, who was more easily controlled by foreign influence. The Shah would eventually be overthrown in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which transformed Iran into an Islamic republic as it remains today.
Crazily enough, the Shah’s son, also known as Reza Pahlavi, is living in the United States and has been touted as the “Crown Prince of Iran” and the “transitional leader of the Iranian opposition.” He is slated to speak at CPAC 2026 later this month. He appears to be the Western establishment’s preferred puppet if the current leadership is eventually overthrown.
The US government efforts to interfere in Iranian politics persist in 2026. The Grayzone recently reported on Congressional testimony from the head of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) where he appears to be taking credit for encouraging unrest in Iran.“What we’re seeing today, the Endowment has been making investments over years that have ensured that there have been secure communications, including Starlinks… that allowed information to go both in and out of the country,” NED director Damon Wilson stated in late February to the House Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs. Wilson was interrupted by Rep. Lois Frankel, who stated, “You know what, I’m going to interrupt you – we’d better not talk about it.”
Throughout the remainder of the debate, Ms. Wolf was patronizing, constantly interrupting me (and accusing me of interrupting her), and continuing to repeat state talking points. She emphasized the Iranian government’s reported abuses against women, citing Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. She spoke of “systemic violence, rape, second-class status, flogging, and torture of protesters.” Her goal was to illustrate that the Iranian people are suffering and that Iranians in exile support the US bombing of Iran, and thus skeptics should too.
This nearly made me lose patience. To be frank: the US government doesn’t care about Iranian women or protesters. I pointed to selective outrage from US politicians—condemning harms to women and children only when it serves corporate/military goals. I noted Trump wouldn’t rule out seizing Iran’s oil this week, showing this is about more than helping women. The US doesn’t care about protesters; they’re just pawns in a game played by those at the top of The Pyramid of Power. This war is about serving Israeli interests. This is not about trying to save the women of Iran.
I reiterated this with one of my final statements:
“I don’t think anybody really buys the idea that the US is just this moral nation after we’ve seen them turning a blind eye to what’s happened in Gaza, what’s happened in other nations. Nobody buys that the US is some upstanding moral nation in the world. I don’t think anybody buys that fairy tale anymore.”
Conveniently, Ms. Wolf said we were out of time.
In the final moments of our discussion, she defended the US strikes on Iran by claiming that the US is under imminent threat by terrorists who are allegedly linked to “Iran-funded ISIS“. She also invoked the terror attacks of September 11, 2001:
“My family lived through 9/11. I came here a few days after and I’ll never ever ever forget that Iran is an imminent threat. You know, extremist regimes like the ones that attacked us on 9/11 are real threats.”
I couldn’t help but interject and state that the US wasn’t attacked from outside the country, but from within. I called the 9/11 attacks a false flag event to which she replied “Oh my God.” I also told Ms. Wolf that it’s surprising that someone as well researched as her would not have looked into the truth about the 9/11 attacks, especially as someone who has been a guest on The Corbett Report when James Corbett has produced some of the most well done documentaries on the subject. She wasn’t interested in continuing that dialogue.
The CIA-ISIS Connection
One final point relates to my statement about the relationship between the CIA and ISIS (the Islamic State). When Ms. Wolf was invoking the violence of ISIS and arguing that Iran was involved in funding them or that the threat of Islamic terrorism was justification for US intervention, I stated, “ISIS [is] the creation of the CIA. ISIS was funded through the US foreign policy in Syria, in Iraq and elsewhere.”
To which, Ms. Wolf replied, “What is your source for that?” Now, I don’t have a problem with a request for sources—I pride myself on providing my sources in my documentaries, books, and articles—but I was honestly surprised that she had never heard this information or seemed to be unaware of what I was referencing. So here’s what she seemed to have missed...
In 2013, former US President Obama secretly authorized the CIA to begin training and arming so-called “moderate rebels” who were fighting to remove Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The program, known as Timber Sycamore, involved the CIA’s Special Activities Division providing money, weapons, and training to the opposition groups fighting the Syrian government during the Syrian civil war. The effort was supported by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Turkey, and the UK.
As veteran journalist Seymour Hersh reported in April 2014:
“The Obama administration has never publicly admitted to its role in creating what the CIA calls a ‘rat line’, a back channel highway into Syria. The rat line, authorised in early 2012, was used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition. Many of those in Syria who ultimately received the weapons were jihadists, some of them affiliated with al-Qaida.”
As Hersh notes, some of the weapons ended up in the hands of extremist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). ISIS itself evolved directly from al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). In this way, the CIA’s funneling money and weapons to Syrian rebels led to the expansion of what became known as ISIS. There’s also the fact that some of the rebels from groups like the Free Syrian Army would later defect to ISIS, bringing with them the weapons provided by the CIA.
Timber Sycamore is reminiscent of another Obama era program known as Operation Fast and Furious where the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) allowed licensed firearm dealers to sell weapons to illegal buyers in hopes of tracking the guns to Mexican drug cartels. Many of these weapons would end up inexplicably lost in the process and in the hands of some of Mexico’s most dangerous cartels.
Additionally, a report from Belgian research group Conflict Armament Research concluded that “international weapons supplies to factions in the Syrian conflict have significantly augmented the quantity and quality of weapons available to ISIS forces.” The group analyzed more than 40,000 weapons, ammunition, and materials used to manufacture improvised explosive devices which had been left behind by ISIS forces between July 2014 and November 2017. They used serial numbers to trace the weapons back to their original owners and found that “the main drivers of illicit weapon supplies are not the companies and states that manufacture weapons, but the governments and entities that acquire weapons lawfully and subsequently divert them to unauthorized users.”
So, whether by some deep state conspiracy, or simply the failed bumbling policy of the CIA under the Obama administration, the US government directly contributed to empowering and funding what became known as ISIS. This allowed warmongers and compliant media pundits to use the fear of ISIS to justify more bombing campaigns and calls for war.
Building a Coalition of Anti-War Activists Before Its Too Late
Unfortunately, people like Ms. Wolf continue to parrot these same claims in the name of attempting to justify the US and Israel bombing Iran. In the end, this debate wasn’t simply a personal clash between two journalists—it was a microcosm of how war propaganda persists: through selective outrage, historical amnesia, and fearmongering dressed up as moral necessity.
When even vaccine skeptics who rightfully questioned COVID1984 echo state department lines on regime change, it’s a stark warning about how deep war propaganda infects even the most independent minds. If voices like Naomi Wolf’s continue to amplify empire talking points without applying the same scrutiny given to other obvious government psyops, the cycle of endless intervention and death will continue.
Donald Trump was elected to his second term in office after successfully building a coalition of disaffected, politically homeless Americans who largely rejected previous administrations’ thirst for war and empire building. Now that Trump has revealed himself as yet another warmonger in sheep’s clothing, we must build a true coalition of non-partisan anti-war activists who question every justification for war, especially when it comes wrapped in appeals to women’s rights or imminent threats. We must stay vigilant, reject the fearmongering about Iranian sleeper cells, and prepare for the possibility of a false flag.
It’s time to build the anti-war movement America needs now more than ever.
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