Donald Trump has assembled a massive military force in the Middle East, the largest accumulation of airpower in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Trump’s military escalation is for a potential “massive, weeks-long campaign” against Iran, even though the president has not settled on what the U.S. aims would be for an attack, and certainly hasn’t bothered to make a case for one to the Congress or the American people.
Fox News host Sean Hannity, however, is making that case for him, justifying U.S. military strikes to force regime change in Iran because its leaders refuse “to give up their nuclear program.” It’s an odd justification since Hannity said last year, following a U.S. strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, that Iran’s “nuclear ambitions" were “officially dead.”
Hannity is a longtime proponent of U.S. attacks on Iran and a shameless Trumpist lickspittle, so he’s already on board with Trump’s military escalation. He opened his show on Wednesday night by declaring that “the clock is now ticking for the mullahs of Iran as the U.S. now continues their historic military buildup in the region.” Later in the show, Hannity posited that U.S. strikes were justified by Iran’s nuclear program.
Rewind back to June 21, 2025, shortly after Trump announced that the U.S. military had unilaterally struck three Iranian nuclear sites. Hannity went on Fox and said that he had spoken with the president and, based on what he had heard, declared that the attack had completely destroyed Iran’s nuclear program.
Eight months later, Hannity is telling his audience that the existence of Iran’s nuclear program justifies U.S. military strikes on the country. The throughline is Hannity’s ongoing support for bombing Middle Eastern countries — and his apparent willingness to go along with whatever the president says.
