The music here is the US Marine Band playing the US Field Artillery March, a US Army song from WW I, to celebrate the US Air Force 2025 bombing of Iran, a country the US declares itself to not be at war with.

What I keep thinking about is that Americans are reading this – on CNN, in the New York Times they are reading the Vice President of the United States, the US Secretary of State, saying the US has just bombed multiple sites in another country but is not at war with that country. The US President tells Iran “NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE” immediately before threatening to overthrow Iran’s government. How are Americans integrating this?

CNN:

Vice President JD Vance, in his first public comments since President Donald Trump authorized US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, emphasized that the US is “not at war” with Iran as he laid out the president’s decision-making process.

“We’re not at war with Iran. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program,” Vance said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker,” calling the strikes a “testament to the power of the American military.”

…

Vance added, “Of course we trust our intelligence community, but we also trust our instincts. … The Iranians stopped negotiating in good faith – that was the real catalyst.”

The vice president also suggested that Trump arrived at the conclusion to authorize the strikes after issuing what he described as “private ultimatums” to Iran. He declined to detail those ultimatums.

‘If,’ says I, ‘if Fate has wronged you and me cruelly, it’s no good asking for her favor and bowing down to her, but you despise her and laugh at her, or else she will laugh at you.’

—Anton Chekhov, “In Exile”, Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2003), 74.