The Chalabi Playbook: How Washington Hijacked Iranian Grief for a Strategic Disaster The two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran has temporarily halted the bombs, but it cannot undo the deep disillusionment of the Iranian-American community. We are watching Washington attempt to spin a $44 billion strategic defeat as a humanitarian intervention. As an Iranian-American watching my homeland be bombed back to the "stone age," I must state the brutal truth: this war was never about freeing Iran. In recent months, the diaspora was consumed by grief and desperation. Following the horrific December massacres, the U.S.-based human rights NGO HRANA documented 6,488 protesters killed, with 11,744 cases still under review. We mourned our dead, and we demanded international accountability for the Islamic Republic. Instead of accountability, our trauma was weaponized. Trump and Netanyahu saw an opportunity to manufacture consent for a maximalist war of choice—designed not to...