John Mearsheimer: Iran Will Strike Back Hard

by | Jan 30, 2026 | News | 0 comments

Reprinted from John’s Substack

On 29 January 2026, I was on “Judging Freedom” talking with the Judge about the ongoing peace negotiations over Ukraine, which I believe are nothing more than Kabuki theater. This war is going to be settled on the battlefield. We also talked about the likelihood of the US attacking Iran. While Trump is certainly making lots of threats and giving the impression it’s only a question of time before he turns the US military loose on Iran, there are good reasons to think he will not attack: no apparent way of achieving regime change with military force; and Iran can retaliate in ways that might be enormously costly to Israel, the US, and the world economy. In the final analysis, who knows what Trump will do? Finally, we talked about whether or not the US is in Cold War 2.0 with China and Russia.

John J. Mearsheimer, PhD, is an American professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. More recently Mearsheimer has attracted attention for co-authoring and publishing the article The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, which was subsequently published as a book.

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