PNN – Anti-war protesters have chosen the title “Epstein’s Wrath” for the US government’s war against Iran.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network, the Telegraph newspaper reported that the results of a survey show that half of Americans believe that Donald Trump, the head of the terrorist US government, started the war in Iran because of the scandals against him in the Jeffrey Epstein case.
According to the newspaper, a large portion of these people believe that the real name of the US military operation in Iran is “Epstein’s Wrath” and not its official name, “Epic Wrath.”
The Telegraph reports that protesters across Washington have been pasting posters on walls with the slogan “Epstein’s Fury.”
As the flames of war flare in West Asia and news of missile attacks on Iran make headlines in the world’s media, some critics of Donald Trump, the head of the terrorist US government, have given this military operation another name: “Operation Epstein’s Wrath.”
This ironic naming raises a serious question: What is the connection between a full-scale war in the Middle East and the case of disgraced American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein?
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Why the “Epstein Fury”?
The critics’ answer to this question dates back to recent months and the release of new documents from the Jeffrey Epstein case. In December 2025, the US Department of Justice released millions of pages of documents related to the case, in which Donald Trump’s name was repeated more than 5,000 times.
While the documents alone do not indicate criminal activity, they have once again stirred up the political climate in Washington. Pressure for transparency has mounted, and even former Trump allies, such as former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, have openly criticized him for failing to prosecute the perpetrators.
Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee, chaired by James Comer, subpoenaed Bill and Hillary Clinton to testify about their connections to Epstein shortly before the war began. But this did not, as planned, divert attention from Trump; instead, Hillary Clinton suggested in her hearing that Trump himself was a better candidate to be questioned in the case.
A history called “war of diversion”: from Clinton to Trump
The use of foreign conflicts to escape domestic crises is not a new phenomenon in American politics. The theory of “diversionary war” in international relations explains that political leaders, when faced with pressure at home, may create a foreign crisis to divert public opinion and boost their popularity through the “rallying around the flag effect.”
But perhaps the most striking historical example of this phenomenon in modern American history dates back to Bill Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In August 1998, just as the scandal surrounding Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky was at its height and he was about to testify before a federal grand jury, the US president ordered missile strikes on targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. The official justification was to confront Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network following the bombing of American embassies in Africa, but the coincidence of these attacks with Clinton’s domestic crisis immediately prompted accusations of a “war of diversion.”
Four months later, in December 1998, just one day before the House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton; he ordered another massive bombing campaign against Iraq. At the time, the Middle East media headlined, “Monicagate strikes again.” Republican senators like Arlen Specter and Daniel Coats openly questioned the timing of the attacks, saying they were designed to distract from the Lewinsky scandal.
Interestingly, at the same time, reporters waiting for Clinton’s announcement on Martha’s Vineyard were watching the movie “Wag the Dog,” a film in which a disgraced president launches a completely fabricated war to mislead public opinion. The coincidence was so symbolic that the term “Wag the Dog” became a common term for misguided wars forever.
It later emerged that the evidence presented for the attack on the Shafa Pharmaceuticals factory in Sudan, the country’s largest supplier of medicines, was not very strong. US officials later admitted that “the information was not as conclusive as initially believed” and that the factory had been bombed by mistake. However, there was never an official apology or admission of responsibility.
The pressure on Trump from the Epstein case; from new revelations to the investigation table
But why now? The Epstein case had entered a new and dangerous phase for Trump in the weeks leading up to the Iran war. In the latest revelations, the US Department of Justice released documents in which a woman claimed that she was introduced to Donald Trump by Jeffrey Epstein and sexually assaulted when she was 13 to 15. The woman gave harrowing details of the incident.
Along with these revelations, legal pressure had also increased. The Epstein Transparency Act, authored by Thomas Massie and Ro Canna, required the Justice Department to release all relevant documents. Also, the subpoenas of Bill and Hillary Clinton to testify, although designed to be a distraction, backfired and once again focused attention on Epstein’s circle of friends and acquaintances, including Trump himself.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded to the situation by saying, “I think Trump feels existentially tied to this case. If the Epstein case has taken such a hold on him that he’s willing to drag the world into a world war to save him, that’s the very definition of someone who can’t make objective decisions for the American people.”
Has the diversionary tactic been successful?
Polls in the early days of the war showed that more than half of Americans opposed attacking Iran. However, the media and public opinion in the early days were naturally fascinated by developments on the ground and the development of an international crisis. Newsweek published a report listing five domestic Trump controversies that were sidelined by the start of the Iran war, the most important of which was the Epstein case.
But it seems the case is so deep and widespread that a few weeks of war will not derail it. As the Los Angeles Times wrote, “The Epstein story may have moved from the front pages to the back pages, but the scandal is still alive and well, occupying the courts and congressional committees.” The comedians on “Tuesday Night Live” also addressed the issue in a humorous way during a segment of their show, singing, “What’s the point of war? To distract from the Epstein cases!”
In the end, we will have to wait and see whether this war will suffer a similar fate to Clinton’s perversion wars in the 1990s, or whether the Epstein case will become a dark spot in the political career of the 47th President of the United States, like a second Watergate.