{"id":7661,"date":"2026-04-13T11:29:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T16:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/?p=7661"},"modified":"2026-04-13T11:30:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T16:30:04","slug":"grace-confronts-an-america-at-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/grace-confronts-an-america-at-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Grace Confronts An America At War"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Image: Two US Navy F\/A-18 Super Hornets take off from the USS Abraham Lincoln during Operation Epic Fury, Source: United States Department of Defense\u00a0<\/em>
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On February 28, 2026, the United States Armed Forces and the Israeli Defense Forces attacked Iran. President Trump outlined America’s military objectives<\/a>: retaliation for Iran\u2019s sponsorship of terrorist attacks on US troops, curtailment of Tehran\u2019s ballistic missiles, elimination of the threat of the Iranian Navy, and destruction of the country\u2019s nuclear program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the initial assault, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was assassinated, leading the Assembly of Experts to select Khamenei’s son<\/a> as his successor. Last week, a tenuous ceasefire took effect: a halt to US bombing<\/a> in exchange for Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The fate of this agreement remains in question, as the Israeli military continues attacks<\/a> on Hezbollah, a strategic Iranian proxy militia, in Lebanon. After failed negotiations in Pakistan, the United States imposed a naval blockade<\/a> on the Strait of Hormuz, further jeopardizing the ceasefire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American electorate is generally opposed to the war, known as Operation Epic Fury. According to a recent Pew Research Center survey<\/a> of over 3,500 Americans conducted from March 16-22, six in 10 Americans question Trump\u2019s handling of the war, with a similar majority opposing the attack in the first place. The divide does not fall along strict party lines, showing a broader consensus against the operation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This split exists not only among politicians and the general public but also among students at Grace Church. Through interviews conducted with 17 high school students, approximately two-thirds (67.4%) did not support the strikes, while nearly a quarter (23.5%) were in favor of the operation. Around one in ten (11.8%) remain undecided, expressing mixed emotions about the causes of the conflict. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The war has far-reaching consequences across the globe, with oil prices skyrocketing<\/a> to as high as $112 following Iran\u2019s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump has urged European nations<\/a> to deploy warships to facilitate the flow of oil. While European powers have been hesitant to engage in the conflict, the United Kingdom has allowed the United States to use its bases<\/a> to conduct strikes on Iran. The Iranian regime has also turned to its allies for support, with Russia providing intelligence<\/a> on US targets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the war\u2019s start in February, 13 American service members have been killed, while more than 1,700 Iranian civilians have died, according to The Independent<\/a>. These deaths include around 175 Iranians killed in a US airstrike on a girls’ school, likely the result of inaccurate American intelligence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Grace, those in favor of the war pointed to the repression, regional militancy, and nuclear ambitions of the Iranian regime. Aran G. \u201827 emphasized that a regime that massacres its own protestors and pursues a nuclear weapons program \u201cdoesn\u2019t have the legitimacy to exist in the current way it does.\u201d Similarly, Truly H. \u201826 explained that \u201cIran is closely aligned with Hamas, Russia, China, all of our opposition. Why not take away some power from our adversaries?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, opposition to the conflict at Grace was more common. Some framed their criticisms in constitutional and electoral terms. \u201cI think [the war is] illegal, and set[s] a dangerous precedent for America,\u201d explained Lulu H.B. \u201827. \u201cI think that this is going to be very telling in how Trump is able to gain support from his party and his voters in the future.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others drew historical parallels. George S. \u201827 warned that, \u201cthese strikes are essentially turning Iran into a carbon-copy of Iraq.\u201d George likened the killing of Khamenei to the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein in the 2003 Iraq War, predicting that a period of instability will ensue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Juniper K. \u201827 doubted Israel and America\u2019s rationale, questioning how Washington and Tel Aviv can condemn Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions when Israel maintains an atomic arsenal and the United States remains the only nation to have employed nuclear weapons in war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even ambivalent students expressed unease about the operation. Marko T. \u201828 acknowledged the value of removing Khamenei’s dictatorship, but cautioned that \u201cthere are previous regime conflicts that didn’t work out.\u201d Another student, Micah W. \u201826, worried about the risk of \u201canother forever war.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Grace, as across the country, the conflict has produced uncertainty, debate, and fear about what comes next. What emerges is not a consensus at Grace, but rather a student body grappling with the reality of modern war in real time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilson U. \u201827 is the Leader of the High School’s Young Democrats Club. Georges L. \u201828 is the leader of the High School\u2019s \u201cWorld Weekly\u201d club. Both are staff writers for <\/em>The Grace Gazette.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image: Two US Navy F\/A-18 Super Hornets take off from the USS Abraham Lincoln during Operation Epic Fury, Source: United States Department of Defense\u00a0 On February 28, 2026, the United… Continue reading “Grace Confronts An America At War”<\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":7662,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,8,1002,9,1001,748,200,7],"tags":[180],"appful":[],"class_list":["post-7661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-culture","category-current-events","category-downtown-life","category-news","category-politics","category-recent","category-school","tag-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9uEnr-1Zz","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-13-at-12.27.48-PM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7663,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7661\/revisions\/7663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7661"},{"taxonomy":"appful","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/appful?post=7661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}