US commanders tell troops Trump 'anointed by Jesus' to start Iran war sparking hundreds of complaints
A nonprofit U.S. military watchdog said it has received hundreds of complaints about commanders providing religious reasons for starting the Iran war
A damning new report found that evangelical Christian fundamentalism is underpinning U.S. military action in Iran.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced Saturday that the U.S. and Israel launched a joint operation and struck Iran overnight, killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, among dozens of others across the region. The attack was launched amid Iranian nuclear negotiations and weeks of civil unrest in Iran due to economic turmoil. After the initial attack, Trump said "heavy and pinpoint bombing" would continue "uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!" while calling for regime change in the Islamic Republic.
The operation comes less than a year after Trump ordered strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025 during the 12-Day war between Iran and Israel, during which the president claimed to have obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities. It comes after a chilling map emerged revealing the 12 safest places to find refuge if WW3 erupts.
Details about the operation have been sparse as the president repeatedly refused to speak to reporters following the attack.
He told The New York Times that he ordered U.S. troops to continue attacking Iran for "four to five weeks," without providing details of his plan.
However, a fresh report found that hundreds of U.S. troops across dozens of units and installations have submitted complaints to the non-profit watchdog, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), since the attack about combat unit commanders providing Christian reasoning for the war, during which at least four U.S. troops have already been killed, independent journalist Jonathan Larsen reports on Substack.
Non-commissioned officers (NCO) who attended a briefing Monday told the MRFF that a combat-unit commander “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”
The commander also argued that Trump “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth" and that the Iran war is part of God's plan, the NCO claimed.
The remarks were submitted in more than 110 complaints about commanders across all military branches, including more than 40 units across 30 military installations, the MFRR told Larsen.
At least one complainant from an NCO identified themselves as a Christian, who could be deployed at any time to Iran, writing on behalf of 15 troops, including 11 Christians, one Muslim and one Jew.
In the NCO's Monday email, he warned that their commander’s remarks “destroy morale and unit cohesion and are in violation of the oaths we swore to support the [C]onstitution.”
MRFF President Mikey Weinstein, an Air Force veteran, told Larsen that his office has been “inundated” with such complaints, explaining, "These calls have one damn thing in freaking common; our MRFF clients [service members who seek MRFF aid] report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new 'biblically-sanctioned' war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian 'End Times' as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation."
He added, "Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology."
The Pentagon, led by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a devout Christian, has not acknowledged Larsen's report at press time.
It comes as a horror map revealed the states where 75% of Americans would die in the event of a nuclear attack.
