July 25, 2026 – The United States Transhumanist Party (USTP) formally condemns the ongoing war initiated and escalated by the administrations of President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Iran. This conflict, which began with coordinated U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on February 28, 2026—killing Iran’s Supreme Leader and numerous officials—represents a profound betrayal of reason, human potential, and the imperative to build rather than destroy. It is an unforced error that squanders lives, resources, and the timeline of human progress itself.

The USTP has consistently opposed this war from its inception, as articulated in our Virtual Enlightenment Salons and public communications by Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II. During the earlier 12-Day War of June 2025—when Israel launched strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites, followed by U.S. involvement—the USTP held its Enlightenment Salon titled “The Catastrophe of Escalation in the War with Iran” (streamed June 22, 2025). Chairman Stolyarov thoroughly critiqued Israel’s first strike and the Trump Administration’s reckless entry into the conflict, warning that it risked American lives, assets, and the survival of human civilization. He condemned both as affronts to a free, flourishing, and forward-looking society.

As the far larger 2026 war ignited with the February 28 attacks, the USTP convened another Virtual Enlightenment Salon on March 1, 2026: “Does the War with Iran Imperil a Transhumanist Future? What is Needed to Restore a Good Timeline?” There, we examined how this aggression—launched against a country that had not attacked the United States—threatens the attainment of a transhumanist future of radical life extension, abundance, and technological flourishing within decades. We addressed the risks of global escalation, perpetual entanglement, and humanity’s place within the Great Filter of existential threats. Transhumanist policies of non-interventionism, resource redirection from military-industrial complexes to scientific and medical progress, and prioritization of individual lives would have averted this catastrophe entirely.

The USTP Platform (Article VI of our Constitution) provides the clear foundation for this opposition. We advocate the complete dismantlement and abolition of all nuclear weapons (Section IV), recognizing their existential threat to sapient life. We oppose autonomous weapons systems capable of killing without explicit human command in every instance, supporting the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots (Section LXXXIII). We call for replacing the military-industrial complex with concerted research to cure cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and other illnesses that kill far more people than any foreign adversary. We support reducing military spending to free resources for eradicating disease and advancing longevity. War is the greatest enemy of progress; civilized nations focus on building rather than destroying. Our Core Ideal of significant life extension through science and technology demands that we reject the funneling of massive resources toward death and ruin.

While the USTP welcomed the recent efforts of the Trump administration toward a cease-fire—including the June 2026 Memorandum of Understanding with Iran aimed at ending hostilities, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and establishing a framework for further negotiations—and its attempts at times to restrain Netanyahu’s continual efforts to keep the war going, we now condemn the escalation. The Trump administration has needlessly undermined its own cease-fire efforts, just as it needlessly started this war. After incidents in the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump declared the MOU “over” in early July 2026 and resumed U.S. strikes, prolonging the devastation.

Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, stated:

“The Trump administration’s entry into a war with Iran – a country that has not attacked the United States – was a clear unforced error, as was the Trump administration’s torpedoing of its own cease-fire negotiations and needless escalation of the war at present. We all suffer for this war – in terms of lives lost, infrastructure destroyed, skyrocketing energy prices, and delays in the vital work of building the next era of our civilization, as massive resources are instead funneled toward the work of death and ruin.

“There is one person who is responsible for this war at the core: Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the continuation of this war and its intensification on multiple fronts is the only path to remain in power and delay or avoid the reckoning that he otherwise faces due to documented corruption and mismanagement. The USTP extends its sympathies to the people of Israel for the atrocities suffered on October 7, 2023, and we shed no tears for the actual terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah whom the Israeli military has killed. However, because of Netanyahu’s cynical political calculus, the devastation of Israel’s wars has extended far beyond the perpetrators of the October 7 atrocities. These intentionally never-ending wars have killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians, displaced millions more in Gaza and Lebanon, and dragged the United States into a completely avoidable conflict with Iran simply because Netanyahu needs the war machine never to run out of fuel.

“Israel should be a force for peace, research, and technological progress in the Middle East – not a force for destruction. In order for this to happen, the people of Israel need to rid themselves of the Netanyahu regime in the next election – and American politicians need to stop playing Netanyahu’s game. The American people – and most world public opinion – are in solid opposition to this war and the indiscriminate latitude with which the Israeli military has conducted itself in service to Netanyahu’s personal political survival. Civilized nations focus on building rather than destroying. The people of Israel must choose to build again, as they have done during most of Israel’s history, before Netanyahu’s unfortunate takeover of Israel’s institutions. The people of the United States must hold our own leadership accountable so that we can withdraw from needless world conflicts and build domestically – creating a new era of our civilization instead of imperiling the current one.”

R. Nicholas Starr, U.S. Transhumanist Party Member, observed: “While we have to acknowledge that Iran is run by a violently oppressive theocracy, we also have to acknowledge that military intervention has done nothing but reinforce its power and unite Iranians against common enemies. This war of hubris was doomed to fail from the start, and these last five months provide no evidence to the contrary.”

Anthony Nielsen, U.S. Transhumanist Party Director of Technology Outreach, stated that the Trump administration used a decades-old pretext (the fear of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons) for “getting involved in a territorial dispute which has cost us dearly in the process. As a progressive, who will always believe in progress, I see this as an overall loss as I look at the costs and risks taken, compared to any potential gain. We need to bring attention back to domestic policy instead of foreign aggressions in Iran. U.S. citizens deserve better, like food and healthcare.”

Michael B. DiVerde, CEO of the Washington State Transhumanist Party, emphasized:

“The tragic and catastrophic initiation by the United States of America of the Iran War has three substantial and horrific effects, without any potential of an upside.

“The first is the inexcusable loss of human lives, including schoolchildren. There is nothing more precious than human life.

“The second is the developing demonstration of the destructive power of autonomous military drones. We are guilty of opening the door to swarms of lethal robots, unleashed on future humans. Ban Killer Robots!

“The third is the looming economic disaster that the American executive branch has instigated by taking a bat to the hornet’s nest. Several critical economic choke points are getting shut down in response to American acts of aggression. This will most probably cause spikes in the cost of almost everything, and we should prepare for an unnecessary bout of longer-term runaway inflation and recession, usually referred to as stagflation.”

These consequences—lost lives, demonstrated risks of autonomous lethality (directly contrary to our Platform’s ban on killer robots), energy-price spikes, inflationary pressures, and the diversion of ingenuity from longevity research and abundance technologies—imperil the Transhuman Era. As discussed in our March 1, 2026, Salon, this war raises the probability that humanity fails the Great Filter through self-inflicted militaristic folly rather than advancing toward indefinite lifespans and cosmic expansion.

The USTP calls for an immediate, permanent end to hostilities; full U.S. withdrawal from this needless conflict; accountability for those who initiated and prolonged it; and a decisive redirection of resources toward science, health, technology, and the defeat of aging and disease. Only by rejecting the politics of perpetual war can we restore a good timeline and fulfill the promise of a transhumanist future for all of humanity.