The conflict shows that the US lacks hard power and is possibly losing the “soft power war,” Peter Thiel reportedly said
Billionaire tech investor and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel has expressed regret over the US war against Iran, warning that it could ultimately lead to International Criminal Court warrants for the Trump administration and have broader implications for the US, Politico reported on Thursday.
The outlet cited a transcript of a lecture given by Thiel earlier this month, part of the series of private events held in Nashville.
Thiel, a staunch backer of US President Donald Trump, has expressed doubts over the Iran war, which was launched by the US and Israel earlier this year, suggesting that it has exposed America’s weaknesses.
“I’m skeptical of [the war], I think we should not have done it. There were a lot of mistakes that were made,” Thiel said, as quoted by Politico.
Maybe we don’t have the hard power. Maybe we’re going to lose the soft power war.
While reiterating his support for Trump, he warned that the war could backfire for the administration and lead to legal troubles with the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Trump administration has had a hostile relationship with the ICC, particularly over the decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
The US, which does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction, has enacted sanctions against the court’s top officials, describing it as a “corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate.”
“I have come to suspect that the threat of an ICC arrest warrant is the sword of Damocles hanging over the Trump administration as it tries to persecute this war in Iran,” Thiel said.
He also claimed that George W. Bush-era neocon figures such as Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney have been colluding with the ICC against Trump. “I read the Cheney family’s Trump derangement syndrome as an attempt to buy favor with the [ICC] and avoid prosecution. Probably too late,” he said.
Palantir has been heavily involved in the hostilities, as its products have been used by the US military. The use of AI products was reportedly linked to one of the worst mass-casualty events of the war – the strike on a school in Minab on the first day of the conflict, which killed at least 156 civilians, predominantly schoolchildren. According to media reports, the facility was targeted based on outdated data used by Palantir’s analysis and surveillance software.
